Adventures from "out there"

 

Original Boot Hill site

Long Branch Saloon bar

Front Street restoration

The morning drive out of Wichita arrived with a splendid Belt of Venus covering the entire western horizon. Only western Kansas stood between me and home. It’s a different Kansas, one with familiar names and unfamiliar places worth stopping. 

You might know it as “A lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there.’ In Cold Blood contains one of the best first lines in American literature, Truman Capote gives apt description to Southwest Kansas. 

Appropriately Capote says lonesome, not lonely. I find the area full, even if it marks the point where the Gulf of Mexico’s influence stops and the dry West begins. I can count off the distances between towns, some little more than municipal buildings and a grain bin. 

The road crosses a town when you need one- Kingman, Pratt, Haviland, Greensburg, and Mullinville, where U.S. routes 400 and 54 split. The column of traffic goes left, I go right toward Fort Dodge, then Dodge City. No one returns to Colorado this way. It’s slower and passes through numerous towns, but it beats Interstate 70 any day. Fort Dodge was the first western settlement in Kansas territory. Upon closure in 1890, it became the Kansas Soldiers’ Home, which still operates today. 

A few miles up, Dodge City conjures visions of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and more, marshals, vigilantes and criminals engaged in shootouts. The rowdy cattle trail town is still a cattle town full of feed lots and meat packing facilities. The smell was tempered that morning. 

Despite its big name, Dodge City had a short prime on the cattle trails. When it became the focus of westerns in film and television, the town decided to rebuild the old Front Street as a tourist attraction, which it remains today as the Boot Hill Museum. 

I passed it before, stopped in the parking lot on a snowy morning. But today I could not skip it. The tour runs through a thorough museum about the area that spawned Dodge City. Videos with reenactors tell the story Dodge City’s rough stature. 

 In summer the recreated Front Street includes reenactors and a noon gunfight. Winter is quieter, but the solitude gave me time to explore. Front Street isn’t just a façade. All the businesses inside are recreated to give a glimpse of everyday living in a frontier boomtown. This includes the drugstore, dry goods, the bank, barbershop, and more. Each went into detail about how these businesses operated in the 1870s. 

I stopped at the Long Branch Saloon, where a few young women in costume tended bar. You can order a beer or whiskey made locally, but at 10 a.m., I opted for a sarsaparilla. Dodge City is a stop in National Lampoon’s Vacation (not actually filmed in Dodge City, but on the studio backlot). Clark Griswold throws insults at the bartender until he shoots him with an air gun. The friendly young bartenders made it simple to avoid yelling “Hey underpants!” to get a soda. 

Original Long Branch items. 

The reconstructed bar also includes items that survived the fire that destroyed the original Long Branch, including the safe, a chandelier, and a clock that was out for repair when the fire struck. 

Above Front Street lies the Cowboy Capitol Building, which charts Dodge City in media and houses the Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame, while also depicting the Mexican village that sat inside Dodge City until the 1950s. 

The museum then leads outside to the location of the original Boot Hill, Dodge City’s original cemetery. The cemetery only lasted a few years before its bodies were reinterred in a newer city cemetery, but the name Boot Hill has endured as a western cemetery whose inhabitants died wearing their boots. The east end of the Front Street exhibit includes several original Dodge City structures – the blacksmith shop, the church, and the Hardesty House. 

If I went through too fast, I had to think about the road. I was pushing odds of reaching home by dark. The eventually crossing into Mountain Time bought me an extra hour. 

Still, I can’t quit Garden City and the city-owned Lee Richardson Zoo, one of the best free zoos anywhere. I end up there once a year, and usually miss a lot of the animals, especially those not used to cold temperatures. 

Burrowing owl. 

Sloth bear. 

 I usually miss the Finney County Museum by visiting on weekends and holidays, but today it was open and a good spot to warm up from zoo wanderings. I revisited the exhibit about the Clutter family murders.

