The sausage was a little bland, but it had been served with some stone ground mustard on the side and the mustard made the sausage work. The turkey was moist and had a nice smoky flavor.

The fries were better than my first visit. A little more done (they could still use a bit more cooking) and seasoned more, which I liked even though I generally prefer my fries unseasoned. The baked beans, whiskey sweet potato casserole and smoked elotes were all things which I would be happy to have again.

We had first ordered pork ribs instead of turkey, but on Fridays F325 has a rib special and the server said that they were out of ribs and would not have more for at least 20 minutes. Near the end of the meal he brought out a single rib so it could be tried and enjoyed.

I ordered the Burnt Ends and One Meat Platter (I chose sausage) for $19.99, plus a pork rib ($4). It comes with the choice of two sides. Ryan Edwards, chef-owner of Sierra Grill, added an small slice of brisket so I could try that too.

For $23.99, it didn't seem like a lot of food. I am no longer a big eater and rarely eat more than half of a meal, but I still ate all of the meat. The side dishes felt skimpy.

The sausage was my favorite meat by far. I liked it as it was served, without sauce, but enjoyed it even more with mustard based Carolina BBQ sauce. The pork rib was also good and I liked it with the regular sauce, which is vinegar based and a little sweet.

The burnt ends and brisket were not what I was looking for. Neither the flavor or appearance appealed to me. I prefer some fat in these cuts of meat. I did like them better with the spicy BBQ sauce, which was similar to the regular, but a little less sweet and a little hotter.

They do not have a fryer so I ordered cheesy corn and baked beans. The cheesy corn was quite good. The baked beans were a little less seasoned, but I enjoyed the bites which include BBQ meat.

Burnt Ends & One Meat Platter plus a rib & brisket

Our first stop was in Manhattan, Kansas, where we had an appointment to tour the Chiefseum, which is the Guinness World Record Largest Collection of Kansas City Chiefs Memorabilia. Curt Herrman met us at his home and we had a delightful hour being shown the collection and learning much more about the history of Chiefs and the chiefs players & staff.

The collection began after the Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl IV and 8 year old Curt received a Chiefs football on his birthday. It currently includes 1,672 items, many of which are rare and some are one of a kind and irreplaceable.

Before leaving Manhattan, we made a brief stop at the Kansas State University Display Gardens to photograph the new Reflecting Pool which was dedicated this fall next to Bidwell Fountain.

We drove to Junction City, Kansas to have lunch at Taste of Chicago. I dined there last year and their Chicago Burger was so good that it made our Kansas Best Burgers List. 

Their Chicago Dog is the only other sandwich I had tried that first time. Today we intended to try their gyro and Italian steak sandwich, but they were out of the Italian and I had a chili dog instead.

I lived in metropolitan Detroit for 3 years and have a strong opinion of what a Coney Island hot dog should be like and this one was great. It could compete with the best of them in Detroit. Only thing is they don't serve French fries, so I couldn't have chili fries as well.

I wish this restaurant wasn't so far away and in a community where there are multiple restaurants which I really like! I don't get there often enough to revisit them every year, let alone try mainly new ones.

Back tracking a few miles, after registering for a day pass at the Visitor Control Center, we entered Fort Riley (Home of the Big Red One) to visit the Wass De Dzege Cavalry Stable where the horses and mules used by the Commanding General's Mounted Color Guard are cared for. They use two of the original cavalry training stables, with the one which still has a cobblestone floor used when they keep horses indoors. Across from them is a row of Stablemaster's Quarters, which are used to stay with the horse when giving it medical care. All of the building are made of local stone

Before we even entered the building, we were greeted by Trooper Husmann, who immediately stopped what he was doing to take us on a 40 minute tour which visited several of the buildings. There were no equines in the stables. They are normally only here instead of their pasture when receiving medical care. 

However we did see "Old Bill," the life sized statue of a mounted cavalry soldier from the "Old Trooper Monument" at Fort Riley. It is receiving restoration work here in the stable. The statue is modeled after a drawing by Frederic Remington in 1898 and normally is on a pedestal overlooking the Grave of "Chief" the last cavalry horse to survive from the US Army.

We concluded with a visit to the leather shop, where Trooper Husmann does the leather work on the troop's authentic McClellan saddles and tack. He has been doing this for two years and learned by watching YouTube videos. The troopers and horses of the unit are outfitted in uniforms, accessories, and equipment from the Civil War period.

Things so far had taken longer than I expected, so we got on the road, heading toward Ellinwood, Kansas. There was a brief stop in Brookville to photograph the building which originally housed the Brookville Hotel and a rural stop to photograph Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church north of Ellinwood. The church was built in 1875. It is no longer consecrated, but is preserved by the Saints Peter & Paul Heritage Association.

