A Sea of Grass

After lunch and a tunnel tour in the wetlands area of Kansas we left on thursday early afternoon for another natural highlight: the Flint Hills. After a comfortable drive of about 2,5 hours we arrived to Cottonwood Falls, a hicktown with less than a 1000 people on the Flint HIlls National Scenic Byway. William Least Heat-Moon wrote a whole book, „Prairie Erth“, about Chase County and its people.

For some strange reason, we always return to this place - it’s already the third time that we are visiting: once only passing through, once for the Symphony in the Flint Hills - a wonderful openair event in the prairie in June - and now. Main attraction is the Chase County Courthouse, to be seen from far away (like in other Kansas towns the grain elevators) because of its tower, second important place is the Grand Central Hotel & Grill, a hidden gem in the prairie.

This historic hotel, opened in in 1884 and was reopened in 1995 by Suzan Barnes as a small, elegant hotel with a western flair, with ten guestrooms and a superb restaurant. Suzan greeted us when we arrived late afternoon and in beautiful sunshine we walked up and down the quaint main street, checked out the stores and the courthouse, and probably everybody in Cottonwood Falls knew that tourists are in town…



Met an interesting gentleman of german background and his wife in Prairie Past Times, a gathering place and artists’ communal store. He was working on fantastic indian armcuffs, in beadwork, because he performed indian dances in Wichita and designed all his outfit by himself. With Suzan, the owner of the hotel-restaurant, and her friend Kay we had a great dinner and good conversation. The restaurant is famous for its steaks and, of course, we couldn’t reject that.

((Sorry, guys, accidentially I deleted a couple of pics on my camera - actually some of the best ones, showing the buffalo. I need to restore them with a special program at home first. Will add it later here))

It’s been really cold for the first time on our trip on the next morning: 35 deg. F at 9 am, frost during the night. The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve is a patch of protected prairieland. Most of the 4 % of remaining tallgrass prairie in the U.S. is to be found in the Flint Hills. Usually the prairie is „on fire“ once each spring, to keep up with the natural cycle of renewal, formerly done by natural fires, nowadays by controlled ones. This year the prairie around the visitor center was already burned in fall, just recently, and it looked pretty dull and black on first view, but on second, first green sprouts could be noticed already. Until the cattle from all over the U.S. will arrive in May to graze here for three months to gain weight, there will be plenty of grass available.

We have been to the park twice, but a new feature is the bison herd they re-introduced and recently expanded to 58 heads. Eric, a park ranger, drove us up to the herd and with his (not too big) car we were standing in the middle of the herd, eye to eye with these huge, majestic animals. Boy, it was cold out there, on the prairie, a stiff north wind - we can imagine now how tough it must have been for the first settlers from Europe, used to trees and shelter, to make a living here.

Since Suzan and Kay had invited us for a tour of Kay’s ranch, which probably will soon become a destination for german travelers, we skipped our prearranged lunch and instead went for a backcountry prairie tour. Magnificent landscape, an old homestead and an incredible view. Hope they’ll soon be able to offer jeep tours and trail rides to visitors.

Left at about 2:30 pm for the 4-hour-drive to Tulsa. We deliberately took rural roads, mostly Hwy. 99, to explore some more of rural KS and arrived at the Ambassador Hotel in Tulsa at 6:30 pm, after having driven around 250 miles on this day. The hotel room we got - corner room top floor, nicely furnished and equipped –, reimbursed us for the long drive and we even didn’t leave the room anymore for dinner but just snacked on leftovers.