Topeka Tourist, Take Two

I may be asked to revoke my Kansas citizenship. Not really, but before a recent visit, I had toured the Iowa State Capitol more recently than the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka. However, we remedied that during a trip last month to Topeka. While the girls were in school and Jill and Eric were working, we did our own version of a staycation. We worked our tourist events around a week full of tennis, track, softball and music. 

Randy had toured the Capitol a few years ago on a Kansas Master Farm Families Discover Kansas trip. However, I was sick and missed out. At the Iowa Capitol, I did take the 97-step climb to the top of the dome. (Click HERE for a "tour" of that capitol building). But we opted not to take the 296 steps to the top on this trip to the Kansas Capitol.

While I wasn't attempting to take a photo of Randy's socks, I had to smile when I looked at the pictures again. Randy forgot his short socks at home. No worries: Kinley instructed him in the fine art of arranging your tube socks just so - like a junior high girl!

 

The Kansas State Capitol recently completed a 13-year, top-to bottom-renovation of the building that restored the original architect's vision by uncovering murals, preserving original features, renovating aging limestone and expanding work space.  

Randy is standing on a map of Kansas that's located on the floor near the Visitor Center entrance. He's standing on the County Line - just like home!

Construction of the central building began in 1886. The building was declared officially complete in 1903, after 37 years of construction. 

The Capitol's distinctive copper dome with Ad Astra statue is a prominent feature of the Topeka skyline, but the view inside the dome is just as spectacular.

The Ad Astra statue sits atop the Kansas State Capitol dome. It is a 22-foot tall statue of a Kaw warrior with a bow and arrow drawn. The statue's name, Ad Astra, is derived from the state motto, "Ad astra per aspera," which translates to "To the stars through difficulties." The statue was crafted by the late Richard Bergen from Salina and was installed in 2002.

Topeka Capitol Journal photo (from the web)

Ad Astra wasn't the first idea to crown the Capitol. In 1889, during the Capitol's construction, J.H. Mahoney won a design competition to select what would top the dome. He proposed a 16-foot bronze statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. However, some people balked at the price and others argued about her mythological morals. The idea was abandoned, and the dome remained unadorned for more than 100 years. In the Capitol's Visitor Center, this 3-foot plaster model shows the original artist's vision.

But murals have long been a part of the beauty of the Capitol.

In the 1930s, John Steuart Curry painted murals on the second floor including the building's most famous painting, Tragic Prelude, which depicts an oversize and raging John Brown wedged between the warring sides of the American Civil War flanked by flames and a tornado. Curry's depiction of Brown is believed to be the only instance of a person convicted of treason being featured in a state capitol (Wikipedia).

David Hicks Overmyer painted a series of murals in the first floor rotunda between 1951 and 1953.

 

These agriculture-themed murals were some of my favorites, but there are many others, too.

This ode to Kansas and its state flower was another favorite. It says:

Rich with fields of corn and wheat

Gleaned from Nature's richest dower

Peerless Kansas on the Plains

Even the sun has kissed our flower. 

 

The Kansas State Library is also located in the Capitol building. I will always spend time in a library, and this one was beautiful.

 

I loved the brass sunflowers adorning some of the railings. In the background was a shelf of books that had been named Kansas Notable Books. On those shelves, I saw The Amelia Six by Kristin Gray, a book for Grades 4-6 and I thought my mystery-loving granddaughter Brooke might like it. I picked it up for her at the Topeka and Shawnee County Library the next day; however, I could have checked it out from the state library. (In it, 11-year-old Amelia Ashford gets the opportunity to spend the night in Amelia Earhart’s childhood home in Atchison with five other girls and mystery ensues.) The Amelia Six was a Kansas Notable Book in 2021.

Of course, the true purpose of the Kansas State Capitol is the business of running the state. Those are beautiful spaces as well.

The House of Representatives:

And the Kansas Senate:

 

Newer additions to the art of the Capitol are stained glass panels added during the state's centennial:

I'm sure we didn't see everything. It's another great stop to add to a Kansas staycation idea this summer.