 

This time I focused on an display about Buffalo Jones, one of Garden City’s founders who became the first game warden at Yellowstone National Park and an inspiration for western author Zane Grey. Jones donated the land for the Finney County Courtohuse and Garden City’s commercial block. 

Jones famously turned from bison hunter to conservationist, at one time owning the largest private bison herd in the country. Later Jones helped replenish the Yellowstone herd as a game warden appointed by his friend, President Theodore Roosevelt. 

Although it was a short history, settlement of the American West sometimes feels like an inexhaustible well, from Native tribes to Coronado’s quest to the homesteaders that ended the frontier. 

After a quick lunch I wandered into the mostly empty zoo. Even with the sun, temperatures in the 30s kept visitors away. Something always presents itself at this zoo. Around the time I was there, a rare addax was born off exhibit. The lions lied prone in a sunny patch. As soon as I walked away, I heard one of the males start roaring, as if he teased me for not holding on. One of the sloth bears was pretty active, as were the jaguars and mountain lions. Even in captivity, I always enjoy the sight of a burrowing owl. 

I took a long break with the red-ruffed lemurs. Critical endangered in the wild due to habitat loss (all lemur species are native only to Madagascar), these guys have been prolific. After welcoming a baby red-ruffed lemur in 2021 and twins in 2022, the LRZ had a rare birth in spring 2025 – red-ruffed lemur triplets. All three survived, boosting the zoo’s red-ruffed lemur troop to nine. At this point I couldn’t tell the adults from the children, although the triplets might have stayed indoors. Those that grazed outside were energetic. 

There’s something about lemurs – they look so foreign yet familiar. They are primates but not monkeys or apes, descended from a common ancestor much further back in the mammalian lineage. They come from one place on Earth, but have incredible diversity of species (more than 100 still living, but almost all are threatened or worse). I often watch the ring-tailed lemurs at the Pueblo Zoo, who have access to an island in summer. They play, groom, and lounge. On clear days they sit in old man poses and let the sun warm their bellies. 

The red-ruffed lemurs feel stranger, with green eyes contrasting with black heads and red fur that covers the rest of their bodies. There might be as few as 1,000 left in the wild, as they only live in northeastern Madagascar. 

Endangered lemurs have a fighting chance in southwestern Kansas. That’s both unexpected and heartening. 

Red-ruffed lemurs in their yard. 

 

Thoughts like that help pass the time across the last hour of Kansas before the Cousin Eddie mural in Coolidge and the effortless drive across the Colorado Plains toward home. Only the land can tie all these disparate things together. 

Around Wichita

Keeper of the Plains facing downtown Wichita

The Sedgwick County Zoo's growing herd

 

 The fog fooled me. I expected the morning similar to the previous one, where rain and clouds dominated. But as I drove east toward the undeveloped land around the Sedgwick County Zoo, I realized that I only saw morning river fog. By the time I hit the zoo campus, the clouds moved off. 

I have written of this expansive zoo before. This time I’ll focus mainly on its star attraction in 2025. SCZ had an unprecedented elephant baby boom in 2025, with four calves joining its seven adults (Sadly a fifth elephant was stillborn). The herd only comes out on warm winter days. Despite the blustery wind, we had clear skies and mid-50s. The full herd grazed and roamed their massive outdoor yard. 

In the shadow of their mothers, the calves could prove hard to spot despite all weighing in excess of 500 pounds already. The herd formed when the zoo took in six elephants from Swaziland in 2016 (one male from the group has moved to a different zoo). The herd stands at six females, one male, and the four calves (two boys and two girls). African elephant gestation averages 22 months, so there was plenty of prep time for the arrivals. Kijani and Bomani, the two male calves, were born four days apart.

The good grasses go fast. 

 

The little trunk almost reaches.

For the better part of an hour, I watched them in the yard, the little ones trying to mimic their mothers behaviors, such as eating grasses beyond the exhibit barrier. The baby trunks were not long enough to pull in grass, but occasionally a tiny trunk swung up on the concrete to look around.  

