Out and about part 2

Since I have a few hours between Monday Murals and T Time, I thought I would share the last of the photos from my trip with my friend Scott to Fort Scott, Kansas.  If you missed part 1, you can view it here.

As I mentioned last time, we are now in the Flint Hills of far eastern Kansas.

The Flint Hills, so named for their bands of limestone and flint, are the largest remnants of tallgrass prairie on the continent.

Native bluestem grasses can be seen along these highways. 


Native bluestem grasses can grow 8 feet high.

A lot of the land along the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway looks as it did when the Kaw, Osage, Pawnee and Wichita tribes lived in this area.

Of course, you can't be on the main highway

if you want to see the tallgrasses.

These are what I call undulating hills.

We traveled past ranches and occasional herds of cattle.

These fertile shortgrass prairies are hilly in many places, especially in the Flint Hills.

We have finally arrived at our destination.

Sort of.

At least we have arrived at Fort Scott.

Or at least I thought we had. 

There were times when I was bored and wasn't paying attention.

For some reason, this didn't look like Fort Scott to me.

Apparently, without realizing it, Scott had driven across the state line into Missouri.

It was time to retrace our steps and return to Kansas.

It wasn't long until we found where our friend was living.

After a nice visit, I wanted to return to find the fort at Fort Scott.

Apparently, there are some fairly famous buildings here.  I'd hate to have to repaint this gingerbread beauty.

You might be able to see the sign on the far left pointing to the fort, as we passed more old buildings.

Wouldn't you know.  The one mural I saw was too blurry to actually use as a Monday Mural.

Here we were, finally on the base.

Fort Scott is one of the National Historic Sites run by the National Park Service.  If you have a cell phone (yes, most people do), you can download an app and see the entire fort.  If interested, go here to see how to download the app.

Located on the property are 20 restored buildings, a parade ground, and five acres of tall grass.  Included are ordnance and post headquarters, four officers' barracks, one dragoon's barracks, dragoon stables, quartermaster stables, two infantry barracks, a hospital, guardhouse, bake shop, flagpole, and magazine building.

We never got out, because Scott was ready to return home.

I found this schematic online, but I also believe it's the same one as found on Wikipedia.  You can see how little we saw.

Here were the parade grounds.

This is where they do many reenactments.

Then it was off to see the rest of the town.

Fort Scott Community College is quite large.

It's amazing to see students walking around campus pre-Covid without a care in the world.

I think we spent more time driving past the campus than we did at the Fort.

I couldn't let the clock go by

without taking a few shots

of it.

Then it was time to say goodbye to this town and our friend.

I got very few shots on the way home.  There was very little of interest I hadn't already seen.

I still love those rolling, undulating hills of eastern Kansas, though.

I hope you enjoyed the trip to Fort Scott and the actual Fort.  Unfortunately, we  didn't get to see much of the fort and now it's closed for the most part.

Thanks for joining Bleubeard and me today.  I truly appreciate your time and visit.