TED ENSLEY GARDENS

We took a brief detour to the Ted Ensley Gardens in Topeka one morning. We've been there when there was much more in bloom (click HERE). But this time, it was just after the large tulip festival and the summer plantings hadn't yet been done.

 

 

There had been moisture the night before, so the peonies and poppies were bejeweled with raindrops.  

 

The garden's purple martin houses were a lot more heavily populated than the house Randy installed by the corrals here at home a couple of years ago. (It's hard to see, but the flying bird is carrying twigs in its mouth.)

 

 

The flowers weren't the only things that were wet. Randy sat on a damp bench for me. He volunteered ... really. I'm sure we will return again when there are more summer blooms to enjoy.

LAKE SHAWNEE GOLF COURSE

 

Our real destination that morning was the nearby Lake Shawnee Golf Course.

 

This commemorates an eagle's nest that is at the course.

It's a beautiful course right along Lake Shawnee. Topeka had gotten rain, so Randy had to stick to the cart paths. He golfed with a father-son duo. When visiting with Bob Sands, the 88-year-old dad, I learned that he was retired journalist who co-wrote the book, From First to Worst: A History of Kansas City Major League Baseball 1955 - 1985. The authors wrote it following the Royals' World Series win. We commiserated about the demise of the daily newspaper as it was "back in the day" when I was a reporter/editor at The Hutchinson News and he worked at a number of papers, including The Topeka Capitol Journal.

 

Another day, Randy golfed at the Berkshire course in Topeka. As usual, I read my book.

OTHER TOPEKA TOURING

This winter, we'd also visited the Brown vs. Board of Education site in Topeka. It tells the story of Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legal segregation in public schools. The exhibits offer an understanding of the role this 1954 Supreme Court decision played in the Civil Rights Movement. It includes a free tour of the historic Monroe School building tour. This historic site is operated by the National Park Service and is open Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is free. 

When the girls were younger, we made several trips to the Kansas Children's Discovery Center. We also love the Topeka Zoo. We are looking forward to the renovations being complete at the Kansas State Historical Society museum.  For more of Topeka's attractions, you can visit www.visittopeka.com. 

Prairie Sunset Finale: Symphony of the Flint Hills

There couldn't have been a more fitting theme for the 20th and final rendition of the Symphony in the Flint Hills. The concert - Prairie Sunset - was Saturday, June 14, at the Evans Family Ranch in Chase County, Kansas. The wildflower-dotted rolling hills and overcast sky provided the dramatic backdrop for this grand finale concert of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra set in the Flint Hills. 

 

It began in 2006 with the mission to heighten appreciate and knowledge of the Flint Hills tallgrass prairie. 

Rooted in these hills, like the enduring bluestem itself, Symphony in the Flint Hills, Inc., works to build awareness for the last stand of tallgrass prairie. ... The landscape's stone, soil, flora, fauna and skies above pull on our souls and care for us, and we are called to care for this place in return. ... We envision a future where our efforts encourage people to strengthen the Kansas prairie by sustaining the region's unique culture and landscape.

From the Mission Statement - Symphony of the Flint Hills 

This was not downtown Kansas City - by any stretch of the imagination. While city drivers sometimes have to dodge potholes after a brutal winter, they don't come across too many signs like this:

 

There was only one way in and out of the concert venue, set in the pasture in rural Strong City. It created a different kind of traffic jam as vehicles made their way north of U.S. 50 and down roads white with the dust of the area's limestone. (It took us 2 hours to travel the seven or so miles from the highway to the pasture.)

As we placed our water jug and program between our lawn chairs, we saw evidence that this was a working pasture and felt right at home. (For the uninitiated, those are a couple of dried cow patties.)

 

After 20 years, the concert volunteers had the logistics down to a science. Once we arrived, we quickly parked and caught a ride on a pickup-pulled wagon to the tents set up in the pasture. 

Unfortunately, because of traffic, we didn't arrive in time for any of the afternoon seminars. 

