I had lunch at Mr. Wingz in Overland Park, which has been open a couple of months. They previously were a carryout only restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri. The new location is in a store front in the Cherokee Hills Shopping Center at 95th Street and Antioch.

There is no one at the counter where you order, just two touch screens where you place your order and pay by credit card. They worked easier then some such screens and are probably fine for people who have dined here several times, but they aren't nearly as good as a person when you are unfamiliar with the restaurant.

I ordered 8 wings, selecting Buffalo and Nashville hot sauce. Dipping sauces like ranch or blue cheese were another 85 cents, so I went without. They have bottled sodas instead of fountain, including three Coke products, but they didn't have Diet Coke. I normally get Diet Coke for the flavor as much as for the reduced calories, so with it being unavailable, I shot the works and went with a chocolate shake.

Food took about 15 minutes to come out. The shake wasn't bad and the salty, lightly seasoned fries were pretty good. The wings were reasonably large and a bit tough. The flavors were all right and mildly spicy, but nothing to recommend them over wings elsewhere.

This morning I went to western Lenexa to video and photograph the unique dam and spillway at 35 acre Lake Lenexa in Black Hoof Park. The area is in a drought and only a trickle of water is coming down the spillway, but the spillway is still a beautiful art installation and there is a fountain adding a little water which is moving through the impressive structure.

We had supper at Toni's Italian Restaurant in Olathe, Kansas. Is is on Santa Fe, just east of I-35 in a building which has housed at least three other restaurants and opened in 2018. It has been over four years since I last dined here and it was nice to see that little has changed to the menu and food.

We ordered Chicken Parmigiana and Chicken Caesar Salad. While they were being prepared, our server brought out a basket of wonderful garlic bread knots and olive oil, balsamic vinegar, seasonings, and shallots. The bread was soft and warm. My memories of the oil were even better, but the dipping oil was still very good. These two items are among the most popular at Tony's, and the server brought out more of each when she brought out the entrees.

We both liked our entrees and were impressed with the amount of chicken included with each. We both left with more than enough for a second meal, The server even gave us more oil to take along with the bread.

garlic bread knots

Chicken Caesar Salad

We had supper at Bigg's BBQ in Lawrence, Kansas. It has been several years since we have dined here.

We were impressed with the large selection of side dishes, the prices and the large servings. The chicken and baby back ribs tasted good, but not like they had been smoked in a pit BBQ. The tasted and looked like they were cooked in an oven. The house fries were good and I liked putting the Carolina Vinegar sauce on them. The garlic spinach and baked apples were also good. The Grilled corn had neither the appearance or flavor that I would expect from grilling.

Bigg's BBQ

For lunch I made a special trip to the Armourdale neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas to try Quickies Burger & Fries. This walkup and drive through restaurant opened in 2021 in a location which had sat vacant since Eaton's closed in about 2004.

There is a small space to wait for your order with two benches and that space and the counter are perfectly clean. The women staffing the counter were friendly and funny. There is a bell behind the counter which they ring while cheering when someone purchases their 12 combo and earns the next one free.

I ordered a pork tenderloin, onion rings and a root beer float. The tenderloin had been pounded thin enough that it cooked quickly and the food came out in about 6 minutes. The onion rings were properly cooked and I enjoyed them and the tenderloin.

For me, the star of the meal was the root beer float. It is served in a 16 ounce cup which was nearly full of good ice cream. The 20 ounce bottle of Mug Root Beer came with it and there was so much ice cream that I added root beer to it several times while I had it. It was more like a 30 ounce float in total.

There is no inside seating, but there are 4 tables on the grass at the edge of the parking lot.

Pork tenderloin

Root beer float

I ordered the $18.50 burntends (their spelling) dinner which came with two sides, selecting French fries and Frankies Taters. The burnt ends were just what I like - tender, with a lot of flavor from the rub and with a nice level of fat marbling. If I get them again, I will order them without sauce.

The crinkle cut fries were cooked the way I love, golden and crispy. I was also delighted with Frankies Taters, which are like scalloped potatoes topped with a layer of corn flakes which add to the flavor and provide crunch.

During the meal, the woman who comes from the kitchen to take orders at the counter, came out to the next table with a little girl who sang Happy Birthday to one of the diners. Later, they came out again and went to each table asking people how their meals were.

Burnt Ends

I also did an update of the 2006 page devoted to St. Boniface Catholic Church in Scipio, Kansas (north of Garnett). The church had major renovations in 2022.

