Kansas City Off The Beaten Path

Union Station on Main Street that is where Science City is located for kids. It is awesome. Also go see Kansas Regional Ballet perform Sleeping Beauty in December 16&17 at JCCC corner of College and Quivera.

Legler Barn Museum is an a park in Lenexa at 14907 W. 87th St. It is a small museum housed in an old stone barn. There is also a small house made of sod, a caboose, depot, and a prairie schooner. Legend has it that the outlaw Jesse James hid out in this barn when going on bank robbing forays from Missouri in to Kansas. The stone barn is interesting to photograph. I liked this picture better. Upstairs in hay loft we met these ladies having an old fashioned quilting bee. They were very nice and are sewing a quilt by hand that will be lovely when it is finished. Before there were radios and televisions farm wives got together like this to sew and have conversation.

We went to a Civil War reenactment in a park in Bonner Springs. There was a large Civil War battle faught at Westport. It was fun to watch the men in uniform march around firing guns, see the cannons belch smoke, hear the racing hooves of cavalry horses. Events like this are held periodically in various parts of Kansas.

Ernie Miller Nature Center, 142 N. Cherry in Olathe, has this window with bird feeders out side and books on a shelf nearby. The books are all about nature and several are field guides so you can look up the names of the birds you see. Ernie Miller has nature trails that are easy to walk and even paved over for people in wheel chairs.

Take a tour of the Mahaffie stage coach stop and farm at 1100 Kansas City Road in Olathe. My wife's mother lived a short walk from this place. We took a tour and learned a few things. Later we came back for their Bullwhacker Day's festivities and had some fun. I thought the ice house was interesting. In the barn we saw the blade that was used to cut the blocks of ice from the river. The house was right on all the famous trails and was a stagecoach stop as well.

There are lots of shopping malls in Kansas City. If you have seen one mall you have seen them all. This photo was taken at Oak Park Mall in Overland Park. The gold cadillac once belonged to Elvis Presley. The legend of this car is that it would not start one day so Elvis got out and put a bullet in it. After that he sold it. You can still see the bullet hole in the right front fender near the wheel well.

This is one of the wooded paths at the Overland Park Arboretum. You can also take a nature walk at Ernie Miller Nature Center. The Prairie Center is my favorite place for a nature hike. Prairie Center is located on 300 acres at 26325 W. 135th Street in Olathe. It has wooded areas, praire areas, and small lakes. Best time to see it is when prairie wild flowers are in bloom. Enjoy the nature and see some of the birds I love.

A visit to Old Shawnee Town at 11501 W. 57th in Shawnee is like stepping back in to the old west. There are old buildings there which have been preserved and cared for. A better travel page than this one about the Shawnee area has been written by 'basstbn' here on VT. Frank lived there for years and he knows that area a lot better than I do.