A Sea of Grass

We decided to take a road trip of 200 plus miles to this place in hopes of finding Greater Prairie Chickens!!!


There once was 170 million acres of native grassland that stretched from Mexico to Canada, now only 4% remains mostly here in the Kansas Flint Hills.  The preserve is made up of 11,000 acres.  It is a joint effort between The Nature Conservancy and The National Park System.

This is the house that was built for Stephen Jones back in 1881.  He spent 19 million dollars and lived here only 5 1/2 years.  The barn is bigger than the house.

A highway for horses going up into the barn, unloading, and then exiting on this other side.  

In this picture, you can see there once was a windmill attached to the barn.


There is construction on a nice big visitor center to open later.

We took this trail up to the top of the ridge and the wind was soooo bad we did not see anything!!  No, no prairie chickens!!

The solid mahogany stairs was the best thing inside the house.  The best thing outside the house in the front yard was:  ta duh...........

Not a GREAT photo but....a life bird and at 736, they are getting harder and harder to find.  Harris's Sparrow!!!


Tomorrow, come with me while I show you where we are now.  It's a pretty place with exciting things to see!!!


Until next time....