The first one was Faith's Spooktacular Grounds at 16497 West 132nd Court. This display was created by the people who acquired the Christmas displays which used to be called Paulie's Penguin Playground and was a few blocks away. It is mostly inflated items. They have a buggy for a photo opportunity, have candy and beverages sitting out and encourage donations for a woman battling Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The immediate neighbors have a much smaller, but attractive skeleton display.

The second display was several miles south at 17211 South Allman Road. It is called Spooky Street and has many fixed items, including 12' tall skeletons which have been creatively costumed. The front of the garage is covered with large black spiders and there is a hearse pulled by a horse skeleton.

Spooky Street

The parking at Union Station was awkward and not as handy to get in to, so I parked across the tracks in the freight house restaurant parking and crossed on the pedestrian bridge over the tracks with many other people. The blew the train's steam whistle as I walked up.

Since I was already in Missouri, I drove on up to North Kansas City to check out a two year old restaurant, 
F325 BBQ for our Kansas City BBQ Restaurant Guide. It is uninteresting outside, but attractive and welcoming inside. They have table service and cloth napkins. It is nice to have metal utensils instead of the flimsy plastic which some use.

It isn't cheap. A rib plate with brisket, burnt ends and two sides is $28.50. On the other hand, I left with more than half of the meat and most of the beans.

My favorite meat was the burnt ends, which were very flavorful! The beans had an equally strong flavor, though rather salty. The ribs were good as well and needed no sauce. The slices of brisket were a bit hit and miss. I wish the generous serving of steak fries had been more crispy. I like the smallest of the fires the most.

There are two sauces, regular and spicy. The prevailing flavor of the vinegar based sauces was black pepper. I preferred the spicy, which had the least black pepper, but only used it for the fries. The meat needed no sauce and I thought he ribs and burnt ends were better without.

F325 BBQ

Rib Plate

This afternoon we drove to Arrowhead in Kansas City, Missouri to watch the University of Kansas host the University of Houston at homecoming. Because of construction at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, the KU Big 12 home games are being held at the football stadium used by the Kansas City Chiefs. KU has had a poor start to their season, but won today 42 - 14.

There was a fly over by A-10 Thunderbolts before the start of the game. During a break in the second half, the flight crews were introduced and three were University of Kansas alumni and had Jayhawk t-shirts on under their flight suits.

After the game we were going to revisit LC's BBQ in Kansas City, Missouri to update its review on our Kansas City BBQ Restaurant guide, but they were so busy there was no nearby parking and with only a few tables in their small dining room, we decided to go back up the street a few blocks to Big T's BBQ. It had been even longer since we had been to Big T's.

They were also busy, with 5 or 6 vehicles in the drive through line and several people waiting inside. Apparently they had experienced a  big day and were running out of many things, even several flavors of soda. Although few tables were in use at this time, we had a hard time finding one which was clean.

We had a half chicken and short end of pork ribs with onion rings and fries. The fries were better than I remembered, though still a little overdone. The rings weren't quite as good as I remembered, but still better than most. I was quite happy with my ribs. We had quite a bit of meat left over.

A-10 flightcrews
 
 
 

Chicken & ribs

We planned to have supper in Olathe before calling it a night. The first first restaurant is no longer open after 2 PM and the second is closed on Mondays. At that point, we checked the hours on the next one I would have liked, but it is also closed on Mondays. 

We ended up at Joe's Kansas City BBQ and it has been a couple of years since I have been to this location in Olathe. We split a half chicken dinner, which was good as always.

I was met by Seth Butner who is the owner of the interactive zoo and had invited me to check them out. Although their primary goal is education, they are still effectively a rescue organization. Almost of their animals are from homes which can no longer care for them, plus some are outright rescues. They also do wild reptile removals within a 30 minute drive.

Lumi, their newest boa constrictor, was rescued from being kept in an outdoor dog kennel in Kansas City in January.

Lunch was also at a place which had invited me to check them out, though I didn't identify myself, so I could have the same experience as others. Haymakers opened in Hoyt, Kansas earlier this year.

The lunch menu was extremely short, 5 sandwiches, 1 salad and cheese, pepperoni & all meat pizzas. The server was friendly and I was the only person in the place. I went with the Philly steak sandwich. It looked good with a lot of steak, but it was cooked well done & a bit dry. I enjoyed the portion which had cheese, there but was just a tiny bit of cheese.

Along the way, I stumbled across two March Arch bridges, one over Rock Creek near Meridian and a one lane bridge over Big Soldier Creek, north of Rossville, Kansas. An unusual railroad bridge also crosses Big Soldier Creek a few hundred yard away. There are two railroad bridges about 2 feet apart, but one set of tracks.

