Day Eight - Kansas

Day Eight – Friday, June 3^rd 2016, Kansas

This morning we awoke in Woodward OK, everyone sleeping in until about 8:00 again, love it.  We had a yummy breakfast, complete with a breakfast bagel creation – scrambled eggs, cheese, small bits of bacon, all melted on top of a bagel.  Quite tasty.  We packed up and headed north towards Kansas.

The drive was pretty much the same – wide open views everywhere, cows, windmills, oil digger thingys.  And yet, it’s still beautiful and so peaceful.  We kept entertained by challenging each other to see who could spot a windmill next or an oil digger, that sort of thing.  We also played an ABC game.  You had to either find the letter in a sign [pretty hard to do when there are almost no signs] or find something outside of the car that started with that letter.  For example C for cattle, D for Daddy who rolled down his window and stuck his head out so that it would count, G for grass, and believe it or not Z for zebra.  There was some sort of random petting zoo, rescue something, I don’t even know, alongside of the tiny little county road, go figure.  We have also noticed that everyone around here, particularly in Oklahoma drives a white truck.  It’s true.  We first noticed it driving in and out of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.  No colors at all, except one rebellious silver pickup.  Once we crossed into Kansas, we started seeing a few different colors, but still mostly white.  

Tonight’s end goal and hotel location is Kansas City.  The halfway-ish point is Wichita, so we searched things to do in Wichita last night and found a few ideas.  With limited cell service and internet, we couldn’t find a fun lunch spot along the road, so we ate at a trusted favorite: Wendy’s.  Affordable, agreeable to all, and free frosty key tags.  We then went into the Old Cowtown Museum that we had read about last night.  It was really quite neat!  It was very empty, and probably would have been even cooler on the weekend when bustling with activity.  It’s a huge 1870’s town set on 23acres.  All the buildings are original, which makes it super awesome.  Most were moved around to get where they are today, but everything is completely authentic.  In fact, the grain elevator is still operational, and they claim it’s the only working one left in North America.  The houses and shops are filled with original artifacts and people dressed in character walk the streets and shops.  We even saw a reenactment of a gun fight.  Chloe and Abby both screamed, and it took some time to calm Chloe down.  We walked through a farm with chickens and cows and horses and a very loud sheep that kept baaing at us, and a goat that ate grass and flowers from the kids’ hands.  There was a jail and a saloon and general store and schoolhouse and train depot and everything else you could think of in that would have been in an old Western town.  Almost all the buildings are open and you can wander in and out exploring all sorts of neat things.  And again, all real, nothing fake or cheesy about it.  Cowtown was a great place to have stumbled upon!  The setting was very nice, along the Arkansas River.

We closed the museum down at five and headed north again.  The drive was extra pretty with the early evening sun, and we passed through a hilly stretch of terrain, the Flint Hills I believe the sign said.  It was quite different than any other area we’ve been through recently and was very beautiful.  The lunchtime Wendy's kids meals had come with small plastic cones for playing various little games, but in reality they're megaphones for already loud kids :)  My favorite was Abby belting out Lincoln Brewster's song, "there is power in the name of Jesus."  Our new-to-us van came with a free three month trial of xm satellite radio which has been great on this trip!  Our trio also attempted to pass the cones and clap to the Cup Song.  It didn't work too well, fortunately for them they have lots of cones since most ended up on the floor!  We stopped for dinner in Emporia, KS.  What a bustling downtown area.  There was a huge mountain bike race or convention or something going on.  We had planned to eat at a local Mexican restaurant that has great reviews online, but we eventually gave up waiting and walked across the street to Jimmy John’s.  Yummy and so much quieter and way quicker, which is good when everyone is tired.  The town had a really nice quaint feel to it.  I’m not sure if it’s always that way, or if it was just extra vibrant because of all the bikers in town.  There were lots of old shops along the main street, fun window displays, sidewalk chalk drawings all over, people walking everywhere,  and just a really neat atmosphere.  Fun place!

The last stretch of our drive was maybe an hour and a half.  I drove while Coleson read our library book about the Oregon Trail in preparation for Independence tomorrow.  Kinda crazy to think that most of this trip came about because of the one book that Abby randomly set her heart on at the school book fair [Ranger in Time].  We’ve had so much fun learning about the Oregon Trail and life in the 1800’s.  I wonder where we’d be tonight and what we might have done if we hadn’t planned our trip around ending up in Independence tomorrow for the reenactment!  Ryan wrote an awesome postcard to Nana today that summed it up pretty well:  “This trip has been a good one so far.  You should do it.  It’s fun learning a lot about the 1800’s.”  We didn’t intentionally set out to teach such an extensive lesson in American history, but it sure has evolved into one, and I’m grateful the kids are enjoying it!  I know I am!  Sad to think our trip is wrapping up!     

PS, Our hotel was a low-budget La Quinta Inn in Kansas City, about 40minutes from Independence.  It was fine enough, but certainly far from fancy.  I really was itching for a run and was sad that there was no fitness center.  I ran outside, but not very far, it was dark, and I wasn't brave enough to go more than about 1.75miles.  There were bunnies everywhere along my run though, which was kinda cool.  I bet you I scared up twenty of them.  In once spot, there was a group of four and in another place, there was five together.