In Ellinwood, we checked into the historic Wolf Hotel, which offers 5 rooms on its second floor with a very long flight of steps up. We had an attractive room, which was mostly comfortable, but we could not control the temperature and it was pretty warm much of the time. Our room was called The Victorian, and was one of the rooms with an ensuite bathroom.

The rooms share a nice parlor and a breakfast room which is stocked with protein bars, cereal and sealed breakfast items. 

The outside of the hotel is not very appealing right now because of construction being done on US-56 immediately next to the building.

We had supper at the year old 10-39 Cafe, about a block away from the hotel. There are only three tables, plus 5 stools at a tall counter. The tables were all in use, but we lucked out and one party left before we ordered.

The menu is fairly limited, with mostly sandwiches. We went with a brisket sandwich with onion rings and a Magneto Burger (grilled 1/4 pound patty with grilled onions, mushrooms & American cheese) with sidewinders (kind of a cross between curly fries and potato chips). The smash burger and sidewinders were pretty good, but I cared less for the sandwich and rings.

We were looking forward to trying a Dessert Cigar (sweetened cream cheese with filling, wrapped in a tortilla & deep fried), but they were out.

We returned to the hotel to catch the University of North Carolina versus University of Kansas basketball game. The hotel's Direct TV does not have ESPN, but we figured out we could use the same HDMI cable as the Direct TV, stream the game on one of our computers and watch the game on the TV.

Following the game, we went to The Underground Saloon, the speakeasy themed bar in the basement. It is open only Friday & Saturday evenings. There was one other couple sitting at the bar and we enjoyed talking with them and the bartender. The couple is involved with the hotel.

Linda liked her Hot Tamale (which was described as a Cinnamon Jolly Rancher) and it was only $4. My Old Fashioned was only $7, but tasted watered down and I didn't much like it. The bar is part of Ellinwood's historic underground and we will learn more about it tomorrow.

Chili dig
 
 
 
 

Wass De Dzege Cavalry Stable
 
 
 

leather shop
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Victorian

Parlor
 
 
 

Magneto & sidewinders
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Underground

We checked out of the hotel, put our luggage in our vehicle and walked a block to the Museum of Ellinwood. It is closed for the winter, but Joyce Schulte had agreed to meet us at the museum at 10 AM. It is in a single old store front and it took us about 15 minutes to see everything which interested us. I particularly liked the display of hand made wooden toys, an exhibit devoted to Wolfe's flour and feeds and many old photographs of Ellinwood.

We followed that with a driving tour of historic buildings using a flyer the museum provided with a self guided tour.

At 11 AM, we joined four other people for the Underground Tunnel Tour. I did the tour once before in The tour costs $15/person and an advance reservation is required. You check in at the Ellinwood Emporium and the tour begins with some background history before going down stairs to space which was once the Harness Shop. The tour on this side of the street includes a walk beneath the main street sidewalk to Jung's Barber Shop and the bath room and laundry behind the barber shop.

Rick Casagrande, who owns the Emporium and serves as the guide, is a good performer and his presentation was very entertaining.

Returning to the ground floor, we walked across to the Wolf Hotel for the second half of the tour. which included a history of the hotel and a visit to the Underground, where we had drinks last night, and the "library" next to it. There is a section of the walkway beneath this sidewalk which runs in front of those two rooms, but it is all torn up by the construction and could not be visited.

The tour was led by the hotel's paranormal expert, Amanda Coots, who shared a couple of ghost experiences they have had. She also told us about Bernard J. Millet, who shot himself in the hotel dinning room. The bullet hole can still be seen in the ceiling.

The tour concluded with a visit to the hotel rooms, which we opted out of, since we had stayed there last night.

Lunch was at County Seat Bar and Grill, which is across the street from the courthouse on the town square in Lyons, Kansas. Our server (Victoria) had a lot of personality and made the meal more fun. We had blackened catfish, fried potatoes, corn, chicken fried bacon and onion rings. The chef had not made the blacked catfish before and the food took a long time to come out.

This is only the third time I have had chicken fried bacon. The jalapenos in the gravy made the dish work for me. It is hard to define what was the difference, but the corn was really good.

While we were in town, we photographed the new mural and large salt shaker that are part of the Salt & Art Project in Lyons. They are together and also across from the courthouse, about a block away from the bar & grill and were just completed this fall.

The community also has decorated salt mine cars which were set out earlier as part of the same project. We though they would be easy to find, but we found none next to the square. As we drove a little farther away, we did locate two of them.

The salt connection is the salt mine in Lyons, which has operated since 1911. I was interested to learn that Compass Minerals, which owns the mine, is headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas and has salt mines across the US, Canada and United Kingdom, including the world's largest salt mine in Goderich, Ontario.

In Salina, I grabbed a single burger at the 102 year old Cozy Inn and got new photos of the menu and exterior to update their review. I ordered the burger at the walk up window and ate it outside so the grease and onion smell Cozy Inn is known for would not clink to my clothes or the inside of our vehicle. This was a chance to photograph the unfinished sign disguised as a mural on the side of the classic old white building.

