Off to Cottonwood!

This morning Madeline, Kelly & I headed out early on a 2-hour trek to Strong City, KS, to join Sierra Club members on a hike on the Tallgrass Prairie National Park. I've never driven all the way across Kansas before, but this trip gave me an idea of how wide Kansas is. Good grief—is THAT as far as we went in 2 hours?!

Storms have been in our area for several days, and had threatened the trip. Check out these wavy clouds that Kelly spotted on our way out of town:

The freaky clouds were but a threat, however, and our weather was perfect! Here is Madeline's parents' cute little house in Cottonwood Falls, just a few minutes from the Prairie.
Looks like Aki is happy to be out of the car & back outside! (Shh... she doesn't know that dogs aren't allowed on the hike with us!)
It was a good thing the dogs didn't accompany us, because I'm not sure how they would have reacted to some of the "wildlife" we ran across... see upcoming post!