Road Trip! (Topeka, Lawrence, Manhattan: camping, live in, train station)

[northoceanbeach]

Im taking a cross country road trip on a motorcycle and one of the places i want to really explore is Kansas.

I'm really not sure why. I live on the west coast and people ask me where I'm going, expecting to hear the more typical responses like Montana, colorado, and I laugh and say Kansas.

I don't know, when I have driven through there and Nebraska in the past I really loved the wide open spaces. something about the prairie appealed to me. Maybe its because there are so many mountains and rivers here that I want something different.

But I digress....what should I put on my list to see? A good example is I stopped in Lindsborg last time and thought it was a nice stop. I would like to see more friendly clean prairie towns like that.

What roads do you recommend and towns, from small to big, maybe with the focus on central and western kansas.

I'll be camping part of the time. Know of any good places to camp? Is western KS like a lot of the west where you can throw up a tent anywhere?

Thank you for the help

[Rivertowntalk]

I would take highways 50 and 24 in Colorado and cut through Leadville and the east on 24 into Colorado Springs. Take 50 east towards Kansas. There is a a place called Bent's Fort that is interesting. Up to the north, Limon has a great muesum at their train station.

I like taking 96 into Kansas through Scott City. Could go to Great Bend and south to Pratt, which is a nice area. Hutchinson is a good stop. There is a wildlife area near Great Bend called Cheyenne Bottoms. To the east, near Manhattan, there is the Konza Reserve.

Chalk Pyramids near Oakley
Ft Larned Historic Site
Tallgrass Prairie Preserve
Manhattan, KS
Wilson Lake
Old Abilene Town
Hutchinson Cosmosphere
Matfield Green and Cottonwood Falls
Lawrence, KS downtown
Atchison, KS and Weston, MO


Watch out for the windmill blades and the drug sniffing dogs!

[luzianne]

I like the wide open spaces too!

[northoceanbeach]

Originally Posted by Rivertowntalk

I would take highways 50 and 24 in Colorado and cut through Leadville and the east on 24 into Colorado Springs. Take 50 east towards Kansas. There is a a place called Bent's Fort that is interesting. Up to the north, Limon has a great muesum at their train station.

I like taking 96 into Kansas through Scott City. Could go to Great Bend and south to Pratt, which is a nice area. Hutchinson is a good stop. There is a wildlife area near Great Bend called Cheyenne Bottoms. To the east, near Manhattan, there is the Konza Reserve.

Chalk Pyramids near Oakley
Ft Larned Historic Site
Tallgrass Prairie Preserve
Manhattan, KS
Wilson Lake
Old Abilene Town
Hutchinson Cosmosphere
Matfield Green and Cottonwood Falls
Lawrence, KS downtown
Atchison, KS and Weston, MO


Watch out for the windmill blades and the drug sniffing dogs!

So would you take I70 after scott until just past hays and then get off and head towards Great Bend?

What do you mean watch out for the windmills and drug sniffing dogs?

[Rivertowntalk]

In Kansas and in parts of eastern Colorado, you will see tons of windmills generating electricity. More and more are being added and you will often seen windmill blades being transported. The blades are extremely long.

The Kansas Highway Patrol performs drug checks on major roadways, particularly I-70, so drug dogs are used, per the signs. In some cases, these are decoys and they may be observing for people to exit the interstate.

If going east on 96, it would be an easy jaunt straight into Great Bend. You could enter the state on I-70, but if you wanted to get away from the interstate to see more, 96 would be a good option. Also, 36 to the north is another route that may be interesting. Highway 54 through Pratt is good too.

It is good to pay close attention to what the weather is doing while in the area as thunderstorms will often fire up over the plains and roll east and northeast.

[northoceanbeach]

ooo, thanks good advice. Those wind turbines are long. I wonder if they are a hazard to me on a motorcycle by creating well, wind. Like when a semi passes, but the way they are shaped maybe causes strange wind patterns a motorcyclist would have to watch out for.

Weird about the drug signs. I looked that up, they do, they put up fake signs and when you exit, they search you. Funny stuff. I hope I don't pass one and the next exit has a Pilot truck stop. I always stop and get coffee at Pilot, if the put up a drug sign and the next exit was a Pilot I was planning to stop at I would be so sad. lol.

I'm looking at a map. Im thinking 96 does look good.

[WoundedSpirit]

The wind farms are pretty awesome, they stretch on for miles. The western part of Kansas is high prairie, like eastern Colorado. It starts to green up in the middle. We live in southeast Kansas, and it is hilly and green and beautiful. Lots of pastoral-like scenes, farms and old buildings. Enjoy your trip!

[northoceanbeach]

Thanks. I like both the east and west of Kansas. Both Kansas and Nebraska to me are very similar. I just have always passed more quickly than I would have liked to on the interstate and not really had time to appreciate the scenery.

At least not in a long time. Once years ago, driving to california, I think it was, I took the lower road that goes through dodge city, but I still was in a bit of a hurry and think I only spent one night.

It is pretty cool the way the prairie turns into the plains. Did I say that right? The prairie is the more wild west side and the plains are the flat east with the crop fields and the greenery like where you live? The western side is completely deserted and the east becomes more and more populated.

It's also very strange how these two states are the two where the further east you drive the more humid it becomes. It goes from very little humidity to very humid on the missouri border. You can feel it, or if you are in the car with the AC on and don't stop when you get out on the east side all of a sudden you feel so muggy!

[Mattks]

Originally Posted by Rivertowntalk

I would take highways 50 and 24 in Colorado and cut through Leadville and the east on 24 into Colorado Springs. Take 50 east towards Kansas. There is a a place called Bent's Fort that is interesting. Up to the north, Limon has a great muesum at their train station.

I like taking 96 into Kansas through Scott City. Could go to Great Bend and south to Pratt, which is a nice area. Hutchinson is a good stop. There is a wildlife area near Great Bend called Cheyenne Bottoms. To the east, near Manhattan, there is the Konza Reserve.

Chalk Pyramids near Oakley
Ft Larned Historic Site
Tallgrass Prairie Preserve
Manhattan, KS
Wilson Lake
Old Abilene Town
Hutchinson Cosmosphere
Matfield Green and Cottonwood Falls
Lawrence, KS downtown
Atchison, KS and Weston, MO


Watch out for the windmill blades and the drug sniffing dogs!

Great ideas. I recommend stopping at the Capitol building in Topeka as well. They just finished a huge remodel and it's likely one of the nicest Capitol buildings in the US. Sadly there isn't much else to do in Topeka. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene. Lawrence downtown is great, maybe stop at the Capitol and then spend the evening downtown in Lawrence. The Capitol tours are free btw.

The Cosmosphere is also amazing and I highly recommend if you do go that way. Big Brutus is likely too far out of the way in SE Kansas. But it is very neat.

[WoundedSpirit]

Big Brutus is awesome! There is a lot of interesting mining history around Brutus, you can see all the strange little lakes made by strip mining on the way. There is also a free zoo in Independence that's pretty swell, too. It feels like you're in a rain forest, not in Kansas.