Even though there was only one single user bathroom, we had no significant difficulty with our morning showers and such at Zans. While preparing to leave, we couldn’t find a place designated for trash so we simply left our small bag next to what looked like a storage building.

Our first destination for the day was Big Brutus, a massive electric-powered excavator with a 90 cubic yard bucket (big enough to hold 18,200 gallons of water or 150 tons of dirt) that laid waste to many acres of Kansas in its decade in operation (from 1964 to 1974) before put out of business by – appropriately, we suspect – environmental regulations.  Big Brutus would remove massive amounts of “overburden” top soil and such – 20 to 69 feet – in order for smaller excavators to remove relatively thin layers of coal.  It operated 24 hours a day – with a cycle time for each shovel load of around 60 seconds.

The machine is the only one of this model – and the biggest still in existence.  It was shipped to Kansas on 150 train cars.  You can read about it in the link above, or the Wikipedia page – the statistics are amazing.  During the time it was in use, the power bill was $27,000/month, and the power cable was 4 inches in diameter (high voltage at that)!

Scott, along with his wife Susan and Bill Martin had toured Big Brutus in the late 90s.  Stuart was pretty young at the time and couldn’t be bothered to leave the bus.  Scott always wanted to return, and this time we could have camped there but we were unaware that they have a bath house at their campground.  Live and learn…

We took a couple hours touring and watching the video and gawking at the size of Big Brutus and other interesting excavators.  We then ate lunch in the camper and started heading to our next campsite Lakeview Campground in Lawson, MO .   This is a type of campground – run by the Lawson, MO Park Board – that, freed from the necessity to earn a profit – offer an excellent value: large sites, a nice lake with a path around it, and such.  We looked forward to seeing it, but it was North of Kansas City so a fair drive.

Kansas is criss-crossed with many straight roads laid out in square or rectagular patterns. At almost all, but the busiest intersections, it is controlled by stop signs and not traffic lights. Scott conjectured it was to save money on the stop lights.

And – it was time for another Walmart stop since we were almost out of bottled water.  Scott asked Google Maps for the Walmarts on our route, and the one closest and with the right distance from where we were was in Fort Scott, KS.  Not one to over (or almost ever) use AI, Scott decided to ask Google/Gemini/Claude/whatever to “tell me about Fort Scott, KS”.)

Turns out that there is another National Park Service National Historic Site in Fort Scott.  Turns out it is very nice, free, and near the Walmart.  We decided to check it out and entered the visitor’s center.  A very nice young lady immediately asked us if we wanted an orientation for their many buildings and extensive history of the fort – particularly during the civil war.  Scott stopped Paige when she mentioned “Bleeding Kansas” – a term we had heard before but did not understand.  She explained that school students from Kansas and Missouri were all taught about the strife that followed the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854, which allowed each new state to vote on whether they were to allow slavery or not.  This caused lots of voter fraud – people flooding a state voting to push the referendum in the direction they want.  And lots of mayhem and murder.

We toured the buildings, read about how miserable Fort Scott was during the war, filled with white, black, and Indian refugees from the destruction, and how much better it was to be an officer than an enlisted man.  As with most everything we have seen from the National Park Service, it is very well done.

We then proceeded to Lakeview, where we will spend two nights.  We’re charging up the bikes for tomorrow.  For dinner, Scott had leftover hot dogs, beans, and Kraft macaroni and cheese that Anthony bought on our MATE trip in 2023.  We now have only 4 boxes left.