Wired News is running my story today about the center of the world: the Shamrock "K" Horse Center near Coffeyville, Kansas.
Maggie Dew, the geocacher who journeyed to the center and brought back photos, has planted a cache not far from the city at a '60s landmark called Peace Point:
Some friends and I had a little shop in downtown Coffeyville called the Hobbit Hole. We had a peace flag in the front window, and it wasn't long before someone decided to lob a brick through it. During the same period, some of my friends put up a huge peace symbol on a tall pipe on this bluff overlooking Coffeyville. It could be seen from quite a distance, and it was written up in the Coffeyville Journal. Again, in less than a week's time, someone cut it down. A piece of that pipe still sticks out of the ground today. Take a walk out to this viewpoint overlooking the town and contemplate why, to some, the concept of peace is such a fearful and loathsome thing.
The satellite photos on Google are prompting a lot of sightseeing, as I found while obsessing over Google Maps during the preparation of the story. My favorite discovery is the Palm Beach UFO.
Palm Beach County has a large population of elderly residents, bringing its median age up to 42. I don't want to reach a definitive conclusion until the subject's covered by Coast to Coast, but the high-altitude weather balloon theory is no fun at all. I'm thinking aliens came back to fetch more cocoons and have non-contact laser-light sex with Steve Guttenburg's rib cage.