This trip wasn’t all animals though. Early in my trip, I had to stop at the Innovation campus of Wichita State University. Among all the new mid-rise buildings stood a modest brick building that provided innovation back in 1958 – it once housed the first Pizza Hut. 

If Wichita reminded me of Columbus for its Midwest character, there were other ties. The first White Castle opened in Wichita in 1921; the company known for its tiny burgers is now headquartered in Columbus. 

While the building has been moved several times, the outside appearance resembles how it would have looked when pizza was still a novelty in the U.S., long before this particular brand became ubiquitous internationally. An old-school Pepsi sign hangs above the door, and small museum lies inside. Despite hours listed as 9-5 Monday to Friday, the original Hut was locked up. I felt foolish peering in the windows at displays I could barely see and decided to get out of the rain. 

I had seen the Keeper of the Plains from a distance on a blazing June day and in the pouring rain the day before. But with the weather balmy, I had to explore it up close. Crafted by Native artist Blackbear Boursin for the bicentennial, the 44-foot weathered steel sculpture stands on a 30-foot rock base at the confluence of the Little Arkansas and Arkansas rivers. Pedestrian bridges across both rivers take visitors to the Keeper’s point. Exhibits explain the role of the Plains Indians in the region. Native music and stories play during the day. There might be higher structures in Wichita, but none stand taller than the Keeper. 

Keep from the base.

Keeper and its bridges. 

Wichita has a healthy brewing industry, and I sampled the wares of several. Most area breweries were closed Monday and Tuesday or sat too far outside central Wichita. I had a single pour at River City, a brewpub in Old Town. The beers were fine and the whole restaurant was heavily decorated for Christmas; the bartender told me they closed for a day to set it all up. Tor Brewing disappointed me; despite a soaring taproom next to the downtown arena, they had no beers of their own on tap. I had a smoked porter and moved on. 

On Douglas Avenue. a brick clock tower in a traffic circle welcomes visitors to Delano, a neighborhood on the Arkansas River’s west bank. Briefly a separate cattle town in the 1870s, Delano joined Wichita in 1881 and has undergone numerous economic turns. On a rainy Monday, the study brick blocks seemed surprisingly active. For lunch I stopped at the Wichita Brewing Company’s restaurant. They had a decent lunch menu and some solid West Coast IPAs. To WBC’s credit, it also continues to brew beers from an shuttered Kansas brewery. Tallgrass Brewing from Manhattan was once Kansas’ best-known craft brewery before closing in 2018. WBC revived it as a brand, bringing back several beers including 8-Bit Pale Ale and my personal favorite, Songbird Saison. 

Down the block was Spektrum Records. Set in an old house, Spektrum was my kind of record store, with a good selection of used vinyl and reasonably priced new releases. The clerk was excited that I picked the Sleater-Kinney LP she placed in the Staff Picks box (The Hot Rock). I have been on a Sleater-Kinney kick lately, so I was excited too. Craving an afternoon pick-me-up, I stopped at Reverie Coffee Roasters on Douglas Avenue. The coffee went down easily and I read a few pages from my book. At the edge of Old Town, The Record Ship was in a little strip center. The vinyl selection was solid, but nothing jumped out at me. A few records came close, although I picked up some used Tori Amos CDs. 

Tuesday afternoon, I stopped for a view of Wichikitty, the 25-foot mural with an emblem of the city flag on its right eye. For someone who looks down on the people who spend hours in line for selfies with a pair of angel wings in Nashville, I had no qualms about Wichikitty. But I had a hard time finding parking. I stopped in an auto repair shop's visitor spots, jumped out of the car, took a few quick windy pictures, and took off. 

Then I headed a few blocks over to Hopping Gnome Brewing, which I visited on a one-night stop several Decembers ago. I sat alone on the patio with their tasty saison, a beer I enjoyed tasting again. 

The second brewing on that December trip, Central Standard, ended up the only place I stopped twice. I found the staff friendly, the patrons agreeable, and the beer quite tasty. I had a pair of drafts each night, and While I hoped for a few more of their mixed-culture sour beers, I was pleased with their everyday brews. 

