bonus blog....road trip!

this is what i was trying to blog about when blogger told me i was out of space for pictures!  

on one of the pretty days during christmas break, colby and i took a little road trip while spencer was at the dentist.  we asked him if wanted us to wait until another day when he could go with us, but he said to go ahead.

first, we returned the awesome, old, red mailbox back to the abandoned lot where i found it.  i just couldn't keep it.  it felt like stealing.

i looked across the road and saw this beautiful horse enjoying the warm weather, too!

 next, we drove to ochelata, oklahoma.  there's really not much there, but on one of our other excursions i noticed it had 2 junk stores.  one of them was closed, and the other one ended up having mostly old guns...not my thing.  i saw this old sign above one of the old buildings and thought, "if i was a thief, i'd steal that sign."  i just liked it for some reason, rust and all.

 since ochelata was a let down, i decided to consult martha.  i just zoomed out on the gps and picked a town.  niotaze, kansas was our new destination.  colby said, "let's make it a real road trip and put chuck (my rubber duck dressed like a chicken) up there with martha!"

then we got a drink at sonic and hit the road!

niotaze was even smaller than ochelata, but these "god loves you" signs were everywhere!  i love it!

just outside of niotaze, we saw a sign advertising "the world's longest yellow brick road".  almost simultaneously colby and i said, "let's go!"  and that's exactly what we did.  we set martha for sedan, kansas....home of the world's longest yellow brick road!

 the yellow brick road was actually a sidewalk that ran down both sides of main street through downtown.  people had purchased memorial bricks that were painted yellow.  it's not what either of us were expecting, but who cares?

i saw some really cool buildings and signs in downtown sedan.  i watched american pickers a lot, and on one episode they talked about these door plates that stores used to advertise their products.  i would never have noticed this bunny bread plate if i hadn't watched that show!  if i was a thief, i would have stolen this, too!

 i thought this was a cool sign.

 this was the variety store's entrance.  it was a happy and sad place.  i loved the old-timeyness of it, but it was sad because the store was going out of business after all those years.  everything in there was 40% off.  i found some yarn and a few other things for a great price, but it still made me sad.  i like mom and pop stores and wish they could survive.

this is the old opera house in downtown.

as we were turning the car around to head to this park down the street we stopped to figure out what the painting was on the side of the building. i didn't really care for the painting.  but then i looked above the painting.....IT. WAS. SO. COOL!!!

the colored windows were actually old doors!!! my pictures don't do justice to just how cool this was!

 

the yellow door had an adorable owl statue perched in the corner.

cool red doorknob on the door of an old schoolhouse....only we didn't know it was a schoolhouse when we first got there.  it had a sign that said it was a park.  it had a boardwalk that wound through it.  it was so peaceful and beautiful even in the dead of winter.  we are definitely going to go back in the spring/summer.

there was a big rock with a big hole in it.

 an old red see-saw!

 adorable little boy at the bottom of an old red see-saw!

 the boardwalk.

 colby said, "you can just sit here for hours and enjoy nature!"

 old water faucet...

we passed lots of cows on our road trip, and colby wanted pictures of them!  i love that he likes to take pictures!

 colby's cow!

this place was in the middle of nowhere just off the road.  there's an old mannequin in the window upstairs.  i would have gone up closer, but there was a no trespassing sign posted on the gate.  dang it!

i didn't know that colby had taken a picture of the sky until we got home and i uploaded my pictures onto the computer.  i love that he noticed the beauty of it.  the really cool thing is.....

i had noticed the beautiful sky, too and took a picture of it!  

we passed this old place on our way to sedan, and i wanted to make sure i got a picture of it on the way back.  i don't know why this old house got my attention.  maybe it's the swing in the tree.  maybe it's the screen-in front porch.  this house just looks like it has a story to tell...

 this old barn was near the house.

so that was our trip to sedan, kansas.  it was a beautiful day!