Early this year the the owner started a mural on the side of the building without getting permits and the City of Salina told the Cozy Inn that the mural they had started is a regulated sign. The owner of the Cozy Inn filed a federal lawsuit saying it is unregulated art work. The mural stays unfinished pending the lawsuit.

We followed up with a drive through town photographing some of the new murals which have legally been painted in Salina in the past year, and some other new are downtown. Finally we visited the two year old memorial marker remembering Dana Adams Project, a young black man who was lynched by a mob in Salina, Kansas in 1893. No one was ever arrested for the lynching.

It was getting close to sunset, but we hurried on to Abilene, Kansas to photograph two new murals, painted by Mindy Allen of Mindy's Mural's in Junction City. The Ike mural on top of grain elevator by rail tracks is so bright it looks like a poster was mounted there instead of the elevator being painted (there wasn't). The other one is on VFW Post 2179.

Mindy has also painted several murals in Junction City, but the Junction City Main Street organization never replied to my request for a list of the locations.

Supper was at Tyme Out Steakhouse in Grandview Plaza (suburban Junction City), Kansas. We had been listening to the KU football game on the radio between photography stops and we were at Tymeout in time to watch the Jayhawks win on a large TV right in from of our table.

It was just a week after the 32nd anniversary of the opening of the restaurant, November 2, 1992. It looks more like a bar than a steakhouse, with every available free surface covered with 4,700 Crown Royal bags. The reviews I read in advance of this stop were mixed, but we were pleased with the service and the food.

The $32.99 8 ounce ribeye which I ordered was cooked medium, as ordered. I sprang for it to be covered in sautéed mushrooms ($2) and sautéed onions ($1), which would have been well worth that low charge, but I learned afterward that they charged nothing extra. Linda's $15.99 grilled garlic shrimp was good as well. Our sides were green beans, baked potato and fresh cut fries. The fries tasted a little under done.

The final stop of the trip was at Exit 328 on I-70, where Alma Creamery opened a store in the Plaza of the Flint Hills gas station. They closed the tiny store they used to have at the creamery. This space has longer hours and more room than the old one. The teens who waited on us were very friendly, but less knowledgeable than the staff at the former location. 

Prices have really gone up! In particular, the several year old cheeses which I always got, they have about doubled in price to around $30 a pound.

Museum of Ellinwood
 

Jung's Barber Shop
 
 

Wolf Hotel
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Chicken fried bacon & blackened catfish
 

Salt & Art Project
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cozy Inn
 
 
 
 
 

Ike Mural
 
 
 
 
 

Tyme Out Steakhouse

I first tried the food from Harp Barbecue in 2022 when is was a pop up which was only open Fridays & Saturdays and the meat was brought into Crane Brewing in Raytown, Missouri. I year later I had their food again at its first home of its own, operating out of two storefronts with 3 small dining areas on Raytown Road in Raytown.

Harp had a soft opening at this location a couple of weeks ago and we felt they had been at this location long enough that it was fair to give them a try.

I am already familiar with their food so this trip we sampled pork ribs, brisket, burnt end, sweet potato mash and cheesy corn. The burnt ends were my favorite meat. They didn't have exactly the appearance I look for in burnt ends, but I enjoyed the fatty, highly seasoned beef. The pork ribs were also highly seasoned from the rub and good, though the leftovers did not reheat as well. I probably wouldn't get the brisket again.

The sweet potato mash is good, though I would rather have fries with BBQ. The cheesy corn was only OK. I would rather just have corn. Both sides came in containers which needed only a lid to be able to take them with us.
 
 

But, first I tried out Playa & Mezcal Mexican Seafood on Shawnee Drive in Kansas City, Kansas. The new restaurant had a grand opening on Saturday. They have a big menu (actually two menus) and it will take quite a few visits before I am able to write a review, but I thoroughly enjoyed this first visit.

The inside looks much nicer than the the outside. The service was friendly and attentive. I speak no Spanish and there was a small language gap, but the one time there was confusion, another person stepped over to make sure I knew exactly what was meant.

I ordered the Torre de Mariscos, a seafood tower with cooked shrimp, raw shrimp, scallops, octopus, surimi, fish cevieche, shrimp cevieche, red onions, cucumber, fresh pico, and a blend of seafood savory, spicy and salty sauces.

Very enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed the octopus and avocado. The crispy corn tortillas that came with it were tasty and added a nice crunch that was missing with all the soft food. I just wish they made their cevieche with lemon instead of lime.

The food truck outside was operating as well.
  
  

Playa & Mezcal 

Torre de Mariscos

The photo at the right is the Brady Christmas Light Display in Lenexa, which still has things being added to the roof, but should be up and running tonight.