I had a whole list of museums and other spots I could have checked out. But feeling close to a regular a good brewery for a night or two rounded out the stay nicely. 

I had to see Wichikitty.

The wildlife of Wichita

 

South of the Smoky Hills, you can’t expect mountains. But the wild spaces still exist, even if they take different forms. 

I awoke to steady rain on my second day in Kansas and immediately headed south to Wichita. The city of 400,000 people  tucked away some special wild areas. 

The Great Plains Nature Center provides an introduction to creatures of the plains, but it anchors a massive, restored wetlands area in northeastern Wichita. 

A series of trails and boardwalks surround Chisholm Creek, named for Jesse Chisholm, the Scotch-Cherokee tracker who would plot out what would become the Chisholm Trail, the route of numerous cattle drives from the San Antonio to Abilene, Kansas, where they were shipped by railcar. Wichita was along the route. 

Despite the rain, I didn’t have to wait long for a wildlife encounter. I peeked into the creek at some sloshing and heard a massive plunk, which I expected came from a fish. 

Then a little head poked above the water. At first I thought it was a river otter with grizzled fur suited to the wetlands. Then I saw how small it was -maybe a quarter the size of an adult otter - and its rat-like tail. I figured I spotted a nutria, a nasty invasive river rodent with the worst tendencies of beavers and rats. 

Wandering about the nature center later, I discovered the little diver was not invasive, but a native muskrat, a good rodent for wetland development. Nutria have not reach south-central Kansas yet, so we can confirm a muskrat swam past me. 

 Beyond birds, that ended the sightings on this rainy morning. There was no shortage of bird chatter. The landscape often shifted quickly from creek and wetlands to prairie or even a heavily forested section along the park’s edge. The creek wound through a series of fields where deer and bison would have not felt out of place. But the prairie restorations succeeded in restoring a ploughed-under ecosystem, even if they cannot recreate it plant-for-plant. 

Birdsong outshined the rain for the first hour, but eventually the rain grew too heavy for them and for me. I returned in time to visit the Great Plains Visitor Center. Inside the center had little enclosures, including a screech owl and a kestrel. Multiple reptiles and amphibians had space as well, with one turtle buried up to its neck in preparation for the colder months. The building includes a large glass blind that looks out onto the wetlands, although nothing wandered this way as the rain grew to a downpour.  

The nature center was only half the act. In Wichita’s Central Riverside Park on the Little Arkansas north of its confluence with the Arkansas River lies the Kansas Wildlife Exhibit, a small collection of native Kansas animals also administered by the Great Plains Nature Center. 

Pond turtles.

The exhibit lies on the site of Wichita’s original zoo, replaced by the Sedgwick County Zoo in the late 1960s. 

The wildlife exhibit's educational purpose might be more important today. The animals have either suffered injuries or have become imprinted and comfortable with humans. 

The two spots have a synergy – one trying to restore a prairie and wetlands that thrived before development, another giving a glimpse at the wild things that still roam Kansas. 

At twelve noon everyday the keepers feed the KWE animals and give an amazing tutorial of the animals, how they provide enrichment, and more. About a dozen people congregated on this rainy Monday. The keepers couldn’t have been nice and detailed the personalities of the exhibit’s residents. 

Chapa the beaver, who at his weight seemed closer to a capybara. Many animals pack on pounds before winter, although Chapa had a taste for sweet potatoes. Chapa escaped once but was easily recaptured once he realized what wild beavers must endure, the keepers said. 

Rufus the bobcat paced his cage purposely. These were not the movements of a stressed animal, but a cat that knew feeding time neared because his keepers entered the exhibit. 

Rufus received multiple meats, including pieces of chicken hidden around his enclosure, and a special prize, a dead white rat in an Amazon box. He found every bite. The keeper stayed a good eight feet away from Rufus the whole time and mentioned that he would get growly if she got closer. With wild cats, comfort with humans is relative. 

