Kansas
Travel Blog
Chronicling
changes to KansasTravel.org and Keith's exploration
& photographing Kansas restaurants, attractions, museums, festivals
and art. Contact him.
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Tuesday
- November 3, 2020: Business took me to Gardner, Kansas at lunch time
and I decided to revisit Celebrity's Cheese Steaks, Burgers & More,
but when I went in to order, it turned out that not a single employee was
wearing a face mask.
So
I drove north to Go Chicken Go
in Olathe, which is part of a very popular Kansas City area fast food chick
chain. After picking up a half order of fried chicken gizzards and drove
to the municipal park at Cedar Lake to enjoy my meal outside. I really
love those gizzards with the hot "G sauce" and learned years ago that the
roll can be exchanged for a second service of the sauce.
After
lunch, I hiked to a spot below Cedar
Lake Falls for a few photos and video.
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Cedar Lake Falls |
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Thursday
- November 5, 2020: It had been a year since I last visited Smokey's
on the Blvd BBQ in Overland Park and for lunch I picked up a order
of their BBQ egg rolls. All of Smokey's food is good, the egg rolls are
a product I can get nowhere else. The egg rolls are filled with peppery
beef brisket burnt ends and vegetables, which are perfectly finished with
a mayo based sauce.
After
lunch I revisited the Overland
Park Arboretum. I hadn't been to this neat collection of gardens and
there were several new attractions. I was fascinated by the Train Garden,
with its model of downtown Overland Park.
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Train Garden |
Saturday
- November 7, 2020: we had decided to try out the newly opened Harley's
Hideaway Bar & Grill in Shawnee, Kansas, but when I called to place
and order on the way there, there was no answer. I double checked the hours
on their web site and confirmed there was no post about a change of hours
on their Facebook page, so we continued on. When we arrived at Harley's
Hideaway, it was locked up and a note that they would open late.
So
we tried another Shawnee restaurant, McLain's Market, which opened about
5 months ago. It is the 5th location for McLain's Bakery, which has been
in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri since 1945. Their newer
locations are all in Lawrence and Johnson County, Kansas.
Tables
were well spaced out and everyone was wearing masks, so we felt comfortable
dining in. Food is ordered and paid for at the counter and we had the smoked
turkey sandwich, chicken salad sandwich and loaded fries. Both sandwiches
were good, with the roasted red pepper spread on the turkey sandwich a
nice touch. The fries were particularly good with their cheese, chives
and bacon. Kind of a deep fried version of twice baked potato.
We
drove up to Kansas City, Kansas to visit the drive through Day of the Dead
Art Exhibit sponsored by the Central Avenue Betterment Association. It
was nice, ut we were surprised at how little there was. We anticipated
something that was a block or more long, but it was about 40'.
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McLain's Market
Día de los Muertos |
Sunday
- November 8, 2020: We revisited J. Gilberts, which is on our Overland
Park Restaurant Guide. It had been at least 3 years since we had last
dined there. I had confirmed the COVID precautions in advance and was pleased
by the careful spacing of the dinning area. Linda had the 4 ounce fillet
with shrimp, while I had the bone in cowboy cut rib eye. Both were good,
but not outstanding. They are a bit expensive.
My
favorite part of J. Gilberts was the atmosphere, though it was so dark
that
I got no good photos.
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Wednesday
- November 18, 2020: Our Kansas
City Christmas Display Tour, Lawrence
Christmas Display Tour and Topeka
Christmas Display Tour are already getting many visits and I made the
first pass od updating them based on information provided by some of the
people whose homes have been featured on the tours in previous years.
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Friday
- November 20, 2020: I'm off to southeast and south central Kansas,
with the first stop in Neodesha, where I photographed the exterior of the
Norman
#1 Museum and the overflow dam on the Fall River.
I
had lunch at Beef Burger Bob's. Beef
burgers are loose meat sandwiches, which originated at this restaurant
when it was in nearby Fredonia and was called The Iceberg.
I
got a small beef burger, made onion strings and cherry pie to go and ate
in the car. The onion rings, which appear to be just dredged in flour and
black pepper, which were greasy but yummy. This was the first time I was
there early enough in the day that they still had pie. It was fairly average,
but a treat to find in a restaurant like this.
This
Friday & Saturday is the annual open house and Outhouse
Tour in Elk Falls, Kansas and I try to get back to it every few years.
There were 21 decorated outhouses in the festival this year. There are
other activities such as arts & crafts and a free ham & bean feed.
My
next stop was Hubble's Rubble in Howard,
Kansas. The sculptures were created by Jerry Hubbell, a realtor and rancher.
Jerry has had no formal are training, but took welding lessons when he
began farming. Some of these folk art metal sculptures are more than 30
years old.
After
a brief pass through Howard and a few photos downtown, I visited the lonely
grave of Benjamin F. Hobbs, which is in a field along k-99, north of town.
He was the first teacher of Elk County and passed away at the age of 23,
in 1871. In 1933 teachers students in Elk County raised money to erect
a marker and a fence separating the grave from the land around it.
