Marion

The first night out from Great Bend I only walked ten miles, into the little town of Ellinwood, and slept next to a Methodist church. In the morning I woke up to an odd scraping sound, and pulled my head out from the sleeping bag in time to see a lady walking to a car, nearby. 'Nothing scary, it's just breakfast,' she called, and drove away. A tinfoiled plate sat nearby, with magic marker writing on the top. 'Enjoy breakfast. Have a great day. God bless. -Ellinwood Lady'. Inside I found half a loaf of zucchini bread - a favorite.
I walked in sun throughout the day, past cornfields and wind farms. By five in the evening I reached the town of Lyons, and stocked up on Ramen at the Dollar General before finding a library.
Around nine, the sky started misting, and I set up for the night in an alcove outside the local museum. Just having crawled in, the police stopped in front and found me with their flashlights. 'Uh-oh. Can't sleep here, man. This place has a really funky alarm system, and somebody across the street already called us, saying you were up here. Gonna have to move down to the park.' They're actually really nice guys, and seem to regret making me leave, but insist that the park has a good spot to stay dry, if it rains.
So I pack up, head down the street in the drizzle, and set up again under a picnic shelter.
It starts raining heavily soon after I crawl inside the sleeping bag, and continues throughout the night. The concrete floor of the shelter started to fill up pretty early on, and I moved my things up onto the tables, and moved my pad to a different spot, but the water crept there, too, while I was asleep, and I woke up fairly wet. I moved a third time, essentially back to where I started, and managed to get some sleep.
Still raining heavily, in the morning, I found a laundromat and stuck the sleeping bag in a dryer for half an hour, then sat and watched the weather channel on the twelve inch t.v. above the pop machine. A spot that I didn't vacate for a good majority of the day. When I did leave, I threw the poncho over my pack, and made it back to the library, where I read a book on card tricks and another about Harry Houdini.
By evening the rain had let up, but I wasn't going anywhere, with the weather channel's forecast in my head. I slept under the picnic shelter, again.
In the morning the skies were practically clear, though the forecast had called for solid rain. Having eaten breakfast, I headed out.
I didn't see so much as a cloud for the majority of the day. The twenty nine mile stretch between Lyons and McPherson was warm and dry, and I made good time. In town I found a Wendy's, and played solitaire and practiced my newly acquired card tricks until it got dark, and then tried to find a place to sleep. The police (sounding familiar) found me fairly quickly, walking down the sidewalk.
'Where you headed, guy?'
'Looking for a place to stay the night. Where would you suggest?'
'What did you have in mind?'
'Just someplace to put up a little tent, or something.'
'We could write you a park permit, if you want.'
So they give me permission, in written form, no less, to camp in a nearby park. I set up my tent, play a few rounds of frisbee golf, and then turn in for the night.
I didn't leave McPherson very early in the morning. I wanted to use a library, but being Sunday the hours were bad (2:00 - 5:00) so I waited around all morning. The weather had also turned a little sour, with a strong, cold wind blowing down from the north, and I didn't know if rain was headed my way. But by the time I'd used the library, the sun was back out and the wind had died down, and I made my way out of town.
I stopped for the night just before the town of Hillsboro and camped by the road, then walked a shorter day into Marion, yesterday.
Last night, in another picnic shelter, the sprinklers found me again. Around midnight I woke up to the terrible sound, and quickly found myself drenched. The sprinklers aren't positioned perfectly, so even in the middle of the shelter the spray hit me, and my things, fully. I dragged everything to a far corner that was staying dry, and tried to get back to sleep, but failed. Roughly an hour later, the first section turned off, another turned on, and I got the reverse spray. Moved again. Cursed again.
But as Michael and I joked on the phone, I might be able to make good of my experiences. I could - say - go into the sprinkler business, with my adept ears. For instance: 'That sprinkler sounds a little weak off of the 180 turn, there, ma'am. Best let me take a look at it.' Or: 'Sounds like your intake valve is a little clogged, ma'am. Best let me clean it out for you.'
You never know.