Family Friendly

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Birds and butterflies at Chaplin Nature Center on 9/26

Back in high school biology, each fall, part of our homework was to tag monarch butterflies. It involves capturing the little orange and black buggers and putting a small, special tagged sticker on them and then releasing them back into the world.

Photo by USFWS Midwest

Why do this? Well, I have to say that I never forgot that biology class and running around Sunset Park with a butterfly net. But on a more practical and less specific level, it allows biologists (real ones, not high schoolers) to see when and where a butterfly was first captured and tagged and track it to where it was recovered to look at migration patterns, effects of weather, life span, etc. (I suppose at the other end of the migration path are people looking for dead butterflies with stickers on them, which seems less fun.) You can find out about the project at Monarch Watch.

And why do I ramble on about this? Because the monarch butterflies have arrived in Kansas, and Chaplin Nature Center will be running a free event this Saturday 9/26 from 10am to 3pm where you can help capture and tag monarchs as well as learn more about their migration through the Sunflower State.

There will also be members of the Wichita Audubon Society leading free nature hikes throughout the day.

If you go:
Chaplin Nature Center
27814 27th Dr, Arkansas City, KS 67005

2 miles south of Geuda Springs, then 2.6 miles east on 272nd Rd, or 3 miles west of Arkansas City on Hwy 166, then north 2 1/4 miles on 31st Rd.

Trails are open from sunrise to sunset, 7 days a week

The Visitor’s Center is open on Saturdays 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Sundays 1 p.m. – 5 p.m. year round. It is closed Mondays and holidays.

September 1 – November 15, Tuesday – Saturday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

 

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Kansas state parks will be free on 9/26 this year!

The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas have come together for Healthy Fun at the Parks Day on Saturday, September 26, 2015. As a part of that, all of the state parks will be free on that day! Normally, a daily use entrance fee is $5.

Plus, they’ve made a coloring book and a map of all 26 state park locations. Coloring books will be available across the state at state park locations, rest stops, and tourism offices, or you may have picked one up at the Kansas State Fair.

So head out to a state park near you on Saturday and enjoy a free visit! If you need some guidance on the trails you can find at the parks, check out our book.

You can learn more about the free day here.Screen Shot 2015-09-22 at 4.33.15 PM

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Free admission to the Flint Hills Discovery Center this Sunday!

It’s the annual family day at the Flint Hills Discovery Center this Sunday, 9/13/15.

Flint Hills Discovery Center

Flint Hills Discovery Center

From their newsletter: Free admission all day on Sunday, September 13 to the Flint Hills Discovery Center! It’s the last chance to view the In the Dark exhibition. Check out the children’s area and Horizon Ranch Flint Hills Immersive Experience Theater Experience. Several local businesses will be in attendance with fun activities for the kids, too!

If you haven’t ever been, you should definitely make the trip. They have all kinds of interactive exhibits that do well at blending entertainment and education for just about all ages that show off the wonders of the tallgrass prairie and the Flint Hills.

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Best Family Friendly Hikes in Kansas

School may be in session, but there’s still plenty of good weather left in the year to get out and enjoy a weekend morning or afternoon on the trail.

We picked our top family-friendly trails based on accessibility – all of them are wide and smooth enough for you to push a stroller on them and most can handle a wheelchair. They’re also shorter – between 1 and 2 miles and a lot of them have interpretive signage along the way to help keep things interesting.
 

 

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Did we miss any? What’s your favorite family-friendly trail in Kansas? Let us know in the comments below.

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Museum of World Treasures in Old Town Wichita

Museum of World Treasures. Photo by Mark Conard

Museum of World Treasures. Photo by Mark Conard

Where is the one place in the world where you can go to find a shrunken head, a mummy, a T-Rex, a piece of the Berlin Wall, and a pitchfork used in The Wizard of Oz? It’s the Museum of World Treasures in Old Town Wichita.

Ivan

Photo from Museum of World Treasures

Founded in 2001, it moved into its current location in the Farm and Art Market in Old Town in 2003. The exhibits showcase an eclectic and impressive range from millions of years of history with the centerpiece on the first floor – Ivan the T-Rex, and one of the most complete T-Rex discoveries in the world.

You can also check out exhibits on the World Wars, European royalty, Kansas paleontology, the Wild West, and more. You’ll definitely leave feeling more cultured than when you went in.

It’s the perfect place to take your kids – it’s not overly large, so you can see the entire museum without getting overwhelmed, and there’s a kids room with dress-up areas and toys and games. Throughout the museum, there are interactive exhibits perfect for kids.

