Kansas - Day 26 - Marais des Cygnes, KS BBQ

Hillsdale State Park, Paolo
Monday, 26 October 2020

The next morning I found we were almost the only folks in that section of the campground.  Nobody else's dogs to worry about, just deer.  

When we went out for a walk, Dexter saw a deer and when he alerted, I saw it too.  Luckily the deer was mostly hidden by bushes - all we could see was its head and neck - so Dext didn't seem to know what it was and started to growl at it.  That was much better than the usual jumping around like an idiot that I see from him with deer.

The weather was truly crummy - rain, wind, sleet, thunder, lightning and very cold temperatures.  The sleet pounded down so hard it scared Lily.

a long skinny route map, this time

On the road
We came soon to the town of Fort Scott, "historic Fort Scott" they say, founded in 1842.  They claim to be the Boyhood Home of Gordon Parks, who I didn't know and realize I should.  He was an acclaimed photographer and the author of The Learning Tree, which I have heard of.

As we came into town, an automated sign said it was 35°.  I knew it was cold.

As I drove through town I started to notice a dusting of snow on some of the roofs, but the roads just had water on them so I didn't worry.  But we were getting lots of rain and wind, making driving a little uncomfortable.

As I got farther north, though, I started seeing snow on the ground, and it wasn't just a dusting, either.

I saw an Amish man in horse and carriage - an open carriage without even a cover - cross on an overpass.  When I first saw them I thought it was some sort of decoration rather than a real person with a real horse and carriage.  The man, the horse, the carriage were all black - appearing more so in the terrible weather - so I thought I was seeing a metal sculpture, which I've seen a lot of in KS, and that it had been added to the overpass for picturesqueness or something.  Weather like this really shows the limitations of old-fashioned transport, and I was glad not to be either the man or the horse.

I passed a sign for the Mine Creek Battlefield Site and guessed it was something from the Civil War.  I now know I was right.  October 25, 1864, was a bad day for the Confederacy here.  In September they'd started a campaign to gain control of Missouri, at least in part to help influence the 1864 US presidential election.  They'd done fairly well until they got to Kansas City on Oct. 23rd, where they were defeated and began to retreat through Kansas.  They got as far as Marais des Cygnes (farther north) when they were defeated again and continued their retreat.  They got as far as the crossing at Mine Creek, when they were stalled by the difficulties their supply train was having in crossing the creek.

While they regrouped there, the pursuing Union forces caught up with them.  Unusually, both sides (2,500 Union soldiers and 7,000 Southern) consisted mainly of cavalry.  Despite being outnumbered, the Union forces outmaneuvered the Southerners and not only defeated them but also captured one of the commanding officers.  In all, Southern casualties totaled about 1,200 and for the Union 100-110.  The Southerners were defeated again later that day in a minor skirmish farther south, defeated again 3 days later, and then began to fall apart, finally arriving in Texas in December.

This battle at Mine Creek is considered significant because it's one of the largest battles between mounted cavalry during the Civil War.

A little farther down the road I came to the town of Pleasanton, which I now know was named for one of the Union commanders during the Mine Creek Battle.

Yet again I saw a cow galloping to rejoin the herd.  That just seems so odd to me.

I passed a tree farm growing many different types of trees - all quite young ones.

When I turned off the highway for the Marais des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge, I saw a sign for the Marais des Cygnes Massacre Site 5 miles farther down the road.  The weather was getting worse so I didn't go down there, but these links tell what I would have found.  It really was a massacre and it was connected to the Bleeding Kansas troubles.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Marais-des-Cygnes-massacre  Surprisingly, these 2 pages don't overlap all that much in the information they provide.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Marais-des-Cygnes-Massacre-Site

Marais des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge
Also at this location is a rest area not far from the refuge office, but the weather was so truly nasty that I just didn't have the interest in going to the office that I'd had when I planned this stop.

Wikipedia says this refuge was created in 1992 to protect the bottomland hardwood forest there because it was the largest contiguous tract of this kind of forest in Kansas and one of the northernmost examples of it in the US.  It matters because of the wildlife habitat it provides.  For instance, here they've found more than 300 species of birds, 113 of which nest here, and 31 species of freshwater mussels that are unique to this type of habitat.  And, of course, there are any number of mammals and reptiles and other types of critters that thrive here.  The wildlife sanctuary part of this refuge isn't open to the public, to be sure they stay protected.

