Next location westbound eastbound
We head south and then east from Liberal, Kansas and stop in at a ranch on Beaver County NS 129 Road, walk into a barn and call out. A gentleman who was working on a Peterbuilt semi climbs down and offers friendly guidance when he heard we were looking for a marker just north of here, named Lusk. We drive north another half mile and encounter a John Deere tractor pulling haying equipment. The driver confirms the path we should take, and we head through a pasture with grazing cattle and follow cow paths north for another mile, accompanied by chirping prairie dogs, pheasants, and snakeskin imprints in the dust, walking through sage, hairy goldenaster, and soapweed, among others. We ascend a knob and find Lusk.
At ground level we feel our elbows lifting in the vastness of the waist-high prairie, surprisingly lush for the time of year usually characterized by golden dormancy here. The view aloft reveals what looks like an enormous golf green watered by a pivot irrigator fed by the vanishing Ogallala aquifer.
