Flint Hills Adventure Route

[TripLeader]

Part 12 [Cottonwood Falls]

We drove into the town of Cottonwood Falls for dinner. But first we checked out the famous county courthouse and downtown.












Dinner that night was at the Grand Central Hotel.






It was a nice, classy place. Somehow they did not kick us out. We headed out after dinner to get back to the state lake.



We made our camp in the prime spot at the lake.

 

[TripLeader]

Part 13 [Homestead]

Bank accounts are red
Farmers are blue
If we go broke
So will you.

-Sign along U.S. Highway 56 in Kansas, between Conway and Windom, 1978


We broke camp the next morning in the chilly weather. Our first stop on day two was to be the old site of Homestead. The school still stood.



It was here we noticed the leak on the YJ.

 

[TripLeader]

Part 14 [Cedar Point]

The town, including the old mill, was a highlight of the trip.



Otherwise, the place was quickly heading toward becoming a ghost town.



'

 

[TripLeader]

Part 15 [Doctor W.B. Jones 1878]

Ad Astra Per Aspera (To the Stars through Difficulty)

-Kansas State Motto








The old house is a landmark.






"Doctor W.B. Jones 1878," reads the inscription above the upper window. The old story goes that he and his family moved out and headed to southeast Kansas three years later.



A bison ranch owned the pasture across the road.

 

[TripLeader]

Part 16 [Longhorns & the Art of Jeep Repair]

Kansas is not easily impressed. It has seen houses fly and cattle soar. When funnel clouds walk through the wheat, big hail falls behind. As the biggest stones melt, turtles and mice and fish and even men can be seen frozen inside. And Kansas is not surprised.

Henry York had seen things in Kansas, things he didn't think belonged in this world. Things that didn't. Kansas hadn't flinched.”

-N.D. Wilson, Dandelion Fire


Our Jeeps temporarily split ways. The YJ had been diagnosed with a leaking power steering reservoir. It needed attention. K. deviated off the route in search of fluid. He slipped off the route while we had close to a mile separation between us. We were out of cell phone coverage and beyond the distance our small radios could reach.

It wasn't hard to figure out what he was up to, as we had just previously been in discussion about auto parts stores in the area. But he had to book it sooner than later when the leak became worse.

I re-routed toward him, but I took the long way. It took me past these bovines.









We met back up in the town of Cassoday, after K. had found the closest place selling power steering fluid was an interstate highway service station only accessible from the Kansas Turnpike.

 

[TripLeader]

Part 17 [Teter Rock]

My husband was a farmer. But he could see beauty in the land. He could see the promise of the seed. Now he was no literary man, but he could almost make a poem out of a clod of dirt."

-Flosse Curtis, 1890-1983, Manhattan, Kansas


James Teter erected this rock along a highpoint in the 1870s or '80s. It's purpose was to guide pioneers to the Cottonwood River. The original rock was taken down for construction use in the nearby oil boom town of Teterville. The current rock was erected in the 1950s to recreate the original.