On the way into Rossville, Kansas there was a large Halloween display on Rossville Road at the city limit.

Downtown, I photographed a lion statue in front of the community center. The statue was originally at the entrance to Topeka's Gage Park near the Topeka Zoo. When that entrance was moved and enlarged years ago, the two statues from Gage Park were given to the Rossville Lions Club and the second one is near the municipal pool on the south side of town.

Heading back into Topeka, I drove to City of Topeka Pump Station 16 at 6333 SW 32nd Street, south of the intersection of SW 29th Street and Lincolnshire Road. Following the old driveway through the woods from the pump station, there is a sign saying no trespassing, but permission is given to come here to visit the private cemetery where Chief Abram B. Burnett is buried. I last visited this site in 2009, but had read that the site had been improved.

The fence around the cement covered grave has been replaced and the ground looks more clear. The 7' marble obelisk is still in place, but the small foot stone has broken off at the base and is missing. A dream catcher hoop was laying on the cement at the foot of the grave.

It was a lovely October day and I enjoyed the fall colors on the short walk.

The next stop was to drive by and photograph 2880 SW Mulvane Street from the street. This was one of the homes where the late Kerry Livgren of the band Kansas lived in Topeka.

I drove north to Ad Astra Plaza, which was dedicated outside the Kansas capitol building a week ago today. The centerpiece of the Plaza is an 8' tall replica of the 22', 4,400 pound bronze Kanza warrior which was installed on top of the capitol dome in 2002.

The handsome space includes 8 plaques with information from "The Kansa Indians: A History of the Wind People, 1573-1872" by William E. Unrau. One of the plaques was donated by the Kaw Nation.

It was time for a break and I stopped by G's Frozen Custard, a 33 year old place in a former drive in. Although is a space for inside seating, that area is locked and service is only available at a walk up window. There are several covered picnic tables outside.

I was only going to have a taste to be able to review it and not spoil supper, so I got a mini concrete which includes one flavor mix in for $5. I was surprised that butter pecan was considered two flavors and cost an extra dollar. It seemed silly to pay extra for a couple of spoons worth, so I went with hot fudge. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't a particular treat.

Earlier this year, G's and their brown bread flavor frozen custard were mentioned in the HBO Max TV show "Hacks."

After a brief stop for some outside photos of the work continuing on the coming visitor's center at Constitution Hall on Kansas, Avenue, I continued north to Curtis Family Cemetery, a private cemetery near North Topeka Boulevard. Although he is buried in Topeka Cemetery, this is where several members of the family of Charles Curtis, 31st Vice President of the United States, are buried.

The cemetery is private property, but is in the center of Charles Curtis Memorial Park. The stones have been severely damaged and could use some love.

Crossing west across Topeka, I made a brief stop at Equality House (AKA Rainbow House) which is the headquarters for the  LGBTQ+ advocacy arm of Planting Peace, a nonprofit humanitarian organization founded for the purpose of "spreading peace in a hurting world."

Continuing west, I drove on to the former campus of the Menninger psychiatric clinic to photograph the Menninger Clock Tower. The 100 year old building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but is looking pretty rough. Several times it has been in danger of being demolished in recent years. It was purchased in June by Topeka based Clock Tower LLC.

Near by, I also stopped at the Kansas Museum of History. It closed for renovations on September 4, 2022, when it was expected to remain closed for up to a year and a half. It is now expected to reopen some time in 2025. It appears that everything being done is inside. I had hoped they were moving the entrance of the museum to the southeast portion of the building where it might look more impressive.

While there, I paid a short visit to the "On the Move" temporary exhibit in the Kansas Historical Society lobby (across from the State Archives research room). The exhibit is open when the research room is open. Actually, they had closed it early, but opened it back up for me to take a few pictures. The exhibit tells the story of the museum's move from the Memorial Building to this current location. It was originally scheduled to close last December, but is currently scheduled to remain open until late in December of this year.

There were just two more stops and I drove back across Topeka to the southeast side to spend a while walking through Ted Ensley Gardens on the shore of Lake Shawnee. The 37.5 acre garden has nice view of the lake and a variety seating areas separated by plantings and connected by wandering walkways. (I was going to link this paragraph to our page about it, but just discovered that I failed to make one.)

Supper was at Shack II, about a mile away below the Lake Shawnee Dam. I enjoyed dining here in 2012, but it didn't stand out at that time. It continues to get lots of good comments online, so it is time to give it another try.

