Kansas Adventures, February; Part 2

So, this was our destination.
Rock Chalk, Jayhawk, Go KU!
Taking the scenic side tour on the Sante Fe trail made the usual 2 1/2 hour drive to Lawrence, where Al went to pharmacy school, 4 1/2 hours! But what fun it was!
(In the olden days, it would have taken 3 days or more probably!)

When we got to Lawrence, we had to see our old stomping grounds....

our first home as young marrieds in 1975 - Stouffer Place, the married student housing.



The roof used to be flat but they added dormers and a pitched roofline.

Get a load of our plastic orange sofa!! Some apartments had green ones.

We had lots of snow in '76. (see the flat roof?)

Next, we took a look-see at the townhouse (Pinetree Townhouses) where we lived when we had Josh. Elaine Schmidt from church had this apartment before we moved there. Sam was a baby here too.


We checked into our hotel - The Oread. We had read about it in the "Kansas!" magazine that my Aunt Millie got for us (we are getting our travel ideas from this wonderful quarterly magazine!)

My mom wanted to know why it was called "The Oread". So, here is a little research, mom.

"Mount Oread sits on the water divide between the Kansas and Wakarusa rivers. It was named after the Oread Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. The hill was originally called "Hogback Ridge" by many Lawrence residents until the Oread name was officially adopted in 1866.

For emigrants going westward by wagon train on the Oregon Trail, "The Hill", as Mount Oread is now commonly referred to by residents of Lawrence, was the next big topographical challenge after crossing the Wakarusa River near today's Haskell Indian Nations University.

According to the United States Geological Survey, Mount Oread is located approximately 1,037 feet (316 m) above sea level. By way of comparison, downtown Lawrence is about 846 feet (258 m) above sea level. Mount Oread is perhaps best known for being the staging area of William Quantrill's raid into Lawrence on August 21, 1863, during the American Civil War. Presently, the campus of the University of Kansas rests on Mount Oread."

This was the view of campus from our room at The Oread. The hotel is situated at the edge of campus in the Hancock Historic District (named after the American patriot John Hancock).

The football stadium is behind these houses.

Nice shower!

We read on-line that there weren't any coffee pots in the rooms. What??!! Most hotels have coffee makers in the rooms. Oh well, we ended up taking our Tassimo coffee maker with us and drank Starbucks coffee which is way better than hotel room coffee. They did have a coffee bar downstairs but who wants to have to get dressed and go downstairs to the lobby to get a cup of coffee in the morning??

I loved this chair in the room!

The one bad thing about the hotel was that we stayed there the night before a game so there were a lot of drunks out between 1:30 and 3:00 so we woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. There are noise machines in the room but we aren't used to those either. They are noisy!

We took a tour of campus that brought back lots of memories of the years we spent here.

I worked here - Strong Hall - for the chancellor of KU. That was pre-computer days. I worked on the mag card and it was really on edge technology of the day.

I LOVE downtown Lawrence! I wish Newton would adopt the way they do it, parking like this rather than parallel parking. I cannot do parallel parking! Their 4 lanes of traffic converge into 2 lanes at the downtown to make room for cars to park at an angle. And there is pedestrian walk-ways in the middle of the block. And access to parking lots in the back of the buildings at the middle of the block too.

The Bayleaf is still here after all these years! One of my favorite shops!

We went to the gallery on the 2nd floor of Signs of Life bookstore where Christy Veer has her photographs on display. We LOVED it Christy!!!

Allen even humored me by following me around one of my favorite antique stores!!

Of course you would find a Jayhawk there! By the way, in case you wonder, the cheer "Rock Chalk" is transposition of chalk rock, the name for limestone found on Mount Oread, site of the Lawrence campus.

What a fun trip back on memory lane!