Personal StuffPersonal StuffIt is not clear what to write here. How personal should you get? Not too, says my Swedish/Midwestern background. That is my family in the summer of 94. Not our dog, we were staying in the Hemez Mountains in NM.
For a picture of my 72 MG Midget click here. About one hour of work for one hour of driving. Hope to do some autocrossing this summer (1995). Got the head back on last week (May, 1995). Red Ink Racing (913-842-7888) did a great job tuning the Weber carb (September, 1995). Finally did get to autocross (October, 1995) in Salina, KS, at the site that has been used to host the SCCA nationals (hosted this year in Topeka, KS). Salina SCCA club runs on the old airport runway. The car is still running -- how much longer? (Still great, July 1997) Here is a link to British Car Pages. Lots of good info, cars to buy, repair shops.
Here is a picture of the 41 Chevrolet pickup I am starting to work on. It has been sitting under the trees on my father-in-law's farm for about 10 years, but worked before then. Am starting on the brakes and working up. There are a lot of restorable pickups in Kansas. If any reader would be interested, send some email to swenson@ksume.me.ksu.edu and we can talk about finding one.
Well, the truck has been delayed by a Willys Wagon. It is a 1961, 4 WD, with the six cylinder Hurricane flat head engine. Click here to learn more about this project than you really want to know. Special thanks to Jerry Gregg and Billy Graham at Performance Machine, Carl Walck (610-852-3110), and Ron Meditz (803-648-4923) who specialize in Willys parts and have been very helpful. Rick Grover has a great web page for Willys Rick Grover's Willys Trucks and Wagons.
If you want to see a 360 degree composite picture of a wheat farm in Western Kansas, look at looking northwest, looking northeast, looking southeast, looking southwest. This picture doesn't show the real beauty. I love the place. Peter Egan writes about driving through Kansas in a Lotus 11 replica, "I looked around at the sky and thought this, by God, is real weather. Not like in California where it just kind of creeps in and sits on you. In Kansas you watch the weather at work around you like some kind of big unpredictable machine where thunderheads and shifting winds are the moving parts." - "Northwest by Westfield," Road and Track, 1984. He says the drive through Kansas was one of the most beautiful parts of that trip.
Mount Sunflower is the highest point in Kansas. Located in western Kansas, near the Colorado border, the peak is in a pasture. The owner has built a picnic area and maintains a sign-in book. Perhaps the most famous climber to reach the summit is Pat Paulsen, who climbed the peak during his presidential campaign.
We are located in the Flint Hills. This is a picture from the book Konza Prairie by O. J. Reichman. The Konza Prairie is over 8,000 acres of native tall grass prairie set aside for long-term research. A hiking trail gives one the rare experience of true prairie. See the Prarie Light Studio for Ed Sturr's meticulously hand colored black and white enlarged photographic prints.
Although I work on developing Hot Dry Rock geothermal energy, geothermal energy has other uses. One peak experience was cross country skiing to a hot springs in New Mexico in the middle of winter.
