Louisville

On the road from Newbury to Louisville, we crossed Correction Road not once, not twice, but three times. I guess whatever they were trying to "Correct" was not cooperating with their efforts.


Soybean fields lined the road, peppered with occasional dried-out cornstalks left over from the last harvest. The young bean plants reached up eagerly toward the intermittent raindrops, keen to drink all they could before the long, hot July ahead.

Louisville, like so many small Kansas towns, seems a bit rundown and is losing residents. However, a few things made me think they are doing their best in the face of the grim future.

Downtown, an old school building has been transformed into a thrift shop. It's a great way to repurpose the space, and it seemed to be pretty well-stocked (though it wasn't open while we were in town).

Outside the thrift shop, there was a little park with lots of big tractor tires. It also had a dilapidated old slide in a grievous state of disrepair, but someone cared enough to block it off with orange safety fencing so adventurous children wouldn't hurt themselves on it.

And in the cemetery just outside of town, we were both impressed and amused by the number of trash barrels and signs admonishing visitors not to litter. It has to be some kind of cemetery record for number of trash barrels per square foot. Of course, the cemetery was not without its problems -- someone apparently took liberties with the orientation of a gravestone in the not-too-distant past.

All in all, Louisville wasn't in bad shape. Not too much going on, but the folks there seem to take some pride in their community.