Tall Grass Prairie National Preserve

Tom and I went to the Tall Grass Prairie National Preserve this weekend, a two hour drive from our apartment. Only 4% of the native prairie landscape that once covered the Western US remains in tact, and this is the largest remaining section of it. Due to the record drought, the grass was not very tall this year, but we were lucky enough to see the preserves heard of Bison up close on the bus tour the National Park Service runs every morning for visitors. It's a wonderfully run park and a beautiful place to visit, well worth the trip from Kansas City. Here are some pictures:

One of five new calves born on the preserve this spring, now the heard totals 21.

The prairie: same grass, not as tall.

Tom, me, and not much else.

I love a good tour bus.

A short hike away, the Lower Fox Creek School.

Sioux Falls-in in love.

Greetings from South Dakota! The Atchity clan and I attended a lovely wedding in Sioux Falls on Saturday, and we have a great old time. Here are some pictures from the Instagram files.

 

Your standard mid-western road trip scenery.

 

 Stumbled upon this gem while exploring Falls Park. !!!!

 

Parade of flags. Can you spot the Liberian flag?

 

The Falls of Sioux Falls.

 

Beautiful Day!

 Lovely ceremony. Congratulations to Carl and Ashley.

Oh, those crazy kids.

Hello, internet users. Tom and I would really love to win this free wedding (!!!) so I thought I should populate this blog with some pictures of us to prove that we are real. Because we are! And we would rock that free wedding!

 

Here we are at Tom's recent Blues Brothers Birthday Party. 

Many an Orange Whip was consumed

 

On a trip to Philadelphia. We really love food

I love this picture Tom took of me and my cool color changing cup. This is at the 

Vinland, Kansas fair, where they thought Tom was the livestock judge

That's my Tom! He's fun.

   

Us at a wedding, we clean up OK!

DIY not?

I made beer! It tastes like bud light. Not super delicious, but for the multitude of errors I made while brewing my first batch, I'm just impressed its not green. If I know anything, I know about 6 people who will gladly drink it.

Im likely not the first person to try to make their own tasteless beer in Kansas, as prohibition here lasted from 1881 until 1948 (YIKES), the longest of any state. That's a lot of not drinking beer. And after that, bars couldn't serve alcohol stronger than 3.2% until 1987, a change which I can only assume was done to celebrate my birth. The first legal brewery in over 100 years, Free State Brewing Company, opened 2 years later in Lawrence. And they still make delicious beer!

Alcohol sales are still restricted. You can't get anything stronger than 3.2 beer in grocery stores, which is a SIGNIFICANT INCONVENIENCE. You need to go to a liquor store (or bar) to get anything else. The situation does, though, make for some friendly family liquor stores. There is some current action in the legislature to allow liquor sales in grocery stores. The small business association is against it, because it would draw business away from the small, locally owned family liquor stores and bring it to the big grocery chains. Blerg, indeed.

Beak 'em

This photograph sums up a lot about what I love about Kansas. This is a photo of the University of Kansas student section during a basketball home game in Lawrence Kansas, where KU played their rivals from the University of Missouri (located in Columbia, MO, once home to pro-slavery agitators who organized Quantrill's raid and burned Lawrence in 1863.) The students are holding up an image of a famous mural of John Brown, abolitionist freedom fighter, with Brown's bible replaced with the NCAA tournament trophy. Awesome. Lawrence reminds me a lot of Santa Cruz, except the beach is replaced with basketball. The KU men's team has just advanced to the elite eight bracket in the NCAA tournament, and Eastern Kansas has gone Jayhawk crazy. So lately, as is true for nearly everyone in a 50 mile radius, Ive been watching a lot of basketball. Next game is tomorrow. Beak 'em, Hawks! photo via cklablog

Home-brewed substance

Tom and I bottled my very first batch of home brew last night. It certianly smells like beer, but thats all I know at this point. I messed up the recipe a bit so its going to be "lighter" than intended, but it will be beer, and it might even be alcoholic. I'll let you know in two weeks. The fish and the frog are certainly interested, it appears.

Also, Tom's a wiz with the bottle capper, turns out!

Is This It Turns 10

This has nothing to do with Kansas or history (at least not really) but I find it worth noting that this album turns 10 years old in October. It came out when I was 14, and I remember listening to it on my CD player at the YMCA, the summer before High School, thinking about how cool I was that I liked a band like The Strokes. Well, that WAS super cool of me, because this album is amazing and is still the first one I play in my car when you can roll your windows down again in the Spring, like I did last Friday (though not today, it's snowing here again. Ridiculous.)

Also, Ive only ever had one copy of this CD. Can we discuss how responsible I am for keeping and caring for a single CD for nearly 10 years? I find this notable, and I add it to my extensive list of examples of how I am really good at not losing or breaking things.

Is This It is one of those albums that I know every word of every song. The same is true for Paul Simon's Graceland, but that is all I can think of. Maybe Van Morrison's Moondance, maybe Music From Big Pink, but the longer I make this list the more "old fogey" is gets so Im going to stop. Oh, and probably a lot of musicals I like to think I dont know the words to. Like Pippin.