Both Chapa and Rufus had indoor dens hidden under their exhibits, while animals such as Chuck go inside on colder nights. Chuck the vulture is more than 30 years old and remains quite the character. A few days after my visit, his keepers put him on a glove and walked him over to the Keeper of the Plains statue on the river. 

The enclosures included a golden eagle, several opossums that unsurprisingly showed no signs of stirring, birds that included a night heron, ducks, and quite a few turtles.  

Chuck the vulture

The weather stayed warm enough that turtles moved through the small ponds in the exhibit. One keeper told me she walks carefully the colder months because the turtles will burrow into the grass and dirt. The aquatic turtles stay underwater. 

A little stone building adjacent to the outdoor exhibits houses many of the Kansas Wildlife Exhibit’s other reptiles and invertebrates, including numerous nonvenomous snakes, a tarantula, and more. A keeper brought out some of the calmer snakes for people to touch. 

The rain turned heavy at times. But it never inhibited exploring wildlife at different ends of Wichita. 

Staying under till spring.

Swedes and conquistadors in central Kansas

 

Views from Coronado Heights

Despite trying to get off Interstate 70 in Kansas, the travel apps showed little regard for paved roads. 

The maps continuously tried to route me down every muddy road in the Smoky Hills. I wasn’t willing to test whether I could save four minutes or waste hours getting towed back to pavement. 

I might have stopped at Kanopolis State Park, with its ample reservoir and cliffs rising above the Smoky Hill River. I couldn’t hit Mushroom Rocks State Park either. I stopped for a few minutes at the Czech town of Wilson but most places were closed. I had visited Wilson before, but the Swedish town of Lindsborg would be new to me. Somehow I beat the clock in reaching Lindsborg. 

While Wilson has a few Czech flourishes (the world’s largest Czech-style egg, for one), Lindsborg has doubled down successfully on its Little Sweden USA nickname. 

Main Street Lindsborg

While a pretty small town (less than 4,000 residents), Lindsborg firmly embraces its Swedish heritage. Numerous tourist shops sell Swedish goods; even the local grocery store has an end-cap of imported Swedish candies and chocolates. Bethany College is among Kansas’ oldest colleges (founded 1881). 

Beyond the college came lively Main Street, which is not the typical Main Street found across the Great Plains. Buildings are painted in vivid colors, including the town hall. 

A number of coffeehouses lie along Main Street, including Blacksmith Coffee Shop & Roastery, which restored an 1870s blacksmith shop, one of the town’s oldest buildings. Dala horses pinted by dozens of area artists stand along Main Street. Many families have them in their front yards, with some residents also posting signs noting their Swedish surnames. 

There were only a few restaurants with Swedish cuisine, and the drive started early enough for one. Crown and Rye only serves brunch on Sundays. As much as I hate going to a restaurant right before closing, I went for it. I even asked the hostess if it was okay; she checked with the kitchen staff and said go ahead. Little Sweden or not, I was back in realm of the Midwest friendliness. 

Worth the 6 a.m. departure.

 I couldn't decided between Swedish pancakes with lingonberry reduction and Swedish meatballs with noodles and cream sauce, and . Too much food for one meal, but the waitress noted that both reheat well. I agreed, eating some of both, then getting a dinner and breakfast from the leftovers. I was back on the street by closing time. 

Many local attractions close on Sunday, including the Old Mill and Swedish History Museum, which includes the 1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion, which was relocated from the fairgrounds in St. Louis. I stopped for a drink at Ole Stuga (Swedish for ale house), one of the few bars and had a pale ale that a Dodge City brewery crafted solely for the bar. The bar staff was friendly as everyone else in the place focused exclusively on the Kanas City Chiefs game. 

 Lindsborg sits adjacent the historic footnote much older than the 1860s-1870s homesteading era. The Smoky Hills run northwest of town, and a stone castle tops the tallest. 

