Prairie Thanksgiving and Goodbye to the Great Plains (Mile 4,335, Trail Mile 119.91)

Our prairie home in Cottonwood Falls was an amazing and quintessentially American place to spend our Thanksgiving. We were heading out to Indiana on Saturday, and we wanted to save a couple of days to explore the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, so we decided to have our feast on Wednesday evening instead of Thursday. Rachel put together an absolutely amazing and classic spread of Thanksgiving favorites: turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pecan pie. Everything was incredible!

Then, we headed out for the traditional post-turkey Thanksgiving walk.

Thanksgiving morning, we woke up to a sunny day with frost on the ground.

From there, it was off to the Preserve for some serious walking! 

I'll pause here for a word or two about the Preserve. When someone says "National Parks," Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve isn't normally the first place that springs to mind. It's an amazingly low-key park, which was only created in 1996, and, even then, with much controversy. Apparently the local ranching community didn't much care to have the federal government coming in to purchase large tracts of prairie land. This was probably part ideology and part concern over loss of tax revenue, but what folks did seem to agree on was that it made sense to protect one of the last and largest remaining tracts of tallgrass prairie that remain in the whole world. Ultimately, the locals and the feds agreed to a sort of public-private partnership, and Tallgrass Prairie was born! 

For my part, this has been a long-time bucket list park. Why, you may ask? I can't really say for sure. I once read an article about this place, largely focusing on how under the radar it was and, accordingly, how peaceful. From there, it just worked its way into my heart. And now, years later, we were finally there! And, sure enough, we had the Park nearly to ourselves - seeing only a couple of other folks on the trail all day.

The hidden gem of the park is its herd of bison! When you hit the trail, you are amply warned!

Nevertheless, nothing can prepare you for the amazing experience of being up close and personal (but not TOO close), with these majestic natives of the grasslands.

Maybe some family resemblance?

We stopped to say hello and then proceeded on our way. From there, it was a pleasant meander over the rolling hills. With a quick stop for lunch ...

And a few interesting side trips ...

And then it was back to the visitor center and time to head home. At just under 8 miles, this was our longest hike of the trip, and our legs felt it for sure! 

We came back the next day to check out the historic ranch. There wasn't much walking that day - we'd had our fill the day before - but we did get a chance to see some cool historical artifacts of the area's ranching past.

There was even a cool, historic schoolhouse just down the road.

That night we sat out on the back porch, watched the sun go down, and bid a fond farewell to Kansas. In unexpected ways, it had been one of the most impactful stops on our trip.

The next morning, we were up and out well before the sun rose, and the only sounds were the wind and the coyotes howling in the dark. It felt good to be on the road early, as we had a long day of driving ahead of us. Next stop: Indiana!

A couple of hours into the drive, Rachel noted that we would be passing through Saint Louis and asked if it would be worth stopping at Gateway Arch. Normally, on a long drive day like this we would have passed. We've been by a multitude of lesser Park Service units and didn't stop, but Gateway Arch had recently been promoted to full "National Park" status, so we figured it was the right thing to do. After all, there's no telling when we might be back to Missouri.

Sadly, our experience, if not the park itself, was a flop. We ended up having to go a fair way off the beaten path, losing hours of precious daylight. There are no parking facilities, so we circled the streets of Saint Louis for what felt like a half hour looking for a parking spot. Then, when we arrived, the Park itself - and even the indoor museum - were packed, with many folks not wearing masks. Amazingly, several of the park rangers had even foregone masks. This was the first time we'd seen this in the many parks we'd visited on this trip. On top of all that, we even found the rangers a bit cranky and unhelpful, which was, again, a real first - and an unpleasant one. We ended up having a quick picnic lunch in the park, followed by a few snapshots. Then it was back in the car feeling a little sad about the experience.

All of that said, we got ourselves another park checked off the list, so it wasn't a complete bust!

The rest of the evening was long and tiring, but eventually we arrived in Michigan City, Indiana, home to Indiana Dunes National Park.

More to follow on that next time!