Footnote on Emporia: Aside from the Emporia Gazette and its famous editor William Allen White, we knew nothing about the town's history. Curiously, I could find nothing on the Internet to fill in the blanks (OK, apparently it was the first city in the US to celebrate Veterans Day instead of Armistice Day). Was it a famous cattle town, stockyard, grain shipment point, rail junction, fort, major stopping place on the Pioneers' westward migration? Someone out there must know.

 Anyway, Joy and I set out in our car looking for a nice place for dinner, since the motel had no recommendations, and all we could see in the vicinity were chan fast food joints. We drove a couple of miles to find the downtown largely deserted. Where there were cars, they were parked at bars and a couple of seedy restaurants that didn't appeal to us. But we did find a nice old limestone City Hall, and a street (12th Avenue) lined with lovely 19th century houses, broad lawns, nice trees. As we drove farther out of town the houses were newer and smaller but still well kept up. Obviously the classy (or wannabe thought of as classy) people live or lived there.  As for us, we stopped at a food co-op and bought some Mexican food to heat up in our motel room microwave. Was that classy, or what?