The mesa known as Coronado Heights is the likely endpoint of the Spanish conquistadors first expedition deep into the Great Plains. Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, driven by stories of the Cities of Cibola (now referred to as the Seven Cities of Gold), mounted his 1541 expedition that extended out of Mexico and into Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. 

By Kansas, Coronado had sent much of his expedition home, reducing his forces to a scouting party that mostly encounter thatch-hut farming communities until he reached one called Quivira, which was likely in the Smoky Hill Valley. No one knows for sure if he stood on this mesa, but the story bears some logic. 

A man waiting for his granddaughter to run through the castle told me the local story. With the mesa’s 360-degree views of the plains, this was the hill to climb if you wanted to survey the horizon for cities of gold. Seeing none, Coronado headed back to Mexico, his expedition a failure, . 

I originally wanted to wait until morning, but the thin clouds at golden hour allowed the landscape some unique light. Once I saw the castle from Lindsborg, choice no longer played a role. 

The stone castle came to Coronado Heights during the Great Depression as a Works Progress Administration. Many decades ago, I saw the castle and Coronado Heights in a Readers Digest travel book that later became a personal travel bible. It changed my perception of what Kansas could look like. 

Standing atop Coronado Heights and enjoying some late-day solitude deepened my feeling for the Sunflower State. A few hours after the wonderful golden hour atop Coronado Heights, a rainstorm rolled in and parked above central Kansas for the next 24 hours. 

Whether or not Coronado once overlooked the same verdant country, the views from the mesa brought fresh perspectives on Kansas.

More from Coronado Heights.

Off the pavement at Shelby Bottoms

 During my excursion to visit Meg in October, she needed to get out for a long run. 

Fortunately, she planned to run 8 miles at Shelby Bottoms, the nearly 1,000-acre park along the Cumberland River in East Nashville. There I could occupy myself just fine. 

I once ran at Shelby Bottoms, whether organized races (including one of Nashville’s few 15Ks) or just runs back when I still enjoyed that. Former Congressman Jim Cooper used to run there, and I always pretendedI didn't know who he was.You might see random friends on that trail enjoying the weather. 

I also remember wandering the unpaved trails of the park, where few people roamed. Once I saw a black snake that topped six feet, likely a water snake or a racer. At one point, trees grew through the rusted body of an abandoned car. Shelby Bottoms' unpaved trails can get quity muddy, but remain a great place for solitude just a short distance off heavily trafficked paved trail. 

As soon as I could leave the pavement, I did. Daylight fought to emerge from the Cumberland River fog. We rarely have fog in Colorado, but it was a rare welcome sight in Nashville. I crossed that fog-drenched river every weekday for work. 

Up the trail, a group of bird watched posted up in a little patch of trees but had not seen any interesting birds yet. When I passed them, I was alone with the sunrise. 

If you don’t like spiderwebs, never try to be a trail’s first visitor in the morning. I ran into more than expected. The heavy dew-soaked others, turning them into impermanent art along the trail. I ran into a few obstacles – the boardwalk along the unpaved routes had flooded and no repair was imminent. 

Instead I followed a neighborhood access trail and briefly ended on a quiet city street. I reentered the park a few blocks away at a different access trail. 

As I looped back into Shelby Bottoms, I noticed a little path through the woods. Was access closed? I had no one to ask so I went anyway. 

The unmarked stone trail took me along several decaying balconies and places where I needed to watch my feet. But soon enough, the trail rewarded me with a close encounter with a young white-tail buck. He grazed and I watched him for a few minutes before he escaped down the hill where I could not follow. 

Deer in Shelby Bottoms was mostly unremarkable. Several grazed in the grassy areas near Sevier Lake, which was thick with fishermen. But the image of the young buck stayed with me. From here I wandered the pavement again, mindful of the platoons of runners that owned Saturdays at Shelby Bottoms. 

By the time I joined up with Meg for head to breakfast, the park was a hive of activity, and the view that defined my morning were long past. 

As often as I rip Nashville for what it has become, the return to Shelby Bottoms felt alright.