Recently, my wife, our son Raphael and I spent a few days traveling in the state of Kansas.
Some people say there’s “nothing to see” in Kansas. It’s not just Kansas, they say that about all the states in the middle of the country.
But it’s not true. There are interesting things to see in every state, and specifically, in the state of Kansas.
Kansas has a reputation for being flat. Some of it is, but some of it is rolling plain, not really flat.
A lot of travelers just don’t appreciate driving through farmland. They say it’s boring.
Maybe it’s because I’m from a farm. But I enjoy looking at farmland on a trip. I see what crops are grown, what phase the crops are in, what techniques are used, and sometimes I see the actual farm machinery. The homesteads and barns are also interesting.
Farmers feed the world, so people ought to have more appreciation for them, and for the farmland itself.
Here are a few photos of Kansas and its fine farmland, which feeds the world:
Here are some photos of grain elevators. They’re all over Kansas. Grain is brought from the harvest to the grain elevator, built next to a railroad. From the grain elevator it is taken to be distributed to the world. They’re impressive.
We paid a visit to Fort Larned, which was a U.S. Army post located here from 1860 to 1878. Its main purpose was to protect the nearby Santa Fe trail.
After the fort was decommissioned, it was used as a ranch headquarters, from 1885 to 1966. This was very practical and may well have ensured that the buildings were preserved.
Here’s the fort :
The buildings were restored as closely as possible to how they were c. 1870. There was a barracks, officer housing, a repair shop. blacksmith shop, supply rooms, a hospital. One part now functions as a museum. And it was all free.
Later we stopped at the “Cuartelejo”, believed to be a Pueblo Indian site, the farthest north and east ever found. Most of it is reconstructed:
The Cuartelejo is located in Lake Scott State Park. Here is Lake Scott.
From there we went to Little Jerusalem State Park. This park contains a section of Badlands. We followed trails above the badlands.
Right next door is a working oil pump on the Kansas prairie:
From Little Jerusalem we traveled to Monument Rocks, a set of formations on private property on the Kansas prairie. The owner however, allows visitors but no camping. It was also impressive:
There were more formations on the other side of the road.
The next stop was Castle Rock, also on private property.
Nobody was around except for cattle grazing on the prairie.
Nearby are more badlands.
The next day we were at Hays, Kansas, and briefly visited another old fort, Fort Hays.
In Hutchinson we visted the Cosmosphere, a first-rate space museum, right there in Kansas.
This museum was founded by a woman named Patty Carey. It began in 1962 as a planetarium located in the Poultry Building at the Kansas State Fair. Over the years it grew and grew into what we see today.
The Kansas state motto is Ad Astra per Aspera, “to the stars through difficulties” which fits right in with the space theme.
Here is Liberty Bell 7, from the second manned Mercury mission (Mercury-Redstone 4), piloted by Gus Grissom in 1961. After splashdown, the spacecraft sank to the bottom of the Atlantic. In 1999 it was retrieved and is now on display in the Cosmosphere.
There’s a replica of the Lunar Modules which landed on the moon, 1969-1972.
This is the actual command module of Apollo 13, the 1970 mission that failed to reach the moon but brought all 3 astronauts back alive.
We had a good time in Kansas and saw only a few of its many attractions. Don’t ignore Kansas if you have the chance to visit!
Article by Allan Wall, published November 7th, 2026, on www.allanwall.info .
All photographs taken by Allan Wall.
Tags: Agriculture, Badlands, Castle Rock, Cosmosphere, El Cuartelejo in Kansas, Fort Hays, Fort Larned, Hutchinson in Kansas, Kansas, Kansas Badlands, Little Jerusalem State Park in Kansas, Monument Rocks in Kansas