Pittsburgh

We stayed the night in Pittsburgh at the Lamplighter Inn and Suites, which we found quite adequate. The kids always love hotel breakfasts, so they were in heaven the next morning.

Before hitting the hay, though, we went to the Caballo de Oro Mexican restaurant, which was excellent. We really enjoyed ourselves. They even had live music!

The downtown area of Pittsburgh is quaint and interesting, with lots of shops and restaurants. It also has some more industrialized areas, as well as chain restaurants and hotels on the edge of town. The residents of Pittsburgh love the Pitt State Gorillas, judging from the red-and-yellow painted gorilla statues all over the city.

Dodge City

We stayed in Dodge City on our way home from a trip out west. We were tired from a long trip and I was stressed out because our van had broken down in eastern Colorado. Getting it fixed was harder than I expected in a region where we had very little cell phone service.

Because of all this, we didn't really see too much in Dodge City. This was a shame, since the town has a long and interesting history.  The museum downtown seemed really expensive, especially since it was the off season and they didn't have the daily gunfight going on.

We did stop at a very nice little Mexican restaurant, El Charro, for lunch and to borrow their phone so I could call my slippery mechanic in Colorado. It was a good town to rest for the night, but we were glad to be on our way after lunch the next day.

Fort Scott

Fort Scott has a lot of beautiful old homes.

We really liked La Hacienda, in the downtown area!

Fort Scott was a lot of fun! We arrived in the evening, had a nice meal at La Hacienda, a local Mexican restaurant (fitting, since it was Cinco de Mayo), and checked into our hotel. Or tried to check into our hotel, at
any rate. The desk clerk was not very skilled with figuring out online reservations, and then she gave us the wrong room. All of this meant that bedtime was shifted from an already-late 9:30 back to nearly 11 p.m.!

Finally, we did get things figured out, and had a good night's sleep. We arose bright and early the next morning to begin exploring the town.

We began by grabbing some breakfast burritos at Sonic, then drove along the main historic streets to explore the town a bit. It has many beautifully maintained Victorian houses, some of which have even been transformed into restaurants or B&Bs.

The kids did great while waiting for Dad to get the room
straightened out.

One thing that piqued our curiosity was the Real School of Hard Knocks. We didn't know what it was, but apparently it's an old school building that has been converted into a concert venue, AirSoft range, and four-wheeler track.

Next, we stopped by the Farmer's Market, where we got some miniature pies for breakfast. After looking at all of the stalls, we headed over to the historic site of Fort Scott. The buildings and grounds there have been lovingly restored to how they looked in the 19th Century. The kids were excited to explore them, especially because at the end of our adventure, they were sworn in as Junior Park Rangers. While we were there, we learned a lot about the town's role in westward expansion, Bleeding Kansas, and the Civil War.

I hadn't known this before, but Fort Scott was originally supposed to be part of the Permanent Indian Frontier, which was designed to insulate native peoples and white settlers from each other. As with so many promises made by the U.S. government to native peoples, however, this one melted away under white settlers' pressure to continue westward expansion.

We all got a lot of exercise touring the fort.

We couldn't resist stopping in at Books and Grannies, a delightful used book shop, before leaving town. It was a perfect way to end our fun visit to this historic community.

The fort was very educational... and FUN!

We loved Books and Grannies! Granny Roxine is so sweet,
and she has a great selection of books.

Baldwin City

We decided to go on the Kaw Valley Farm Tour in Douglas County, so we dressed up warmly (though, as it turns out, not quite warmly enough) and headed out!

First stop: Vesecky Family Farms outside of Baldwin City. They had turkeys, goats, rides on a bucket train, 100-year-old oak trees, and breakfast served by a few girls who were raising money to go to the national 4-H Congress (their special project was woodworking). The home was an old stone house, originally built in 1866, then added onto in 1870, 1885, and 1980.

After the Veseckys', we left Baldwin for a while, but came back at the end of the morning so we could visit  Ad Astra Alpacas, where we saw llamas and an older lady spinning their wool.

Finally, we grabbed lunch at El Patron in downtown Baldwin City. The food was pretty good, and the downtown is lovely, with historic buildings, cute shops and restaurants, and the campus of Baker University.

On the way out of town, we stopped at Jitters for coffee to fortify us through the afternoon ahead.