"It is not difficult or expensive to start a basic barbed wire collection..." - encouraging words from the Kansas Barbed Wire Museum website.

We almost missed this Kansas treasure (most travellers do).  The first 120 snow-laden miles out of Boulder took 3.5 hours, following snowploughs and cars skidding into the meridian and the occasional passing of a Jeep convinced he (probably he) could still drive over 40 mph.

At each recharging break I chiselled 20 pounds of ice out of wheel wells and off of the forlorn bikes - a bizarre ice-bound exhibition of "It was 90 degrees when we packed" optimism.

For safety we stuck to the cursed interstate, assaulted by endless billboards touting white Jesus saviors and precious baby heartbeats.  One sign proclaimed "Kill relativism, not babies" - had to look that one up.  My hunch was correct - "relativism" is the apparently misguided notion that humans can inject reason and consideration of context into decisions rather than blindly following a single preordained and unerring 2,000-year-old Truth that is somehow known and unarguable.  It was almost refreshing to have this rigidity confirmed, though I despair at how to find common ground when one group believes there is no room for doubting Biblical authority (or interpretation), while other people (and the US Constitution, for that matter) do not accept the Bible as the unique basis for law and moral behavior.

In the afternoon the roads finally cleared and we quickly veered onto my happy-place back roads.  In just 20 minutes we hit a hard-brake-sharp-right for the Barbed Wire Hall of Fame - who knew?!  Who knew there are over 2,500 types of barbed wire with over 530 patents? Who knew that the Kansas Barbed Wire Collectors Association was actually launched on May 17, 1964 "by three men: Ivan Krug, LaCrosse attorney; Roy Ehly, Southwestern Bell Telephone manager; and Bill Robbins, local banker"?  Who knew that LaCrosse Kansas actually organized and won a "friendly feud" gunfight in Dodge City against another upstart "Devil's Wire" museum in Texas, to claim the right to the title "Barbed Wire Capital of the World"?

"Who needed to know?", my amused wife wonders once again, as she has in the past when we discovered gems like the World's Largest Ball of String, Lefse Hall of Fame, SPAM museum, live reenactment of the capture of Jesse James...  Well, evidently we all need to, if we're to understand how the west was won.  "Some say it was the six-gun that settled the west.  Others know better.  It was an unusual invention that in a few short years grew into a multi-million dollar industry: barbed wire... that changed the direction of history and its impact resonates today."  In short, it let us carve up the open range into defined, privately-owned parcels, settled territorial disputes (in favour of the people who put up fences), and "let people live in relative peace."

Sadly the museum was closed for the winter, and even more sadly we missed the annual May gathering of collectors throughout the world who travel to LaCrosse Kansas "swapping and selling those 18 inch pieces of American history called Barbed Wire."

So, as divided as we maybe about issues like reproductive rights and biblical authority and how fast to drive after a Colorado snow dump, we can all be united by this fencing that helped create the West as we know it, let us live in "relative peace", and brings together collectors from across the globe. "That ingenious invention, designed as a barrier to separate people, now brings them together."