We got German Bratwurst with Sauerkraut, Teriyaki Beef Jerky, and several specialty protein items.

Driving east we drove to Big Basin Prairie Preserve Wildlife Area. I've been there several time, but have never seen the bison herd. There were none as we entered the preserve and we drove on to St. Jacob's Well, a natural sinkhole with a permanent, spring fed pool of water which has never been known to go dry. It has attracted visitors for many centuries, beginning with prehistoric people and continuing until European settlement.

On the way back to the highway, we spotted the bison herd across the Big Basin. I was photographing the bison at a distance, when another vehicle pulled up to see what I was photographing. The driver of the vehicle honked his horn and the bison thought that meant we had food for them. They immediately started racing across the basin and up to the ridge where we were parked. They can move fast!

A third vehicle arrived as I was returning to our car and I warned the passenger who got out to take photos, not to get far from their car.

Continuing east we stopped at the Fromme-Birney Round Barn in Mullenville. The 70 feet diameter, 16 sided barn was built in 1912 to hold draft horses, which were eventually replaced by tractors. The barn went on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. It had several been several years since the last time we went here. The main changes were a new roof and a growing selection of flea market type items offered for sale on the honor system in the barn.

Before leaving Mullenville, we took new photos of Kanza Art Museum, which displays the grassroots art of work of M. T. Liggett, who passed away in 2017.

Continuing east along US400, we photographed the huge old John Rice barn, cotton fields, and a cotton gin.

Supper was at Chapeau in Pratt, Kansas, which opened as The Brunswick Bar in 1969. Immediately prior to the current owner taking over in 1988, it was an Italian Restaurant. The menu is somewhat limited, but the Pizza Taco and Burgers came heavily recommended

The Pizza Taco was inspired partially by the former Italian restaurant and is served on a crispy pizza crust shaped like a taco and filled with your choice of beef, sausage or chicken, and mozzarella cheese, shredded lettuce and a choice of 5 spice levels of sauce. Even the $10.55 small version is large. I liked it, but not as much as the burger.

The Rat Burger has jalapenos, bacon, cheese and grilled onions and is named for a customer who always ordered it. The menu doesn't say what size it is, but it looked like a half pound.

We spent the night at the Flag Point Inn & Suites in Pratt.

St. Jacob's Well

Bison Stampede
 

Fromme-Birney Round Barn
 
 
 
 
 

Pizza Taco

Our first stop in Wichita was at the grave of Lyn Wyckoff, on the edge of the parking lot of Textron Aviation Engineering in Wichita. The grave is that of a 3 month old boy who died on January 24, 1881. The grave was discovered in 1955 and the landscaping was designed around it.

I visited this grave last summer and thought that the grave marker was missing, but learned the flat grave is somewhat sunken and had been covered by debre.

While we were on the southwest side of the city the next stop was at ICT Books, which was founded in 2022 to reduce waste by keeping books out of landfills and to aid in literacy by providing books at an affordable price. Most items (Books, comics, CDs, DVDs) are $1.25.

The store has two large rooms and one small. The largest room is at the front and is books. They are organized by category, but otherwise it is hard to find specific books and there is no inventory system. In addition to shelves there are many large deep boxes filled with a jumble of a topic and it would be extremely difficult to look at the items on the bottom. The back room is also large and has CDs, DVDs and Blue-Ray ($2). It can be fun browsing, but searching for a specific title would be very frustrating.

The third room is children's books and is better organized. There are bin's with series such as Dr. Seuss, Curious George, and Llama Llama.
 
 

In the evening, we photographed the Aurora Borealis from Shawnee Mission Park in Lenexa, Kansas. The park was officially closed but Johnson County Park Police opened up a parking lot at the front and let people come to take photos.

Other stops were made to photograph the historic marker at the site of the first Pizza Hut, pioneer & Boy Scout Statue of Liberty statues on the grounds of Wichita East High School, a mural with a car sticking out of a building, and Memorial '70 on the grounds of WSU, which commemorates the Wichita State University football team plane crash.

Family met us for lunch at The Eatery, a two year old soul food restaurant on East 13th Street N in Wichita. You order at the counter and food is brought to your table. In this case it took 35 minutes. When dining in, the food is served in carry out containers with plastic ware.

I can highly recommend the catfish, BBQ chicken wings, yams and fried okra.

Much as I loved the flavor of the roast beef sandwich, I thought there was too much potato and not enough meat.

Prices were reasonable. The rest of the details of this meal were lost when this page was deleted.