Family Reunion

Wow, it's been a few days since I last posted, but with good reason. We left on July 18th for our annual trek to Damascus, Arkansas, for our family reunion. I have been attending this family function for years, and I can honestly say, that I still don't know who half of the people who attend this thing are.

This year, the attendance was rather lacking, but it was still an enjoyable time. Some of the more annoying family members were still there in full force (Julie, you know who I'm talking about), and many I look forward to spending time with could not make it this year (you of course Julie). But, we still found fun things to do.

My favorite part of the entire trip is always the car ride. The first set of pictures below are of the wind farm in eastern Butler county, called the Elk River Wind project. This wind farm has 100 1.5 MW wind turbines, and is the largest wind farm in Kansas. Joplin-Missouri based Empire District Electric Company entered into a 20 year contract to purchase wind energy from the facility. They plan to purchase 555,000 mega-watt hours of energy a year, which is enough to power about 42,000 homes annually. Not too shabby for an endless, free resource here in Kansas.

The first photo was taken on the ride down, and it was cloudy and rainy. I snapped a couple more photos on the way back, when it was sunny and clear. Of course my father, who we were following, as well as my husband, were in an all fired hurry to get home, so the photos were taken at 75 miles an hour. Next year, we plan to leave a couple of days early, and take our time driving down. There is a scenic drive through the Ozark mountains that we want to take every year, but just don't have the time. Next year, we are making the time.

The next pictures are of the Ozark mountains. I was researching the mountains, and discovered that although they are referred to as mountains, the region is actually a high and deeply dissected plateau. A dissected plateau is a plateau that has been uplifted and severely eroded so that their relief is sharp. There are several features that mountains have that dissected plateaus do not, but I won't bore you with the details. I just thought it was an interesting point to mention.

The Ozark Highland region occupies 55,000 square miles of Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, and Illinois. 33,000 of those miles are in Missouri, 13,000 are in Arkansas, and the last 4,000 are in Illinois and very Southeastern Kansas.

The photos below are of the cooling tower for the nuclear power plant in Russellville, Arkansas. This is always a sight to see, and a welcome point on the trip down, as it let's us know that we are less than an hour away from our destination.

Construction began in 1969 on the nuclear power plant, formally known as Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO). It took only 4 years to construct the plant, and it is Arkansas's largest industrial plant investment.

"The first reactor was named Unit 1, and the second reactor was named Unit 2. Together, they have a combined output of about 1,800,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. The total cost of the entire project was about $901,500,000. Unit 1 started to produce electricity on December 19, 1974. Unit 1 alone produces 850 kilowatt-hours. Unit 2 started producing electricity on March 25, 1980, and Unit 2 alone produces nearly 1000 KWH. To put these numbers into perspective, 1,800 KWH would meet the needs of 2,572 homes or 600 commercial customers . . . for one solid month. This is based on the 1972 average consumption 701 KWH a month for residential consumers and 2,996 KWH for commercial customers in the Russellville area. AP&L officials expect electric requirements in the company's service double about every seven years. (Estimates obtained from the Daily Courier-Democrat, 4-10-73.) Currently, ANO supplies electricity for 50% of AP&L's 575,000 customers." -http://asms.k12.ar.us/armem/terrell/const.htm

Ok, I'm going to split this into 2 posts, so check back for more tomorrow. :)