Flint Hills of Kansas

Tallgrass Prairie



Ranch House



Sight-seeing day for the humans---nap day for me.  Temps got up into the high 80s again and it was sunny---I had lots of good sunny spots to choose from in the camper.  We are in the Flint Hills of Kansas.  The soils are too thin, too rock-strewn to make good farmland so cattle are the “crop” of choice.  The humans went to Tallgrass Prairie National Historic preserve first thing this morning.  (On the way they stopped at Nancy’s great-great grandmother’s grave.)  The preserve protects a nationally significant remnant of the once vast tallgrass prairie and its cultural resources. It is the continent's largest remaining tract of tallgrass .  On the preserve is a Victorian ranch house that Stephen F. Jones spent the modern equivalent of about $1.9 million building.  The building was open for tours.  The original ranch was called Spring Hill Ranch.  On the preserve there is a herd of buffalo and other native species. (Which my humans didn’t get to see because the tour bus wasn’t running todayL.



Courthouse at Cottonwood Falls



Next they drove South to Cottonwood Falls, the county seat of Chase county, and then on to Bizaar.  At one time more cattle were shipped out of Bizaar than any other place in KS and it is where Knute Rockne’s plane crashed in 1931.  Today it is just a wide spot in the road.  They returned to Cottonwood Falls and spent some time at the historical society there.  (Nancy found some info she was looking for, which means I may have to fight her for the computer this evening---because she is going to want to do genealogy.  Guess someday I ought to trace my family tree….wonder who my father is, but I digress…….)

They stopped back at the camper to give me a treat and then they were off to tour the home of a famous newspaper editor, William Allen White, (it was closed) and then to the local zoo.  It was a tiny zoo, but well done with some neat animals and great landscaping and plantings.

Prairie Dog at Emporia Zoo

Tomorrow we head north.

















Emporia Kansas



Lake of the Ozarks---the leaves turned overnight!



 We are still on the move---today we drove from Lake of the Ozarks to Ft. Scott Kansas.  After a quick lunch in the camper, the humans toured Ft. Scott and watch a movie about the fort.  They weren’t gone very long because the car would have gotten too hot and I wouldn’t have been a happy kitty.  It got up to 88 degrees this afternoon!  We finally stopped at Emporia Kansas.  We are going to be here a couple days.  Nancy wants to find the grave of her great-great grandmother, Alvira Clarissa Hamp Shufelt Coder, which is nearby.  There are also a couple other neat things to see nearby…part of the Santa Fe Trail, Tall grass Prairie, and a zoo.  I’ll keep you posted….



Ft Scott Kansas



Lake of the Ozarks

View of Lake of the Ozarks from our campsite

(This installment written Monday October 3rd)  Today was a travel day.  We left St. Louis Missouri in the morning after most of the rush hour traffic had cleared downtown and we could get out of the campground easily.  Traveling West on I70 took us to Midway Truck Stop.  Is the half-way point between St. Louis and Kansas City and is also the subject of a documentary on Travel Channel.  We stopped and had a piece of pie and then headed to Lake of the Ozarks.  At the time it was built, in 1931, it was the largest man-made lake in the world and has 1150 miles of shoreline.  We are staying at the state park on the lake shore.  Out campsite overlooks the lake.  I can see fish jumping from the camper window and sure wish one of the humans would get out of their lawn chair and catch me one!  No phone service, internet, or TV here----so I guess I’ll just curl up on the bed and have a nap!



Midway Travel Plaza



St. Louis Missouri 2



St. Louis Pizza



Fried Ravoli



I don’t believe it!!!! The humans left me alone all day so they could go sightseeing in St. Louis and all they brought home were pictures of food!!!!   HELLO---Pictures of food?   Where is the real thing?  Apparently they decided to hunt down traditional St. Louis cuisine and it was so good that they ate it all.  Fried ravioli and pizza with a very thin cracker crust, sweet sauce and local cheese called Provel ( which is a white processed cheese that  is produced with Cheddar, Swiss, and provolone cheeses).



View from the top of the arch.  You can see the arch's shadow.



Mississippi River from the top of the arch



While they were out they toured the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.  They rode in little tram cars to the top of the arch.  Then they watched an I-Max movie about Lewis and Clark and toured a museum focusing on the history of the expansion of the USA into the Louisiana Purchase.  (Truthfully, I’m glad I didn’t go along---those little cars look way too small for 5 people and the arch is 630’ high.)  After they left the arch, they drove around Forest Park, the site of the 1904 World’s Fair.  It is now home to the zoo, museum, and lots of other interesting things.  They decided to check out the Museum, which had displays about Lindberg, the fair, and Missouri history.  After driving around and checking out some of the parks downtown they finally made it back to the camper at St. Louis RV Park (which I still think is a parking lot across from the police station.  This morning at 7am each police car tried out all their sirens before leaving the parking lot!)  Tomorrow we are off to the Lake of the Ozarks.  I hear we may stop at Midway Truck Stop (as seen on TV) on the way!





Our campsite



St. Louis Missouri

VW made to look like for Corvette for movie 
Death Star 2000

Corvette made for a 70s movie

 Day two of our trip finds us in St. Louis Missouri. The humans ate breakfast at the restaurant at the campground and then we all headed west towards Missouri.  Except for the construction on a lot of I-70, it as a pretty uneventful trip.  We stopped in Effingham Illinois.  I took a nice nap while Ron and Nancy checked out all the corvettes at the Mid-American Corvette museum.  We stopped at Culvers for lunch before getting  back on the road.  The traffic trying to get over the bridge on the Mississippi was stop and go for about six miles.  Construction caused the traffic to narrow down from six lanes to one.  The whole process looked just plain scary to me, so I just hid under the seat.

We finally made it to our stopping place.  I guess it is a campground, but maybe it is a parking lot.  It is right downtown St. Louis and is completely black-top.  No picnic tables, no kitty snacks, but plenty of campers.  We didn’t have any trouble knowing where to park.  The campsites are marked by lines on the pavement, just like a grocery store parking lot.  I can’t see where there is going to be much to see out the windows, so I guess I will just have to watch the lady bug that is walking around on our ceiling.  After we got set-up, the humans went to check out the area.  The drove by the arch, (which they are going back to tomorrow), walked around the train station and then set off to find a restaurant that was featured on “Diners, Drive-ins  and Dives.  They found it, but decided that is might be better to visit it in the daylight.

The internet here is not very good—so I don’t know when I will get this posted----hopefully soon.



Arch at St. Louis Missouri