I
was back on the road, with the next stop in Beaumont, Kansas for some fresh
photos of the exterior of the 1879 Beaumont
Hotel. The hotel has its own airfield and airplanes taxi up the street
to the hotel. Across from the hotel is an 1885 Frisco water tower which
is believed to be the only wooden water tower still in use in the United
States. A new depot has been erected across the railroad tracks from the
water tower.
I
drove on to Wichita where I got supper at the drive through window at Broadway
Burgers & BBQ. The grilled cheeseburger and fries were good, but not
a candidate for our Kansas Best Burgers List.
After
a brief stop at the Keeper of the Plains
for photos, I went on to Botanica, where
Illuminations is taking place each night except Christmas, Christmas Eve,
Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Eve. Executive Director Marty Miller met
me and showed me all the details of the walk through and drive through
Christmas Lights.
Almost
10 acres of theme gardens have nearly 3,000,000 of the lights along a one
way route which allows visitors to be socially distanced while walking
about a mile indoors and outdoors. The drive through version of Botanica
Illuminations is a mile long route with nearly 1,000,000 lights. I also
had a chance to photograph the carousel from Wichita's Joyland amusement
park, which was restored and opened in 2019 with a new pneumatic organ,
the "Mini Monster."
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Beef Burger Bob's
"Let it Go" outhouse
Hubble's Rubble
new depot
Illuminations |
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Saturday
- November 21, 2020: It is a rainy morning and I had a leisurely start
to the morning, arriving at the Spice Merchant a little after it opened.
The Spice Merchant is in the old headquarters of the Mentholatum
Corporation and has a huge selection of spices, canned foods made exclusively
for them and custom coffee roasting. I purchased bulk spices and some rare
hot sauces.
I
drove on to the Nifty Nut House.
The 83 year old Nut House is known for making their own fudge, roasting
their own nuts, and selling several hundred products in bulk by the quarter
pound or more, as well as having the walls lined with favorites like Moon
Pies and candy cigarettes. I made more purchases here.
I
intended to try Bill's Charcoal Grill and was waiting when the restaurant
opened, but decided to try somewhere else after seeing that the staff was
not wearing masks.
After
a short search on my phone, I decided to try Tad's Carryout and was very
glad I did. Tad's is a year and a half old carry out only restaurant at
the location of the former House of Majestic Eating. The old "House of
Majestic Eating" sign is still up, as well as graffiti style signs for
Ted's on the front and side.
There
is a small area inside the front door for placing orders through a window.
The menu is short, but varied and I went with 6 fried chicken wings &
seasoned French fries for $9 and a $3 piece of fried catfish. The wings
were quite spicy and were complete wings, not thirds. The piece of catfish
was actually 2 fairly large pieces. Their coating was less spicy, but went
well with either hot sauce or the house special sauce.
The
rain had settled in to stay, so I cut my exploring short and headed home.
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Nifty Nut House mural
Tad's Carryout
Chicken wings |
Sunday
- November 22, 2020: We added a new page devoted to the Botanica
Illuminations walk through and drive through Christmas light displays
in Wichita.
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Wednesday
- November 25, 2020: I made my first drive, checking on Christmas light
displays in Lenexa and Shawnee, Kansas which have been on the Kansas
City Christmas Light Tour in previous years. I can't check new displays
in the daytime, because I can't get the pictures I would like, but can
see if the former displays are up or going up, and if they appear to have
changed.
The
one at the right is the Haskins Street Christmas Display, which is impressive
day or night and continues to grow each year.
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Haskins Street Christmas Display |
Friday
- November 27, 2020: Linda and I drove to Lawrence and Eudora to check
on all the displays which were on the 2019 Lawrence
Christmas Light Tour. There were a few new ones, but one was gone after
many years. I was pleased to discover that the Ranchero Drive Christmas
Display was back this year. We first discovered in in 2008, but it hasn't
been up every year when we checked, including last year.
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Ranchero Drive |
Saturday
- November 28, 2020: Linda and I drove to Topeka to check on Topeka
Christmas Light Displays which I could not verify in advance. Not all
were up completely, but we could check to see if the large displays were
at least started for 2020.
After
checking on several on the east side of Topeka, we picked up carry out
from Herman's Meats, which we first tried a couple of months ago. The popular
"chopped meat" sandwich, which combines 4 different meats, was not a hit
for me, but the chicken wings were good.
After
dark, we started checking more displays and found a couple of new ones
in the far northwest part of town. We also stopped at the Topeka
Zoo which has a new walk through "Zoo Lights" this year. There was
enough visible from outside that it is even worth checking out drive by.
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Zoo Lights |
Sunday
- November 29, 2020: Mary and Nicholas joined us to try out Wandering
Vine, which opened in the 113 year old Castle Caenen in Shawnee.
Kansas. The building has been remodeled with tall Plexiglas shields between
tables.
The
Sunday brunch menu has only 7 entrees and we tried chicken Caesar salad,
biscuits & chorizo gravy and steak & eggs.
The
biscuits and gravy was my favorite. The chorizo made a great gravy and
the castle made biscuits had good flavor and a lovely crispy outside.
The
Brown Butter Pear Cake was a big hit with all of us!
Despite
being open only 3 days, there were no opening jitters and excellent service.
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Wandering Vine
Steak and Eggs |
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