In addition to selling fresh meat, Meade Locker makes several flavors of their own jerky and sells various protein bars and other items. The coolest thing may be the cooler filled with about 40 different types of brats and other sausages. We bought several items, but have only tried the Teriyaki Jerky so far.

Driving east from Meade, we returned to Big Basin Prairie Preserve Wildlife Area, south of Minneola, Kansas. I have been here 3 times before, but never seen the bison herd. Pulling in we still didn't see them and we drove back to St. Jacob's Well.

The parking area is above the Little Basin when the well is located and it is a fairly steep irregular trail down to the spring.

Although I have driven much farther through the Wildlife Area in the past, at this time, the roadway is marked for authorized vehicles only. So we headed back toward the entrance, stopping again when we reach the cliff looking down on the Big Basin. This time we spotted the bison herd, about a half mile away.

I was photographing the bison as another vehicle came up the road. They saw me taking photos and backed up to see what was happening. The driver of the vehicle honked his horn and the bison thought that meant we had food for them. They can move fast! A third vehicle pulled up as they were charging across the Basin and I warned the passenger who got out to take photos that she didn't want to get far from her vehicle.

We took photos passing through Minneola and went on to Mullinville, Kansas to take new photographs of the MT Liggett Art Environment. The museum closed for the day at 4 PM, but the grounds are open during daylight hours. 

We also took new photos of the Fromme-Birney Round Barn, s few miles south of Mullinville, which had the roof replaced since our last visit. The only other change which I noticed is that the yard sale type items for sale on the honor system seemed to have expanded. 

The barn is kept unlocked and you are welcome to turn the lights on (to the left from the entrance). Please remember to turn them off when you leave.

Heading west on US-54, there were stops to photograph cotton fields, Next GINeration Cotton Gin & the historic John Rice Barn in Cullison, and some yard art.

Tonight's supper was at Chapeau in Pratt, Kansas. It opened as The Brunswick bar in 1969. 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 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 by FairBridge in Pratt, Kansas.

St. Jacob's Well
 
 
 

Bison Stampede
 
 
 
 

Fromme-Birney Round Barn
 
 
 
 
 

Pizza Taco

In Wichita, the first stop was at Textron Aviation Engineering, south of Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. The grave of the 3 month old Lyn Wyckoff, who died in 1881, and is at the edge of the parking lot by itself, surrounded by a low metal fence. When I visited the grave in August, I thought the headstone was missing. I later learned that it is flat and had been hidden by debris, so this was a chance to photograph the marker.

Staying in southwest, Wichita, the next stop was at ICT Books. The store 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.

Across Wichita, we visited tiny Longview Park on Longview Lane just south of East Kellogg Avenue.  The park has a small monument with a Pizza Hut logo and the following on a plaque: "On May 31, 1958, Dan Carney and Frank Carney, with a loan of $600 from their mother, opened the world's first Pizza Hut Restaurant on the corner of Kellogg and Bluff.

The next stop was tricky. I had a lead about a mural with a car sticking out of the wall it was on. Supposedly it was on the east side of an auto body complex at 226. N. Kansas Street in Wichita. We found the complex but the east side of it is on the I-135 ramp, fenced and not a safe place to walk. I had to photograph it while driving by.

I have since learned that it is the work of Greg Johnson, who is an artist and auto body repair person. I hope to track down more of his work. We appears to have no online presence, and I missed an exhibit of his work at CityArts Gallery in Wichita this summer.

Additional stops were made for photos of statues on the campus of Wichita East High School, a mural on the Midwest Diving Center, and a mural on the building which will be the future home of The Kansas African American Museum.

We made a longer stop on the Campus of Wichita State University, to photograph "Memorial 70" which honors  the 31 WSU football players, administrators and supporters who died in a plane crash Friday, October 2, 1970.

While we were there, we discovered the nearby Grafly Gardens which has 6 sculptures made by Charles Grafly tucked away in a park like area. It is easy to miss, as the Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection has 89 works spread across the 330 acre Wichita State University campus. 

For lunch, we were joined by family at The Eatery, a soul food restaurant in northeast Wichita. We arrived 5 minutes after the restaurant was supposed to open (noon) and the door was locked. A woman pulled in and said they would open in about 10 minutes. 

You order at the counter and food is brought to your table. In this case it took over 35 minutes. When dining in, the food is served in carry out containers with plastic ware. We sampled chicken wings, BBQ chicken wings, catfish, shrimp, onion rings, yams, and fried okra. Not all of the orders were correct and rather than 4 large shrimp, there were many small shrimp. 

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

Lyn Wyckoff Grave
 
 
 

ICT Books
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Greg Johnson Sculpture
 
 
 

Memorial 70
 
 

The Eatery