One of the new galleries is currently hosting, "Very Eric Carle: A Very Hungry, Quiet, Lonely, Clumsy, Busy Exhibit." It runs until January 25 and is included in the regular admission, which I feel is a bargain at $11 for ages 1-64 and $10 for seniors.

The cafe is more of a place to get snacks than a meal.

Although you could easily spend more time if the kids (or adults) don't tire out, we were there for a couple of hours. All of our party, ages 1 - 71 had a great time!

For lunch, we revisited Abigal's Grill & Bar in Topeka, where I had a great open faced roast beef sandwich in November. My classic cheeseburger, was average, though they did let me add grilled onions at no charge. Linda said that the chicken Philly sandwich was one of the best she ever had. The fish in the fish and chips was very good, though the coleslaw which we substituted for the chips tasted like it wasn't made in-house.

Chicken Philly

Today I did dim sum off the menu, getting stuffed eggplant, beef short rib and seven flavor mushroom. The dishes came out one at a time as they were ready and I enjoyed each one more than the one before. There are 43 items on the dim sum portion of the menu, with most of them priced at $4.50 or $5.50. Some are $9.95.

There was warmer weather than normal and a lot of fog, but there were a few hours of sunshine when I was particularly busy taking photos.

Although I usually get their pizza, tonight we had two sandwiches, The Vinnie and the Chicken Parmigiana, both of which were on very good, lightly toasted bread. The Vinnie has capicola, pepperoni, salami, pepperoncini, mozzarella, lettuce, tomato, red onion, garlic vinaigrette. It is a little spicy and very nice.

The Chicken Parmigiana has chicken breast, red sauce, basil pesto, provolone cheese. Both sandwiches had plenty of ingredients, but neither of us wanted to eat quite that much bread and we moved all the ingredients to one half of the sandwich.

The menu is scattered on many different, mostly hand made, signs around the counter where food is ordered and I struggled to comprehend all of what they offer. I settled on one each of the five regular tacos offered: asada, pastor, bushe. carnitas and barracoa. In all truth, I not positive I figured out exactly which was which, but I enjoyed all of them, including the Bushe (pig stomach) which was subtitled "hog mogs" in English on the menu.

The tacos were served with lime quarters and two sauces. One of them was somewhat creamy and spicy (perhaps made from jalapenos?) and I liked in on the tacos.

I was going to have churros as well, but they did not have them this day.

Although the restaurant portion of the market was not very busy when I arrived at noon, it quickly filled up.

Since I was already on State Avenue in Kansas City, I continued west, stopping first to photograph the construction site of the new American Royal Complex. It has been on pause for several months as it waits for additional funds from a sale of Star Bonds.

Next I visited a neighborhood of duplexes near K-7 and State Avenue, where one lot is not built on and holds only the grave site of Captain Ne Con He Con. I have seen a photo of an earlier stone, which had been damaged & repaired, but it was replaced with this stone, which is similar and includes the original inscription, which read: "In memory of Capt. Ne Con He Con born Jan 1809, died May 1863. Was elected Chief of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, Oct 1853 He was a true friend to his people and to the U.S. Government. An honest upright man."

I haven't learned a lot about Ne Con He Con, but Find-A-Grave says he was Head of the Wolf Band of the Delaware Indians and Assistant Chief of the Kansas Delaware tribe. He was also known as "Bounding Ahead". In 2020, the City of Bonner Springs named a nearby 6 mile long unnamed tributary of Wolf Creek, "Ne con he con Creek" in his honor after learning that an 1870 map had shown that name. 

The grave is at 1218 N 131st Terrace, Kansas City, Kansas.

The final stop was the future location of the 74,000-square-foot Buc-ee's at 110th Street and Village West Parkway, next to Kansas Speedway. They broke ground in October and the site was active today with heavy equipment doing site preparation. It looks like they have had to remove a lot of rock from the ground. This will be the first Buc-ee's in Kansas or the metropolitan area and will draw travelers off I-70 and I-435.

Don Antonio Meat, Tortillas & Tacos
 
 
 

Captain Ne Con He Con Grave Site

Dessert was a slice of house made Bourbon Pecan Pie.

Just up the street, I visited the Espurresso Cat Cafe. The cat cafe opened just 2 1/2 years ago and is already responsible for over 450 adoptions! They are partnered with the Lawrence Humane Society. This is the smallest cat cafe I have visited. There is one shop cat and currently 6 cats available for adoption.

Before leaving Mass Street, in a related them, I also visited Lucky Dog, a 13 year old pet grocery & bakery.

While in Lawrence I also photograph construction at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium and revisited Schmiedeler garden and grassroots art.

