RURAL ODYSSEY VI Abilene - Trail Mix combines fiction and history. It tells of Mike O'Reilly, his wife Mariah Palafox O'Reilly and daughter Ariel's return to Abilene, Kansas for a one - year stay. Mike and Mariah hold adjunct positions at DDEC, Dwight D. Eisenhower College, where Mike taught since 1963 and Mariah in the 1970s. Daughter Ariel returns to the town and schoolmates where she grew up. Mike's research on a new book at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library is followed by fieldwork tracing the famous cow towns of the Chisholm Trail and major frontier trails west - the Smoky Hill River Trail from Kansas to Colorado and the all-important Santa Fe Trail from Kansas to New Mexico. The latter connects with the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro Trail from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Research and life in Abilene are mixed as well, the latter with some surprises.