 

They delayed the concert start for 30 minutes, hoping to get more of the concert goers to the venue in time to hear the opening strains of the Celebration Overture by Peter Boyle. That same piece had opened the 2016 version of the Symphony of the Flint Hills - the only other time I'd attended, that time with Brent. This was Randy's first time, since he had been baling in 2016 and couldn't make the trip with me. When he saw it was the final opportunity, he got tickets to celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary. 

 

It was the perfect gift and well worth the wait.  

While making our way from the highway to the concert site, we'd seen lots of wildflowers lining the ditches in a rainbow of colors. I did think about jumping out of the car to take photos, but didn't. I didn't find as many in the pasture itself, though I did take photos of a few. 

 

This was right by our seats. It was still standing at the end of the night, surviving all the visitors.

During intermission, I wandered over to an electric fence for some photos of the prairie beyond.

 The purple lupine was a favorite wildflower.

The Flint Hills are part of the tallgrass prairie. In Kansas, they stretch from Marshall County in the north down through Riley, Geary, Pottawatomie, Wabaunsee, Morris, Lyon, Chase, Greenwood, Butler, Elk, Cowley and Chautauqua Counties and then into Oklahoma, where they are called the Osage Hills. These 5 million acres comprise the largest expanse of tallgrass prairie in the world.

The Flint Hills began as a vast inland sea 270 million years ago, which left scattered limestone and shallow soil behind. With the rocks less than a foot down, this part of the prairie was spared the plow and left in native grass. It’s the prairie mosaic that author William Least Heat-Moon called “360 degrees of sky.”

While it certainly isn't the mountains of Colorado, it's also very different from the stereotypical flat lands of Kansas. 

I'm a fan of clouds during sunset because they provide such a vivid painting as the light seeps through them. It was a constantly evolving scene as the light of day began to fade into a mild Kansas evening. 

 

The light and shadows played hide-and-seek in the gentle nooks and crannies of the rolling Plains covered in lush grass after plentiful spring rains. 

 

Kansas City Symphony Conductor Daniel Wiley directed a program that also included John Henry and Saturday Night Waltz by Aaron Copland, as well as George Gershwin's Summertime and Dvorak's finale from The New World Symphony. As the orchestra's notes rose and fell, it certainly seemed like the perfect celebration of music and nature's beauty. 

I am used to seeing cattle in pastures, but watching the cowboys drive the cattle across the landscape while an orchestra played was a little different from our 4-wheeler round-ups. (My photos aren't great of the cattle drive and cowboys.)

As the concert came to an end, the 8,000 or so spectators, donors and volunteers stood and sang "Home on the Range," a tradition of Symphony in the Flint Hills.

I thought about the words to a less-familiar verse of Kansas' state song, "Home on the Range," words that we'd just sung in unison:

How often at night when the heavens are bright

With the light from the glittering stars

Have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed

If their glory exceeds that of ours.

Yes ... indeed.

We didn't think there was any need to hurry away from the concert site. We decided we'd much rather take in the after-concert activities than sit in the car in stop-and-go traffic. 

 Lots of us watched the powwow dancers. The area now known as the Flint Hills was once the ancestral homelands of the Kansa (Kaw) and Osage Nations and the traditional hunting grounds of Siouan, Wichita and Pawnee people who relied on the great herds of bison once so abundant there. 

Country singer and Kansas native Logan Mize had sung his song, “Welcome to Prairieville,.”with the symphony. After leading the audience-participation rendition of Home on the Range,  he moved to the beverage tent to entertain into the evening. 

 We didn't get home until after 1:30 AM, but it was worth the late night (early morning). 

The Flint Hills don't take your breath away. 

They give you a chance to catch your breath.

Jim Hoy - Cowboy and historian - 1939-2025 

 

What a wonderful grand finale! Thank you to all the volunteers who made it possible.  

As directed, I didn't record any of the concert. But with no wind, the sound was spectacular. I found this short clip online - just in case you're interested. (CLICK HERE.)