Wichita

Before I tell you about our day trip to Wichita let me start off by saying we are moth free!  We had a lone straggler on Friday night and none on Saturday night, so I think the problem has been resolved.

Where we are staying in Wellington, Kansas is about 25 miles south of Wichita.  On Saturday, since it was the only day of our remaining stay that was supposed to nice, we decided to take a drive up to Wichita to see some sites and to stock up our wine cellar.  Kansas has some interesting liquor laws.  Grocery stores are allowed to sell 3.2% alcohol beer and no wine or spirits.  That leaves liquor stores as the ones that sell wine, but the small towns we have been in have slim pickings when it comes to wine and their prices are very high.  Checking online I saw that Wichita had some larger wine shops so we combined a shopping trip with a sightseeing day.

One stop was a drive through the campus of Wichita State University.  Our tour book indicated it had a large display of outdoor sculptures that Fran wanted to see.  What a beautiful campus.  As we drove around the campus we stumbled on an interesting attraction, the original Pizza Hut.  It seems that two Wichita State students started Pizza Hut in Wichita. The original building has been relocated to the campus.  They started with a $600 investment and sold the company to Pepsi in the 70’s for $300 million!

Here is the building

Following our drive around campus we went to the Old Town part of Wichita.  This is a development project started in the 90’s to bring people downtown.  They have restored original buildings in a two block area and put in many restaurants, a few shops, a hotel and a museum.  We went to the Museum of World Treasures, http://www.worldtreasures.org/.  A small museum but very interesting with a variety of exhibits.  A little disappointed as they used some kind of air freshener in the museum that was over powering and gave both of us a headache and made me nauseous.

Following some fresh air outside we had lunch at a restaurant in Old Town and then took a walk around the area.  The Old Town area is a nice place to visit but it was not very busy for a weekend day, so I am wondering if it is a hit with the locals.

As I write this on Sunday morning the rain is falling steady and thunder can be heard.  The forecast is for this type of weather today and Monday and we leave on Tuesday.