An Official Member of the Kansas Explorers Club

                         

Today Rural Kansas "Rocks" Foundation President Harpo received in the mail his 2010 Kansas Explorers Club membership card, with his official Explorer Number - No. 5378.  As usual, he was at a loss for words.  Such a softy.

Granite Meets Concretion, 2005

In recent years January has become the time that the Foundation President has made an annual swing through the northeast part of the Sunflower State.  Back in 2005 he made contact with two of the state's more interesting boulders - literally.

January 17, 2005 - An excellent day of lying around and exchanging glacial anecdotes with the granite Founders Rock in Robinson Park, Lawrence, Kansas.

January 18, 2005 - A red letter day in the history of the geology and geography of Kansas.  Our esteemed president sits on the McLouth Boulder until finally it agrees to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the Rural Kansas "Rocks" Foundation, a position it now refuses to budge from. 

The granite boulder, left behind when the last ice sheet withdrew from Northeast Kansas, can be found right in the middle of what is now Granite Street in the city of McLouth, Kansas.  The citizens there once tried to remove the boulder, but gave up and instead just paved the street around it.  A must see for all Kansas Explorers!

January 19, 2005 - The Foundation President caught partying a little too hardy during a two-day Rural Leaders Retreat at the Barn Bed & Breakfast at Valley Fall, Kansas.  The Experts are still divided over whether rocks can actually acquire a hangover.  If so, then it should take Harpo literally years to shake off the effects.  Perhaps "shake" is the wrong word.  At any rate, it would explain the eternal glower amid his usual sunny disposition. 

Just part of the price of existing in the human world.

A Message From the President

"I wish to take this opportunity to welcome one and all to the headquarters for the Rural Kansas "Rocks" Foundation (hereafter known as the RKRF.)  I have been considering starting this blog for a while, but it took time to train my human be able to to channel my thoughts.  Such a primitive mind. 

At any rate, I have found that there is actually more to life than simply sitting around shedding water and soaking up the sun.  I know, I found it hard to believe too at first, but these humans might just have something here with this seemingly meaningless meandering all around the Sunflower State.  I've rolled to more interesting places and met more of our brethren in a short span of time with my human than my previous eons of life.  My universe has indeed grown.

Membership in the RKRF is free (hey, what's money to us rocks?) and I encourage all adventurous rocks out there who have already bonded with a human to join up and unite as one voice while we get out there and roll across our great state.  

So take 'er easy - like what else is a rock gonna do, right? - and see you down the road!

Harpo

The Septarian of the Hills

RKRF Member #1

RURAL KANSAS ROCKS!!!

The president at Mushroom Rock State Park, Ellsworth County, Kansas, May 22, 2004.

Attending the family reunion in Salina, Saline County, Kansas, May 23, 2004.

At Rock City Park, Ottawa County, Kansas, May 24, 2004.

In 1971 the Waldon Rothenberger family began rock hunting in Osborne County, Kansas.   That same year they found Harpo sitting and minding his own carefree business a few miles south of where this photo was taken in the Blue Hills Uplands.  Contrary to popular belief, rocks really don't like to be disturbed - to them, little or no change is exactly what life ought to be.   

A embankment of Blue Hill Shale slowly being eroded away by Covert Creek in central Osborne County, Kansas.  Distant cousins of Harpo can be found at sites like this all through the Blue Hills Uplands. 

The president visiting the former site of the town of Strawberry, Washington County, Kansas, January 2005.

Visiting the National Bohemian Cemetery near Cuba in Republic County, Kansas, January 2005.

The president has been a popular feature of the Osborne County Tourism booth at the Kansas Sampler Festival since 2002.  Above, with Bob "Buffalo Jones" Eickhoff at the Garden City Sampler, May 6, 2006.