Arkansas and back in 1 day

 I got home from Colorado Thursday evening, and on Friday, spent the day doing laundry and getting the bedrooms in the basement ready for the grandkids.  We decided to drive down early Saturday morning and return the same day! 

Their parents, our son and daughter-in-law, were doing a study tour in Israel.  Staci's parents watched the kids for the first half of the time and we were taking care of them the 2nd half.

We gave the kids a clue to what we would be doing each day.  

The clue for this day was:  

    Into the past we will go

    Where men did fight horribly so.

    There were soldiers and Indians in those days

    And going west was all the craze.

Leaving Fayetteville, we took a little road to Farmington, where we stopped to get some food to go.  We had to have DESSERT FIRST! so the ice-cream wouldn't melt all over the car!  We ate the burgers as we drove.

We kept up the suspence of where we were headed.  Lots of winding roads!

Very curvy!!!

The road often wound under a canopy of trees.  Just beautiful!

And here was our first destination for the day - Fort Gibson!

This fort was established in 1824 and active in keeping the peace between the Osage and Cherokee and also during the civil war.  It was the final point of the Trail of Tears.  You can read about the history of this fort here.  

 

This re-enactor tells about the mess hall and the food preparations.

We watched a film about the fort at this place.

Holding a cannon ball.  They come in all sizes.

This one seemed small but it was heavy.

We drove to the national cemetery.

You can the history of Talahina here.

You can read about this guy here.

The back road to Tulsa was not the best.  

The kids wanted to eat at the Cheesecake Factory.  When we got to Tulsa, we saw the blimp flying up in the sky.  Allen remarked that the PGA tour was taking place.  In fact, our friends Marc and Luke were there right under that blimp (they told us later).  

I heard that Tulsa had 35,000 visitors for the golf tournament and I think they were ALL at the Cheesecake Factory!!!  The wait to just check in was really long, maybe 20 min. to even get your name on the list!! and probably a 2 hour wait to eat!!   We couldn't, well, we wouldn't do that.  I looked on my phone and found this Italian place in Sand Springs, on the west side of Tulsa.

It was incredible!!  Run by a family from Albania and such good food!!!

It isn't far off 412 either.  You can see the elevated highway in this picture.  

We knew we would be back!  A hidden gem!!

Al pulled us off the road at Keystone Dam.

The birds and the fishermen knew where the good fish were!

Back on the road to Nana and Papa's house.

Looking forward to the days with the kids!

Home by way of Dorrance, Wilson, Mushroom State Park and Coronado Heights

After good-byes to my daughter and granddaughter, I drove to pick up my friend Ruth.  We headed home towards Kansas.  Wait a minute, looks like we were headed west to the mountains!!  Wouldn't mind a trip to the mountains!  But Kansas is east.

So I turned around and took Airline Road east.  Wanting to go on a road I'd never been on before, we went south on the Kiowa-Bennett Road all the way to 86.

We could barely make out Pike's Peak.  I really enjoyed this road!  I will definitely plan to bring Allen this way next time we go to Denver!

We drove south to 86 and then west to I-70, north of Limon.

We were ready for a rest stop.  We saw a sign on the highway for a coffee shop in Limon that I'd never noticed before.

It is called Ahimsa Coffee and is on 6th St. just down the way from Taco Bell.  I think it is a Christian establishment.  Good coffee!  The barista knew our "long ago" friends, Ryan and Lindsey, who used to live in Newton, but have moved to a ranch close by!

At Goodland, we were ready for lunch.  We stopped at a Steak and Shake.  I have never eaten at one before.  It looks like a fast food place, but they actually seat you and take your order at the table.  Pretty good food!  We ordered kid size shakes!  Oh yum!!

The next "new" road I thought we could adventure on was to get off I-70 and drive into Dorrance on Old U.S. 40.

This old bank building, Dorrance Bankery, is a bakery now, and a museum, I think.  It was closed, unfortunately!

The safe in front of the place says "Free Dough".

Cute town!

The next town we came to was Wilson.  It promotes itself as the "Czech Capital of Kansas" because of the many Czech immigrant settlers here in its early history.

Simple Haven B&B

That looks like a fun place to stay!

Below is the Wilson Chamber of Commerce

The world's largest Czech egg

We continued on 40 past Ellsworth.

We took a dirt road to Mushroom Rock State Park.

Look how this tree grows right through the rock!

On to Coronado Heights.

Supposedly, the Spanish explorer, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado visited this area in 1541, looking for the Native American community of Quivira, where he was told that "trees hung with golden bells and ...pots and pans were beaten gold."

Ruth had not been to Coronado, nor had she been to the Swedish community of Lindsborg.  We didn't have time to stop or shop (it was past shop hours anyway), so we will have to have this adventure on another day.

A great travel day!  The normal 7 hour trip was done in 12.