Senior Editor on the Prairie

Our recent literary roundup dredged up a great memory from Senior Editor Scott Stuckey. He offered up a book selection that helps bring him back:

I went to college in the Midwest and spent some weekends sightseeing in the Flint Hills of Kansas. One November, a friend and I hitched a ride to a lonely back road in the vicinity of Cottonwood Falls, hopped a fence, and started backpacking across the rolling tallgrass prairie, a state highway map our only guide. We saw no one for the next couple of days, crossing the sea of grass like early pioneers. Then, a snowstorm hit, and we got cold and wet. We found a road, made our way to a ranch house, and knocked on the door. The family who lived there, who might easily have taken offense at our trespassing on private ranchland, welcomed us in, dried our clothes, fed us a huge meal, and drove us into town where our parents would pick us up. In the years since, that rolling prairie has become the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, and it’s still worth a visit. But before you go, read William Least Heat-Moon’s PrairyErth, which he calls a “deep map” of Chase County, Kansas, where the preserve lies. Moon spent years getting to know the land and the people of this remote region, where hospitality and unencumbered views endure. The result is a rich, layered profile combining history, geology, geography, and contemporary narrative.

Visit the National Parks System's Tallgrass Preserve website for more information on it's history programs, tours, hiking trails, and historic building visits. Oh, and be sure to check the weather before you go.

Photo: National Park Service

Comments

[Sheila Scarborough]

Thanks very much for this post, and I second the recommendation for Least Heat-Moon's book on this part of Kansas.

I visited there with my teen daughter this past summer and wrote a Flint Hills post on my Family Travel blog, if you're interested:

http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Seafarer/travel-in-the-usa/big-country-the-kansas-flint-hills.html

Thanks!

[Bill Smith]

It has been very interesting to have a Google Alert for Blogs on "Kansas Flint Hills!"
Yours came up today!
We have a 22 county Flint Hills Tourism Coalition promoting visits to the Kansas Flint Hills – this is the website: http://www.kansasflinthills.travel/
Our web site is to promote the Kansas Flint Hills; and we were so happy to be in the 22 page color photo spread in National Geographic's April Issue on the Kansas Flint Hills, as a distinctive landscape.

We would appreciate a link from your site, to ours, if you are willing to do so. THANKS!
Best wishes!

Bill ;-)

Personal Blog: http://flinthillsofkansas.blogspot.com/