Flint Hills with the grandkids

The week we had our grandchildren from Arkansas, we had planned adventures for each day.  On Sunday morning, we gave the grandchildren the "riddle" for the adventure for the day:

Today we begin with worship and praise,
Hearts are filled and hands we will raise,

Then off to a place, people few and far between,

but God's creation is wonderfully seen.

Ok.  So I'm not a poet....but it was fun to see the kids trying to figure it out!

We went to church in the morning.  It was so fun to introduce our grandchildren to friends!  These kids don't get to come to our church since they live out of  state and their dad is on staff at their church!   

After lunch, we hopped in Papa's truck and off we drove.  It took us about an hour to get where we were going.  We noticed friends, Todd and Tammy in a vehicle in front of us.  We followed them for most of that time along 1st street.  At the stop sign in Cassody, Al pulled up beside them and found out they were also doing some Flint Hill exploring!  They continued east on 1st street toward Teater Rock, while we were headed north before turning into the Flint Hills.

We love the Flint Hills!  This is a tallgrass prairie ecosystem in Kansas that is named for the abundant residual flint in the bedrock that lies near or at the surface.  Because of that flint, the ground is not usable for farming, but is excellent for cattle ranching!  

It is one of the largest tallgrass prairies left in the world!  The boundary of the Flint Hills extends nearly 200 miles from near the Nebraska border in the north down into Oklahoma in the south (where it is named Osage Hills).  At the widest, it is 80 miles across.

"He makes grass grow for the cattle."  Psalm 104:14

Cattle guards

We pulled aside at a stream and skipped rocks for awhile.

We drove over the turnpike.

Oh the stories, if only houses could talk.

We finished by driving in to the south side of Cottonwood Falls, population approximately 800.

We would have loved for the kids to have been able to go inside this old court house, see the small historic jail cell at the top, but it was closed, as it was Sunday.  We did peak inside to see the beautiful stairwell though.

Below is a map to sort of show where we went.  We took 1st street to Cassody (which is the dotted lines to the big dot to the left of Tetonville.  Drove north to Matfield Green, then turned east on gravel roads.  We followed roads that aren't necessarily marked on this map.  We went almost to Olpe then north to another country road just south of Highway 50, following it into Cottonwood Falls.)

When we got home, we had something to eat, then played badmiton.

We played Clue, a fun mystery game.  Since this was a week filled with mysterious places we would go, it seemed fitting.