By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

ELKADER -- Chris Rodgers came to see what had been served up only as a model at Exploration Place in Wichita. He brought along his children, Kaden and Juliah.

Roger Abell was there as part of his job.

And brothers Dan, Dewey and Wilbur Wright, along with Dan's wife, Evelyn, were there as a result of family obligations.

All of them were visitors to the Monument Rocks area in western Gove County, and all for reasons unrelated to each other.

Such a gathering is slightly unusual, considering Monument Rocks' out-of-the-way location, nearly 30 miles south of Oakley and about the same distance north of Scott City.

Monument Rocks is a National Natural Landmark, the first ever in Kansas, receiving the designation in October 1968. There are only four other such sites in Kansas, fewer than 600 nationwide. The limestone spires, rising up as much as 70 feet, once were at the bottom of an inland ocean.

It also is one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas, recognition it shares with Castle Rock, another limestone spire that sits in eastern Gove County.

Abell left a trail in his travels to the Monument Rocks area, a windrow of sand he scraped from one side of the county road to the other as part of his job driving a motor grader for the Gove County Road and Bridge Department.

Abell hails from Orion, a ghost town situated about 11 miles west of the city of Gove. Only a couple homes remain in Orion. Even Elkader, the point closet to Monument Rocks, no longer exists.

As Abell headed north, pausing to lift up the grader's blade to cross the cattle guard to enter the open-range country, the Rodgers stood in awe of the western-most series of rocks, taking photos of what has become known as the keyhole -- a gaping hole in the limestone.

En route to Portland, Ore., to see family, Chris Rodgers said they decided to stop by Monument Rocks after a two-week vehicle breakdown in Wichita.

While there, they visited Exploration Place and saw a model of the state.

"That looked cool," he said.

He was more enthusiastic once he arrived.

"It's super cool," said Rodgers, who hails from Hot Springs, Ark.

Just a few miles southwest of Monument Rocks is the Pyramid View Cemetery -- so named because it overlooks the Kansas Pyramids, as the limestone formation also is known. Locally, they often simply are called the chalk pyramids.

Dan Wright told of how difficult the environment can be, what with sparse rainfall and short grass to feed cattle. He cautioned visitors to watch for rattlesnakes.

He and his brothers feel duty-bound to care for the cemetery. Normally, Roy Wright would have joined the crew, but rain forced him to stay home to plant crops.

Wright said his "parents and grandparents on both sides lived near here."

Many of them are buried in the Pyramid View Cemetery.

"I had 10 brothers," he said. "I don't have that many anymore."

This is the second time they have mowed the cemetery, the first about 10 days before Memorial Day.

"It's out in the middle of nowhere," Rodgers noted of the rock outcrop. "It's one of those things that God put out in the middle of nowhere so people will go see it."