Mount Sunflower, Kansas (4,039)

35th High Point Visited 

28th Highest State Highpoint 
44th Most Difficult

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Mt. Sunflower (4,039), Kansas - State Highpoint #35

Leaving Panorama Point we had a 4 hour drive to our next highpoint and because of the delays as part of our rental car fiasco it wouldn't be in the cards to make it all the way to Mount Sunflower until well after dark so there was no need for urgency on the commute to Kansas.    Parisa's quote from this four hour drive was "If I grew up here and somebody told me the earth is flat I would believe them!"   There wasn't much to see just flat farmlands for as far as the eyes could see.   There was hardly a town or even a gas station all the way to I-70.  Our left over pizza from lunch that we tossed in the car ended up becoming our dinner because there was literally no other option along the way.    

About a week before the trip Parisa called me and asked what to pack and wondered if we were staying at "nice" hotels.   I shared with her I didn't know how far we would drive everyday so hadn't made any reservations and thought it would be easy enough to get a room from the convenience of a mobile phone while we were driving.   Being the busy summer months there's always that chance we wouldn't be able to easily find a place, but for the first night in the middle of nowhere I didn't expect we would have a problem.   If we could make it to I-70 there would have to be lots of choices off the highway.   I let Parisa drive a stretch which gave me an opportunity to search for a place to stay.   Burlington, Colorado seemed to be the perfect place along the way but several places were sold out.  Yikes.  Never fear, because hotels.com found a place and I made a reservation.  All was well and good until we got to the hotel and learned I made a reservation for the wrong day.  I've experienced this once before, when there are no hotels available the app just picks a random day that has availability and changes your dates you picked to a new date.  Not good.  We got back into the car stopped a few other hotels in Burlington and they were all full.  The next closest town was just a few miles called Goodland, Kansas.  This time I was very careful and made sure I didn't get duked by the app and reserved for same day!

Our hotel had a decent breakfast buffet and Parisa even made a new girlfriend of one of the staff that struck up conversation with us.  Although our next highpoint was only 40 miles away the owner of the hotel who lived there most all of his life had never visited.    We got to experience the vast nothingness of eastern Colorado yesterday so to be prepared our first stop in the morning was to a Walmart across the street from the hotel a picked up a cooler for the car, filled it with ice, refreshments, and some stacks for the next few days on the road.  Interesting enough upon entry into Walmart the first thing you see is a mural of Mount Sunflower.   We also learned of a giant Van Gogh painting on display in a park.  Upon learning of the painting this lead to a conversation about a Van Gogh painting would need be locked up because it would be worth millions of dollars so since it was so early in the morning we didn't think the park would be open so we didn't stop to visit.  Ends up it's a giant copy of one of Van Gogh's paintings.   Also it's the state flower of Kansas!      Van Gogh Painting   We jumped back in the car to begin our long days adventure first Mount Sunflower and then onto Oklahoma's highpoint Black Mesa.

Our original route had we come from Burlington was slightly different than leaving from Goodland.  Or first turn took us on a long dirt road and once again we were thankful for the Jeep Rubicon and it's ability to tackle any terrain with ease.   We saw directional signs to the monument so we knew we were heading in the right direction.   Once again in a field it was hard to believe we were at 4,039 feet.  Surprisingly once again we were not the only visitor at the highpoint as another car was parked at the attraction.  This highpoint is not a state park and located on private land.  There are a few pieces of art, mailbox with a register inside, and even randomly a book library adjacent to the monument.

Mt. Sunflower is really close to the boarder of Colorado.  Since we entered Kansas in the dark the night before we didn't see any welcome to Kansas signs but within a few miles of leaving the high point we were back in Colorado and drove past another cool Welcome to Colorado sign we stopped for a picture.  Low and behold there was also a welcome to Kansas sign right behind us so we walked across the road and got a picture in front of the Kansas state line sign.