Grinter House

This photograph is of the Grinter House, located in Kansas City, Kansas.  Lyndy, Evan and I toured the house late last summer.  It is on the National Register of  Historic Places.  The house was built by Moses and Annie Grinter in 1857 on a hillside on the north side of the Kansas River.  The Grinters' story is just part of a very interesting local history of this region of northeast Kansas.

In the 1820's the United States began a policy of removing Indian tribes from places like the Ohio Valley and relocating them out "west".  From roughly 1825 to 1845 more than 100,000 Native Americans were moved out of the developing eastern states.  Approximately 10,000 of them were placed in Kansas.  Many of the common Native American names in use around this part of the country do not reference the Indian tribes that were native to the area.  A lot of the names refer to tribes that were part of  this mass relocation.  For example, the Shawnee tribe's ancestral  homes were in Ohio, the Wyandot tribe came from what is now Ontario, Canada (their other name is the Huron tribe).  During the 1830's many Native Americans from the Shawnee, Wyandot, and Delaware (also called Lenape) tribes were placed in the area around what today is Kansas City, Kansas. The nearby Fort Leavenworth military base was built partly to preserve the local peace between the Native Americans and the settlers. 

A military road (for travel by the army, horses, wagons, stagecoaches, or those walking) ran from Fort Leavenworth south to Fort Scott, near the Missouri border in east central Kansas.  Right at the point where the road crossed the Kansas River, in what today is part of Kansas City, Kansas, Moses Grinter established a ferry service.  His ferry would have been essentially a large, flat, floating deck.  Several horses, or a wagon or two, or troops would be ridden or loaded aboard, and then, using a rope that connected the two shorelines, the ferry would be pulled to the other side.  A fare would be charged based upon what was being taken across.

Moses Grinter was born in Kentucky.  I couldn't find much information about his early life, but he ended up in Kansas and met Annie Marshall.  Annie was an Indian of the Delaware tribe.  Her family had been relocated during the 1830's from New Jersey to northeast Kansas.  Moses and Annie married and settled down to run the ferry service.  Over time they prospered, and eventually left the ferry business and  began operating a trading post.  It was during this time that they built the Grinter house.  It is located in a part of Kansas City, Kansas called Muncie.  Where does the name Muncie come from?  Muncie was one of the Delaware tribes, and they, too, were relocated to this part of Kansas during the 1830's.

The house is now part of the Kansas Historical Society and is officially called the Grinter Place State Historic Site.  There are a couple of good webpages with more information it it.  I like touring these old homes, and no two are ever alike.  Moses hired a brick mason to build the house, a man named Bernard Tertling.  Bernard was raised to be a brick builder, but he wanted to do something else.  He tried his hand at farming, but gave up on that and sold it to open the first brewery in Kansas.  It also failed, so by necessity he found himself returning to brick building and built this house for the Grinters.  I took photos inside, but I am not posting any of them here, I don't want to spoil it for you.  You'll just have to go see for yourself!  As you might expect in an old house like this, everything in it is pretty much custom made just for this house. 

Moses ended up living in the house more than 20 years, dying in 1878.  Annie lived here for almost 50 years, until her death in 1905.  Inside the nearby visitor's center there was a large old photograph of a big Grinter family reunion in the 1930's when descendants were still living there.  As for the Native Americans that had been moved here in the 1830's, they were eventually sent packing again.  In the 1860's, with railroad construction in full force, their land was needed and they were all relocated to the Oklahoma Territory.

Two Rockets and a Plane

Lyndy and I are both on vacation all this week.  We aren't going on a trip or anything, we are just free to come and go as we want for one wonderful week.  This morning we took Evan and drove to Lake Clinton, near Lawrence.  If you drive across the dam, then circle around to the back of the dam, near the spillway, you come to a huge field.  This field is the home of the Jayhawk Modelmasters remote control airplane club.  From here you can see some pretty incredible remote control airplanes being flown, some with wingspans of several feet wide.  Knowing it would be dead on a Tuesday morning, we were there to launch a couple of rockets and fly a much more modest remote control airplane.