About half of the treasures on exhibit come from the collection of the founders, Dr. Jon and Lorna Kardatzke, and the mix of artifacts is unexpected and delightful.

We went as a family for a birthday party, and the kids got a brief 20-minute themed tour – they learned about Ivan the dinosaur and cave bears! We also managed to time it with one of their Discovery Days.

The last Saturday of the month from 11am to 3pm, there are activity stations with games, crafts, and artifact exploration. Each month is different, and coming up there’s the St. Patrick’s Day Hats event on March 28 and The Greek Olympics on April 25.

They’ve got events for adults too. The Murder at the Museum: Deadwood Saloon event starts at 7pm on April 25, and you can dress up and play a part in the interactive murder mystery entertainment while enjoying snacks and drinks and exploring the museum. Tickets are $30 per adult or $25 for Museum Members. For $10 per child, bring children over 3 years old for an alternative kids program while the adults solve the crime.

If you go:MOWT

Mon-Sat: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sun: Noon – 5 p.m.

Family Day Pass (2 adults/2 children): $28.50
Adult: $8.95
Senior: $7.95Youth: $6.95
Children 3 and under are FREE!

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REI and Dinosaurs: Prairiefire opens in Overland Park

Overland Park is now home to Kansas’ first REI store in its new $427 million development Prairiefire. Opening weekend was the first week of October, and you should stop by for a visit!

While I’m a fan of independently owned, smaller stores, REI, though it’s a big company, has to be one of my favorite stores in terms of quality hiking gear, in large part because of their return policy.

If you use the item, and it doesn’t work out for you (shoes give you blisters, shirt shrinks in the wash), they will take it back within a year of your purchase. So instead of having to hope for the best in terms of your gear working they way you want it to, you’ll always know you can go back and try again. They also sell Garmin devices, including the Oregon 650t, which we’ve tested and love.

Activities coming up with REI that will get you out exploring the Kansas City area (which, yes, does include Kansas City, Missouri, though our book will just focus on the Kansas side of the city).

And coming in May 2014 to Prairiefire will be a natural history museum called The Museum of Prairiefire. It ties in perfectly with the idea of our book – along with mapping out the trails, we’re going to be including some of the natural history of the areas, so you’ll have some context to where you’re exploring. And this museum is going to be a pretty big deal. It’s a partnership with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

For a sneak peek at part of the exhibits, there’s the World’s Largest Dinosaurs temporary exhibit that opened the first week of October 2013.

Featuring a life-sized, detailed model of a 60-foot-long Mamenchisaurus, the exhibit will run through the beginning of January.

Ticket cost: Adults: $10; children 12 and under: $5; Museum of Prairiefire Members: free.

If you go:
Prairiefire at Lionsgate
5750 W 137th Street, Overland Park, Kansas 66223
The center is between 135th Street and 137th Street  between Nall Avenue and Lamar Avenue.

Staying the night in Overland Park? We’d recommend the DoubleTree by Hilton.

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Discovering the Flint Hills Discovery Center

“The Flint Hills don’t take your breath away; they give you a chance to catch it.”

Entrance to the Flint Hills Discovery Center

Entrance to the Flint Hills Discovery Center

This Jim Hoy quote is included in an exhibit at the Flint Hills Discovery Center in southern Manhattan, Kansas, and I couldn’t have expressed it better myself. The subtle beauty and the quietness of the space in the Flint Hills can be difficult to describe.

Having gone to school in Manhattan, coming back to the town to research the bike trails by the river, I figured that I knew all the city had to offer. But the Flint Hills Discovery Center opened in April 2012, and it’s a great place to go and get lost in the history and lure of the Flint Hills for an hour or two, especially for those with kids or who have any interest in Kansas, history, geography, biology, or ecology.

What’s special about the Flint Hills? Once 250 million acres stretching from Canada to Texas, the tallgrass prairie is now 95% gone – plowed under and turned into farmland.

Thanks to the rocky soil, mostly limestone, in the Flint Hills area, the prairie here was saved. This rare and delicately balanced ecosystem is home to all kinds of flora and fauna from grasshoppers to bison and snakes to butterflies.

Looking through the first floor exhibits at the Flint Hills Discovery Center, you see the prairie from all angles: formation of the rock layers and the rolling hills over thousands and millions of years, the plants and wildlife that make the prairie what it is – including beneath the soil’s surface, the importance of fire to keeping the prairie healthy, history and culture of the Native Americans who called the prairie home or hunting ground and were then relocated with the European influx, the cowboys and ranchers who have driven cattle to and from the grassland for grazing.

