Metal-Pretty Prairie Silver Butterfly TB

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 27-May-24 this trackable had survived for 3.8 years and had been moved by 5 cachers, for an average drop every 275 days, or 1.3 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

While I have lived in Texas for nearly 50 years, I was born and grew to an adult in Kansas.  When I tell someone of my origins, they almost always respond in one of two ways:  “I have been there but I don’t remember much about it” or “that 400 mile drive across the state on Interstate 70 is really boring.”  There is more to the state than that.  The wheat grown there feeds the world, and the people are nice.  I watch for items I can convert to travel bugs.  Some some metal beads having a raised letter on the face were encountered and each bead was named for a Kansas town whose name starts with the letter on the face of the bead.  The towns remembered either have a connection to my youth or have an interesting name or history.

Pretty Prairie--the name speaks for itself.  It is a farming community of about 700 people in Reno County, in the south-central part of the state.  Every July the population swells to 8,000 for four-day rodeo on the PRCA circuit.  There is a large Amish and Mennonite presence in that region of Kansas.  I had one friend from high school who moved from there, and another handful of friends from there with whom I went to college.  The high school friend was a good basketball player.  He later moved to California and recorded a song that was not even as successful as Tab Hunter’s “Young Love,” which was a knock-off of the more popular Sonny James’ version.  I had both the latter recordings, on 45s.  If those last two statements do not date me, nothing will.