I'd hoped the signs they had out front would provide this sort of information.  But unfortunately, they had a different agenda in mind.  Also unfortunately, the weather was so awful that several of the signs were completely coated with ice - a cover that was hard enough I'd have needed an ice scraper to get it off.  Here are the ones I could read.

And these are the ones I had trouble reading, in case you want to give them a try.

The iced signs were the ones facing the direction of the storm.  I had that same coating on my driver's-side rear view mirror, but with that I had a strong incentive to scrape the ice off.

Anyway, you can see that all these mostly seem to be signs about the Frontier Military Historic Byway, rather than the refuge.

Marais des Cygnes translates (I'm told) into Marsh of the Swans, which I think this once was.  Because I didn't even think about trying to walk around in the public area of this refuge, all I saw was what was out front, which is this:

You can see the grey clouds
and snow on the grass - a day when I 
wouldn't have wanted to be a wild creature
without a roof or heater.

detail from general photo above,
showing the birds a little more clearly -
I think they were Red-winged Blackbirds

Although the roads were fine for driving, the miserable weather outside made me glad I hadn't planned for any more sightseeing stops than this place.  My only other destination was to find some world-famous Kansas City Barbecue.

From what I could find online, almost all the well-regarded - or at least well-known - places were on the Missouri side of the city, rather than the Kansas side.  Of course I'll come back to this area when I spend my month in Missouri, but this month is Kansas so I searched for a place over here.

Jack Stack BBQ/Overland Park

I ended up going to Jack Stack BBQ at the Overland Park location (their other locations being in Missouri).  They claim to be Zagat's top rated BBQ in the country, though I can't find out when that rating happened.

I learned some time back that different regions of the country do their barbecue differently, and what KC does is dry-rub the meat, and then cover it with a spicy tomato-molasses sauce.  I thought it was great.  Here's what they gave me.

What I ordered was pork ribs, beef "burnt ends," "hickory pit beans," and "cheesy corn bake."  It was enough food to feed me very well for 2 meals.  As far as I can tell, the burnt ends are something unique, or nearly so, to Kansas City.  For an explanation of what they are and where they came from and how to make them yourself, try this article.   https://www.foodfirefriends.com/how-to-make-burnt-ends

I got the beans and corn because the nice young person taking my order (outdoors, while I was walking the dogs) said those were the side dishes the restaurant was best known for.  I should have followed my instincts on the corn, because I prefer my corn pure, but it was okay.  The beans were great and both cuts of meat were better than great.  But I now understand why those burnt ends are so famous.  They were really truly very good indeed.  Next time I'll be hard pressed not to just order them by the pound and forget all that other stuff.  And I know the tomato-molasses BBQ sauce isn't for everyone, but I loved it.

Back on the road

Kansas City seems to be a maze of major thoroughfares, and from the restaurant I took surface roads, I-435, I-35, and US 169 to get to tonight's campground.

I passed a sign telling me to exit for the Historic Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop.  This turns out to be the last remaining stagecoach stop open to the public on the Santa Fe Trail.

I passed another sign announcing the Deaf Cultural Center, near the Kansas School for the Deaf.  That cultural center is a museum and sounds like someplace I'd like to visit on a return trip to Kansas (when there's not a pandemic).  At the museum they describe what it's like to be deaf and the history and education for deaf people in KS.  I remember reading that Helen Keller said if she had a choice between regaining either her sight or her hearing, she would choose her hearing, because being deaf is far more isolating.  And I think that might be true because I remember how isolated my Momma became as she lost her hearing, until we convinced her to try hearing aids, which magically restored her to interest in the world around her.

After I turned off even the 2-lane US highway onto a surface road, I passed a dilapidated 2-story building called The Hillsdale Tavern.  They had a sign out front: "Not As Expensive As We Look."  A sense of humor can go a long way with me.  (Sorry, but all the online photos were copyrighted.)

And at the state park, I had a hard time finding where our particular area was, and then trouble finding my campsite.  I understand Kansas doesn't charge much to stay at their campgrounds, but I'd support an extra $5/night if they'd just use it to post some directional signs.  Over and over I've found if you don't know where you're going before you get there, they're not going to help you find it.  The only online maps showing the layout are the ones for reserveamerica.com (that service so many states use), and even those don't always show clearly how to find the individual camping areas once you've found the park entrance (and Google often doesn't want to take me to a park entrance in the first place).  And once in the campgrounds, they don't provide many signs showing where the exit is.  And yes, I'm including this information in my "How Was Your Recent Kansas State Parks Stay?" comments.  Somebody needs to tell them.