IT IS HOT IN KANSAS, TOTO

Our night at Annabell Gardens surely felt decadent! A few photos from my morning walk to get our tea and coffee. It had not rained, the walkways are wet from sprinkling of the lawn.

Poolside gal is reading a script for Romeo and Juliet, for some reason allowing the pages to all away.

All the winding walkways make it challenging to find one’s room. Fortunately there are landmarks. The tiger tells me I am at the correct intersection, and the rabbit is at the corner of our room.

We had our hotel provided breakfast, chilled (literally) in our suite until 11:00 check out time (no need to get into the heat too early), packed up, got our free cup of soft serve ice cream that is served all day, and checked out for our drive into Kansas.

We made an unscheduled stop in the town of Concordia Kansas as Susan wanted to get a state map. What a town! Lots of history here and we could spend a whole day to see and visit everything, said Susie from the visitor center.

Susie is not nearly as grim as my photo makes her appear. Just the opposite in fact. Openly friendly, fun, and knowledgeable about all things Kansas it seems. The center is housed in the museum and there is not enough funding to hire a curator so Susie and another volunteer keep it open and welcoming. What could we see in Concordia if we stayed longer?: Orphan Train Museum; German POW Camp (my history knowledge needs work as I did not know we had such camps in the US, and Concordia had the biggest in the nation); Nazareth Convent; Broadway Plaza; Brown Grand Theatre.

Concordia was a major town for arrival of the Orphan Trains that brought children who had been abandoned, lost or orphaned in other states, to house them here. This was the start of what became foster care.

There are many statues throughout town with the story of how they got here and how they fared.

I took only a couple of photos as we did not take time to walk around much. But I liked this one too.

The whole outside wall of the building is a depiction of the town’s history done in relief form and is quite amazing. It is impossible to get the entire huge wall in a photo. I include three parts that I took from an angle that show only some of the art work.

Walking back to the van I happened to appreciate this old door.

And now it was time to drive to our campground at Wilson Lake, near Sylvan Grove, Kansas. We got to Sylvan Grove, stopped for a light dinner, and knew we would not be camping tonight.

I will end this post here and pick up tomorrow about what happens the next day.