Native American exhibit

Native American exhibit

What stands out is the mix of exhibits like the rolling video of interviews with people of the Flint Hills and the interactive activities. While appealing for kids, they’re also interesting/entertaining for adults – like the Auctioneer’s Karaoke (I couldn’t keep up!).

You can also see how you’d do keeping a section of prairie healthy with a touch screen simulation – balancing the amount of cattle or bison with the number of burns over a 7-year time span with a luck-of-the-draw amount of rain. My first try ended poorly with my bison hungry and with non-native, invasive species encroaching on the prairie. Whoops! I tried it again with better results. I’ll let you see how you do!

Also on the first floor is the auditorium for the multi-media “immersive” program: “Tallgrass Prairie: Tides of Time.” The 15-minute presentation takes you to the prairie throughout its seasons, including blowing wind and falling snow. I’ve never been in a museum presentation quite like it, and I’m sure that it’s a hit with kids who might find other “educational” presentations boring. It’s also got some pretty great cinematography and photography that really show off the prairie at its most beautiful and dynamic.

While much of the downstairs area is kid-friendly, upstairs is primarily the kid’s area, and, bonus, it’s actually ideal for kids of all ages. A lot of museums or centers like this one include activity zones that are better for older kids and leave nothing for younger ones. This has a 30lb and under section where kids can crawl and explore. Then there’s a dress-up area, a reading spot, a “prairie pipe organ” and even a slide.

Flint Hills Discover Center

Flint Hills Discovery Center

Also upstairs is the temporary exhibit space. Until September 8, 2013, the exhibit is Conservation Quest. All about how to save energy, it also has plenty of interactive stations. The building itself is energy efficient and sustainably designed.

To commemorate your visit, there’s a little gift shop with many items made in/from Kansas with a mix of books, jewelry, candles, and toys.

I was lucky to be staying in the Fairfield Inn, which is right next door; otherwise, since I hadn’t heard about this spot before, I might have missed out. Don’t risk making that mistake!

If you go:
315 South 3rd Street
785-587-2726

Adult: $9.00
Youth: $4.00
Military, College Students & Seniors (65+): $7.00
Children under 2: FREE

MEMORIAL DAY TO LABOR DAY
Monday through Thursday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Friday and Saturday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday: Noon – 5 p.m.

LABOR DAY TO MEMORIAL DAY
Monday through Wednesday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Thursday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Friday and Saturday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday: Noon – 5 p.m.

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Strataca – Kansas Underground Salt Museum

The double deckered elevator door shuts and takes you 650 feet below the surface of the earth. On the 90 second journey through the $6 million elevator shaft, you realize it’s a bit more disconcerting than you thought it would be to be descending deep into the earth in near complete darkness, but you’ve just watched a safety video and are wearing a hard hat and an emergency breathing device, so you take a deep breath and know that you’re safe. And as the doors open, you get to see what life is like beneath the surface in the Kansas Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson. May 1, 2013 will mark the 6th year since the museum opened, and it’s the only salt museum in the United Sates.

275 million years ago, salt deposits formed, and the first part of the museum includes exhibits and information on the formation of the salt during the Permian Era. This includes one of the world’s oldest living creatures – living bacteria trapped in a salt crystal from 250 million years ago. That kind of time and history is mind-stretchingly old and amazing (older than dinosaurs!), and it can’t be seen anywhere else.

From there, you can check out the other use of the underground space – storage. Since it’s a climate controlled space safe from natural and man-made disasters, it’s an ideal storage space for sensitive information and artifacts. Opened during the Cold War, it’s the world’s largest single storage facility for the film industry – original negatives from film and TV along with props.  And some of the famous artifacts are on display, like props from The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Batman, and Men In Black.

The Salt Mine Express Tour: The “dark ride” tram tour takes you on a 40 minute tour where you learn about the history of the mine. In 1923, the Carey Salt Company began mining the salt, and the mine is still in operation as the Hutchinson Salt Company.  There’s old, abandoned machinery left beneath the earth; once equipment was brought into the mine, it was there forever. And at one point, they turn off the tram lights, so you can experience absolute and complete darkness (it’s the most intense darkness you’ll ever experience). It ends with a stop where you can gather your own piece of salt from a pile for a souvenir (don’t eat it!).

Visitor information:

3504 East Avenue G at Airport Road, 620.662.1425. Closed Mondays and reservations recommended

All inclusive entrance, which includes admission, guided tram tour, and train ride

  • $19 for adults
  • $17 for seniors
  • $12.50 for children 4-12 (0-3 not admitted)
  • $14 for Reno County residents
  • $12.50 for members