From Abilene, Kansas we headed south towards Cottonwood Falls. Why? To see the prairie!
The local softball fields on the outskirts of Alma, Kansas had 4 spots for free RV camping but shockingly, all were taken. We boondocked in the parking lot anyway. The girl’s softball tournament was not as interesting to watch as you might think, but the crowd noises were!
I really thought once we hit the Kansas border from any direction that prairie would be all we’d see, but I was wrong. Although tallgrass prairie once covered 170 million acres of North America, within one generation most of it had been transformed into farmland. Today less than 4% remains intact.
We drove through Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve on the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway. The tallgrass prairie has its own quiet beauty and this preserve is the largest expanse of tallgrass prairie left in the world. Signs indicated that it is an incredibly diverse ecosystem with more than 500 species of plants, but I guess you’d need to be an expert in this area to really see it.
Deer, cattle and bison call this area home, but the only mammal we saw was this elusive black and white Shichon!
Passing through the very quiet town of Cottonwood Falls we saw a marker for the courthouse that stands at the end of its main street which said it was the oldest Kansas courthouse still in use. I love that every little town has a “claim to fame”!
That night we camped in an official campground, Chase State Fishing Lake.
Next stop…Witchita!
