April 7, 2013

The Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge is in Kansas, not far from the Nebraska border between Kearney, Nebraska and Hays, Kansas.

Kansas

The primary purpose of Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge ( NWR) is to conserve, maintain, and manage wildlife and habitat for migratory birds. The 10,778 acre Kirwin NWR is located in the rolling hills and narrow valley of the North Fork of the Solomon River in north-central Kansas. The Refuge lies in an area where the tall grass prairies of the east meet the short grass plains of the west. As a result of this merging of prairies and plains, grasses and wildlife common to both habitats are found on the Refuge..

- US Fish & Wildlife website

Not far west of Timken was a sign for the National Bohemia Cemetery. It was about two miles south on a dirt road. Why it's called "The National"? I've no idea.

The wrought markers are not unlike what I saw in Bohemia.

It is often the case that cemeteries--particularly isolated ones, such as this--have common themes to their headstones. In this cemetery many of the stones had porcelain photographs set into the stone.

They all look like nice people.

Glade, Kansas is only a few miles west of the refuge.

This is Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge.

Frankly, while it may look quite inviting to birds, there's not a whole lot here to inspire--not even a wide and distant vista. There's a very shallow reservoir, with just a few trees.

This was one of the more rough and fairly steep roads I've ridden the unicycle on. I did pretty well. When the road reached a certain degree of steepness, there wasn't much more to do than to dismount.

It's the nature of a unicycle that the most force you can put on one pedal is your weight (since there are no handle bars to pull up on). If that isn't enough to keep you moving; you're done.