Three cemeteries were visited. At Memorial Park Cemetery, it was the grave of Bill Hougland, an Olympic gold medal winner. It had been many years since I was last at the cemetery and it is much easier to find graves now, as you can link to a route map on the city website.

Next was the Davis Family Cemetery, It was a farm cemetery, which now sits behind the Pennzoil on on West 6th Street.

Last of all was Pioneer Cemetery, which is surrounded by the University of Kansas. It is an old cemetery, which includes graves from Quantrill's Raid, but modern burials are limited to those with a connection to KU. The grave is that of Robby Steinhardt, who was a violinist and vocalist in the band Kansas. The stones are all flat, and I was concerned about finding it, but it turned out to be in the area which I thought was most likely.

While search for the grave, I stumbled across the grave of a friend, James Gunn, who was Professor Emeritus of English and founder of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. I had the pleasure of working with him for several years on the founding of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Hall of Fame. He was a Hug Award winning science fiction, writer and educator who was named a Grand Master of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. His novel The Immortals was adapted into a 1970–71 TV series of the same name.

For supper, we revisited Sierra BBQ in Lenexa, Kansas Sierra BBQ in October 2024 in the original location of the same owner's Sierra Grill. They still have very limited hours (11 AM - 7 PM Tuesday through Friday). We ordered a Bowl of chicken & sausage gumbo and Ribs & Ribs.

Ribs & ribs is pork spare ribs & baby back ribs with two sides. They do not offer fries and we went with BBQ baked beans & loaded baked potato. The loaded potato is a half potato. Neither side excited us. When I asked for hot sauce to add to the gumbo, we were told that they don't have anything. This is disappointing since they had a variety of house made hot sauces when they first opened.

I like the meats, but the sides are keeping me from coming back more often.

Razzle Dazzle
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

James Gunn grave
 
 
 
 

We had lunch today at the Lenexa location of Red Door Woodfired Grill, a local KC area chain we three locations in Kansas and three in Missouri. The $20 lunch menu had a choice of two courses from a list of three appetizers, three entrees and two desserts.

Between two of us, we selected Smoked Salmon Dip, Meatloaf Burger, Salmon BLT, and Loaded Beignets. For me the star of the meal was the salmon dip, not just for the dip, but for the warm deep fried pita served with it. Click on the pictures for the descriptions of the other dips.

Our server, Evan, did a great job!

I followed lunch up with a visit to Monsteras Books in downtown Overland Park, Kansas. This independent locally owned bookstore was closed on August 14, when an electrical fire started at The Torreador restaurant next door, but reopened in December.

I am particularly impressed with the many month book clubs which meet in the store: Mystery, Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction, General Fiction, and Horror. They also have special events like craft nights, Mahjong classes and Read Between the Vines -  private wine tasting where each wine is paired with a book! 

Monsteras Books

I didn notice that potato wedges are on the menu. I thought they had been discontinued years ago. If so, they are back and I will try them the next time.

The salad bar they had for many years is gone. I rarely saw anyone at the salad bar and I suspect there was a lot of food wasted.

While Zarda's has had a listing on our Kansas City BBQ Guide for several years, it has not had a page of its own and one was added today.
 
 

I have to admit, that I have enjoyed the smoked meats I have had a Slaps other times more. 

I am not particularly a fan of battered French fries and cared nothing for these. Dipping them in the sweet BBQ sauce helped a little, but I ate only a handful of the fries. This was a disappointing meal. Not only do I want to enjoy the meal for myself, I want to be able to say great things about it.

After some photography in the nearby Strawberry Hill neighborhood. I stopped at Wyandot National Burying Ground (formerly known as Huron Cemetery), which I have not visited for 6 years or longer. Other than one new grave, I didn't really notice any difference.

Next to the cemetery, I stopped to visit another restaurant, continuing to visit places on the Kansas City, Kansas Taco Trail. El Camino Real has two locations, this one on 7th Street (near the 7th Street Casino) and one on Argentine Blvd.

The food is prepared in an open kitchen, and the three tacos I ordered (Al Pastor, Lengua & Asada) came out on fresh house made corn tortillas.

It had been several years since we visited this restaurant and taco orders are no longer served with a bowl of onions, cilantro, and limes for you to personally top your tacos.

El Camino Real, promotes their tacos El Pastor as the best in the city and the sliced pork with pineapple was my favorite of the three taco sampled today. The thinly sliced beef in the taco de asada was very nicely flavored as well.

The final stop of the day was at Westlawn Cemetery, where I spent nearly an hour, unsuccessfully searching for the graves of Ada Brown and James S. Scott.
   
   

El Camino Real