Flint Hills/National Tallgrass Preserve, or "Yep, that's Kansas alright!"

We used one of the last halfway nice and sunny days to go on a little day trip! We went on the Flint Hills Scenic Byway, about two hours west from Kansas City, which stretches for about 50 miles north-south between Council Grove and Cassoday. I wanted to see some prairie and some open space, and that's exactly what I got. The area is one of the last undisturbed pieces of tallgrass prairie around. The Flint Hills aren't actually hills, though - more something like rolling bumps in an otherwise vast flatness.

Anyway, I guess the main season was over, since most of the little touristy shops, for example in quaint little Cottonwood Falls, were closed. We did manage to get a slice of the famed strawberry pie at the historic Hays House restaurant (from 1857 - the restaurant, not the pie) in Council Grove, and it was really tasty.

Other stops along the way included an impressive Renaissance style rancher's mansion (didn't get a good shot of that), a little old one-room schoolhouse with an abandoned swing set standing forlorn and somewhat creepily on a hill, and a couple of scenic overlooks. Everything was very brown and very windy. I kept saying something like "I'm sure this is REALLY nice in springtime", and hubby glared back at me. I would have liked a few more hiking trails, but I guess they want to keep people from trampling all over the place, and that's fine with me.