Two Pairs of Tired Feet

Woke up to a beautiful sunrise as we ate breakfast at the motel.  Breakfast was very good.  We both think this is the best Best Western in which we have been.  The room is large and comfortable, motel was easy to find, and the breakfast great.   

We left the motel at 8:15 headed for the Sparks Flea/Antigue Market.  It was an easy drive east on US 36 and then a rural Kansas Highway 7 to Sparks and the flea market.  We began weaving back and forth at a leisurely pace through the vendors on the left side of the road that runs through Sparks.  Our plan was to walk and check out the vendors on the left side until the end of the street and then come back on the other side to where we had parked.

At 1:15 and only half way back down the last side of the street, our feet gave out and we were getting hungry.  We decided to stop shopping/looking and stop at this food trailer for lunch.  It was called "Wok Hei Noodlehouse."  We had never seen a Chinese noodle food truck.  Carol got the General Tso Chicken and Noodles and I got the Teriyaki Chicken and Rice.  Both were very good.  I think this trailer would do great at the Covered Bridge Festival in Indiana.  Maybe there will be one there this year when we go.

Our food.

We left Sparks with the goal of returning tomorrow to finish the street and then continue on to another flea/antique market we heard about today.  We drove through another small town on the way back.  This is a church  in that town.

A second church in that town.  Even through the town was very small, it also had a community college.

Above and below are a couple of houses along the main street.

When we arrived back at Hiawatha, we found the Walmart and to Carol's amazement this is the road that leads to that Walmart.  It was located at the western edge of the city...so western that there were no other building around.  He found that very unusual.

The next few pictures are of the Davis Memorial in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Hiawatha.  It is very unusual and has, what I think is an unual story behind it.  John Milburn Davis erected this memorial in memory of his wife Sarah.  Davis was an orphan who came to Hiawatha in 1887.  He met and married Sarah.  They were childless and very frugal.  When Sarah died in 1930, he began to spend his money by erecting this massive memorial.  First he erected the canopy on stone pillars which surrounded her grave.  In 1932 the first of 12 marble statues began to arrive from Italy memoralizing events in their married lives.  Total cost of the memorial was $250,000 which today would be $4-5 million dollars.

Mr. Davis was not a popular resident of Hiawatha because he spend all his money on the memorial and refuged to donate money for projects for the betterment of the city like a hospital.  At his own funeral only 10 people showed up.  The memorial has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

  

These statues portray himself and an angel bowing before the tombs of he and his wife.  The angel's face is Sarah's face.  Someon decaputated the  the head of his statue and it has to this day never been found.

These statues portray how they looked at the 50th wedding anniversary.  If you look closely, you can see that the statue of Mr. Davis shows him missing his right hand.  He lost that hand following a scythe accident in which an infection set it and the doctor had to amputate the hand.

Front view of the 50th anniversary statues.

This statue portrays Mr. Davis and an Empty Chair which represents him after Sarah died.  When he discovered someone sitting in the empty chair, he had a granite wall erected around the memorial to keeep people off the area

These statues represent them 10 years into their marriage.   The date of this event is evident because he does not have a beard.  At that time, his beard had caught on fire when he was burning hedge clippings and had to shave the remining beard off.

Closer view of the angel with Sarah's face.

The actual burial spot and markers.  John's life had an interesting ending.  In 1937 several doctors diagnosed Davis with a fatal illness.  They said he had 6 months to live, so Davis gave away his remaining fortune.  The doctors were wrong and he lived another 10 years living in the county nursing paid for by the county until he died in 1947.
 
We have enjoyed our last few trips and especially like it when we find interesting stories of people who lived in the places we have visited.  John Davis had a very interesting story.

My daily post of a dirty car.

A picture of the two pairs of tired feet.

We ate a late super at McDonalds.

A nice sunset to go with the beautiful sunrise.

A quarter moon in the sky as I was taking sunset pictures.

It was a great day.  We enjoyed the Sparks Flea/Antique Market.  We never saw so much stuff that we didn't want to buy.  We saw stuff we liked and on another day would have bought.  Today we would ask, "What would we do with it" and "Do we really need it."  After answering those two questions, the answers were usually that we did not know what we would do with it and we really didn't need it.  In the end we bought a birdhouse for $5.00.  Birdhouses are a weakness for me and they are useful for the many birds we feed.    Maybe tomorrow we will find something else; but, if not, we will have still enjoyed the day.