Council Grove, KS

I decided that while I am living in Kansas I might as well try to make the best out of the area and see if there are any cool things nearby. Joe had a couple days off work this week, so we decided to take a ride out to Council Grove, Kansas.  It was just over an hour from Junction City down some pretty desolate roads (lots of farms!) but the town itself was a pleasant surprise. The houses are well maintained with really pretty yards and it seems like the people of Council Grove really take pride in their town. There is a self guided tour of 24 historic sites around Council Grove. The first one we went to was the Hermit's Cave. Italian priest Giovanni Maria Augustini lived in this cave for five months in 1863 before heading out to Santa Fe. There are some pretty stone steps leading down to it and a path leads down a hill into a wooded area from the cave. I can't imagine living inside of there for any amount of time though. It wasn't big enough to stand up in, but I guess it would keep you relatively dry...



We looked for a geocache in the area, but unfortunately all we went away with were some bug bites. No ticks, thankfully! Caches in wooded areas don't really lend themselves to being found in the summer... Down the street from the cave is this old bell that they used to ring when the town was under attack from indians.


This is a house across the street- I looooooove the porch off to the left- a nice shady porch with a good book and a cup of tea sounds like a fabulous way to spend an afternoon.

This is the Hays House Restaurant- it is supposedly the oldest functioning restaurant in Kansas. We went inside to eat, but the prices seemed pretty steep for what was offered, so I got a slice of Godiva chocolate pie and Joe got some hand churned rocky road ice cream (which, with our drinks ended up costing around $15!)

This is the Last Chance Store. I peeked in a window, but there wasn't anything set up inside- it looked like someone was staaaaarting to set up a little shop in there. This was the last actual store when people were traveling to Santa Fe. Apparently they sold canned beans and whiskey haha.

Cottage House Hotel- awesomely pretty building with some very eclectic rooms (I checked them out online- every room is unique, which I thought was pretty cool) with all kinds of antiques in them.

We found this geocache by the river walk, but it seemed like something was missing- the hint was "take some time to REFLECT on your geocaching experiences" and we found the film canister on the ground in some weeds.

Another cache we found at the town park on this tank- the hint was pretty specific, but it still took us a bit to locate it on the tank...



I thought this was going to be a four mile long cemetery, but it turns out it was just a regular smallish sized cemetery located on 4-mile road. We found the cache here pretty easily, since the hint told us to look up.



 

We were pretty disappointed that most of the shops in town were closed since we went out on a Sunday- I especially wanted to have a soda at the Apothecary (which has a vintage marble countertop with swivel stools and an old fashioned soda fountain inside), and check out the Kaw Mission. We did get to poke around in an antique store for a while though and had a nice time walking around and looking at the historical sites:)