The out of the way setting, long history and dive points all make me want to really love this place. The onion rings have a very heavy batter, which some people like, but I am not a fan. The burger was more done than I would choose (they don't ask how you want it), but actually was fairly good.

The service was disappointing, particularly after the food was brought to the table. The server never came to my table again and after waiting over 20 minutes after I finished eating, I finally went to the bar to pay.

ATLAS Education

Haymakers

Big Soldier Creek Bridge

Gage Park Lion

Abram Burnett Grave
 
 
 

Ad Astra Plaza
 

G's Frozen Custard
 
 
 
 
 
 

Curtis Family Cemetery
 
 
 
 
 

Menninger Clock Tower
 
 
 
 
 

On the Move
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cheeseburger & onion rings

It was a sunny, cool morning and we started with a a journay through the corn maze, which we nearly had to ourselves. The far side has  multiple well spaced activities, including a giant swing set, obstical cource, tower of tires, football throw and a mound with mutiple slides. The most popular activity appeared to be the corn crib and we spent quite a while there.

We rode a farm wagon back to the far end of the front where we enoyed apple cider donuts and both hard and soft apple ciders. There were also farm animals, but petting opportunites were limited.

Lunch was at Miss B's Cafe on the south side of Louisburg. They were acompdating with our large group which included 4 young ones who weren't always quiet. The prices were very reasonable!

Corn Crib

Miss B's Cafe

This was my first visit since October 2022 and I continue to check on the changes (if any) since Danny passed away in January 2022. The half chicken and fries were good and the price ($14.49) is unchanged. The person working the cash register has been there for many years. One change is that they no longer have fountain drinks. Some Pepsi & Coke products are available in cans. The fresh cut fries are now thinner than the steak fry size they were in the past and are no longer seasoned.

I don't particularly care for the allspice in the sauce and will try to remember to order the chicken "dry" (without sauce) the next time.

Driving up Southwest Boulevard to Kansas it was time for a long overdue visit to Strasser Hardware. The 107 year old hardware has been at this location since 1927. With Strasser there is no need to choose between a local hardware and a big box. This huge store is both. In 1964 Strasser Hardware become a member of the True Value Cooperative and become known as Strasser True Value Hardware.

This evening I drove to south Overland Park to investigate reports of a huge display of pumpkins. At the corner of 124th Terrace and Nieman I found one giant inflated pumpkin and a yard filling display of 335 pumpkins. There are even more than you see in the photo to the right.

Daniel Taber has been hand carving these foam pumpkins for 14 years, but they are new to Kansas since his family recently moved here from California. There is a place to suggest future pumpkins or to make a donation to Harvesters. A $5 donation also enters you in a drawing to win a custom carved pumpkin. Visitors are invited to walk up and see them close, but do not touch. The people checking it out seemed to really enjoy it.

Strasser Hardware
 

Daniel Taber Carved Pumpkins

The top half of the sandwich has Steak, Onions, Bell Peppers, Provolone Cheese, Cheese Sauce, 32 Sauce and the bottom has Turkey or Ham, Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato. American Cheese, Mayo, BBQ Sauce, 32 Sauce stacked on what they call Texas Toast. I would just call it toast.

The sauces and melted cheeses taste great but make it messy to pick up and hold. Even toothpicks have a hard time holding it together. You also need to be able to open your mouth very wide.

I was disapointed that their neighbor who was baking pies for them when I ate there the previous times has not been doing it lately. They may return.

Continuing north to Kansas City, Kansas I drove to Kansas Speedway where 468 teams from around the world are setting up at this afternoon for the American Royal’s World Series of Barbecue, the world’s largest barbecue competition.

It takes place this Friday & Saturday and may be the best public party in Kansas, but there really wasn't very much to see at this time. In 2007 I volunteered as a judge in the open competition. It was fun, but one time was enough to satisfy me.

On the way back, I stopped first at Jones BBQ in Kansas City, Kansas to get their updated menu. Their unique BBQ vending machine is not working, but that is temporary as they wait for parts to repair the machine. Deborah Jones says it appears that it was damaged by someone putting coins in the credit card only machine. Follow up: I have been told that the machine has been broken for many months, so I would count on it working again soon.

The final stop was at Grinter Place State Historical Site up the street in Kansas City, Kansas. It is closed for the winter so I just took additional exterior photos. I previously visited this State Historic Site in 2008. At that time the Kansas State Historical Society was supposed to get back to me with some information, but never did, so no page was added about Grinter Place at that time.

American Royal’s World Series of Barbecue