A day unique in the last month...NO WIND !
Daylight saw this old man walking West on US 54 toward CUNNINGHAM, returning to KINGMAN at 10:30 a m local.
Decided it was a good time to visit the Business district. Got my ears lowered - a haircut with a good scrubbing of the hair before the shears did their thing . Feel like a new man.
Stopped in at JENs Restaurant for a all-you-can-eat salad bar. I could eat only one plate full. After a long strenuous walk, food is low on the scale of "wants". It is for this reason I have cut my water intake to a swallow every couple hours. Seems to work for me. In the evening, I drink plenty of water and juice to stay hydrated, but limiting water intake during actual walk minimizes onset of anemia.
Have uploaded a number of "town" images, such as the above KINGMAN home.
Downtown Main Street.
We are back in hilly country; to become more so as we progress East into the MISSISSIPPI River Valley.
Came across this operating Oil Well site. Took a few minutes to inspect it closely.
This is a closeup of the "Well Head". The vertical shaft at the top of the image is connected to the cable we saw in yesterday's blog. The cable reaches to the bottom of the oil well, pulling up a standing "head" of oil about 6 feet on each stroke of the oil pump. The horizontal pipe leading into your lap receives oil from the Well Head and takes it to the storage tanks standing some 150 feet away.
Another view of the oil pump, showing the electric motor which drives a belt round and round inside the protective cover. The other end of the belt is mounted on another grooved wheel which is mounted on an Input shaft turning gears inside the gear box, to which the orange color counter weighted gearbox double output shaft is mounted. Rotation of the counterweights, attached to the overhead "I" Beam. moves the "I" Beam as a Rocker Arm, causing the Praying Mantis Head to rise and lower, drawing a head of oil upward through the oil well pipe on each stroke.
Downward stroke of the Counter weights forces the Mantis Head to,rise with extra power, lifting the steel cable within the steel pipes in the well shaft, lifting the oil head with it.
Highway US 54 is - in my opinion, one of the finest designed and constructed in the entire United
States.
When the work is completed, it will, in my view, be the single most heavily traveled freeway in America, as it already provides the major corridor from the North East to the South West .
KINGMAN Residential Street.
...and then, I walked 3 hours East toward WICHITA, Kansas, which I expect to make on Sunday, two days hence. WICHITA is only 35 miles from KINGMAN, 10 miles of which I walked this afternoon.
A bit of history.
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