I have been flying model rockets since I was a teenager.  I have built, launched, rebuilt, relaunched, lost, and often destroyed dozens of them over the years.  I have one rocket, now retired, that I launched just shy of 50 times in it's lifetime.  Today we launched two rather small, basic rockets.  These kind of rockets are not quite as thrilling as big ones, but they are much easier to work with and have a high success rate. 

This photo shows me right in the middle of one of the runways for the model airplanes, loading a rocket on it's launch pad.  You have to prepare the rocket for launch by getting the recovery parachute ready and stowed aboard and installing an engine and preparing it so that it can be ignited.  You have to carefully guage the wind and aim the rocket into it just right.  Too straight up and it can drift a long way on it's parachute and be lost.  Too low and it can arch over and fly straight into the ground.

Once you get it in place on the launch pad everyone gets back.  A battery powered launcher sends current to the engine though two wires.  In this photo Lyndy is getting ready to launch one of the rockets.  Both rockets flew successfully and were recovered. 

I also brought along a kind of beginner remote controlled airplane.  It is made of foam, and by the same company that makes the rockets.  Me and Evan both flew it several times until it finally landed in some standing rainwater.  We decided to stop while we were ahead and gathered all our gear together and get ready to go.  We went on into Lawrence and bought some food, then headed home on the turnpike.  Later, just before it got dark, we went over to the Washburn practice football fields and flew the plane a few more times.  Unfortunately we pushed our luck, and one of the plane's wings broke in two places.  Never fear, it is designed to be repairable, so it will fly again.  Here is what it looked like not long before the fateful flight.

The J and K Experience

Lyndy, Evan, and I went to Lazio's Coffee Shop last evening to see a musical performance by some friends of mine, Jake and Keith.  Jake played guitar and sang, and Keith played the bass.  I met them a few years ago when I filmed and produced a music video for the rock band they were in at the time. 

Since that initial meeting I have seen Jake perform live on several occasions.  Last night he was joined by Keith, and I liked the way the bass guitar really added a nice compliment to the sound of Jake's acoustic guitar.  There was a really good turnout, somewhat overwhelming the guy working behind the counter.  A coworker joined him later, and I wondered whether he had perhaps called her in to help.  I had a hot chocolate and took my new astronomy star charts in to read while we listened to the music.  We are friends with some of the other people that came to watch the show, so we did some catching up with them.  Evan got some quality time with his PSP.  The only setback to the evening was that the coffeeshop's wireless internet connection was down, leaving Lyndy unable to fight Vampires from her laptop.

BMX Racing Action

Yesterday morning at 10:00 am Evan and I were at the BMX track in Shunga Park to watch the bike races.  This is the final event of this year's Sunflower State Games that I went to to watch and photograph.  These races are always one of the more exciting events, and this is the third year in a row I've watched.  Here are some of the racers gathering at the starting line. 

BMX stands for Bicycle Motocross.  A Motocross is a type off-road motorcycle race, and in the 1970s kids began racing bicycles on the same dirt racetracks as the motorcycles.  As the sport developed, specialized bicycles began to be designed that were very light but strong.  Tracks for bicycle use only were constructed, keeping the kids away from the dangers of riding around speeding motorcycles.  There are organized leagues of BMX racing all around the world, including right here in Topeka. 

The track in Shunga Park is called  Heartland BMX.  On the races we watched, about 3 or 4 riders raced at the same time.  The race is one lap around the track.  They zoom out of the starting gate when the official starter gives the signal.  A small gate by the front tires keeps the riders from jumping the gun.  It takes them around a minute to a minute and a half to ride around the whole track.  There are lots of hills and banked turns to take.  By the time to they get to the end they are completely gassed.   

I've ridden around the track a few times on my mountain bike, and it can be very tiring.  Not to mention that while we were there it was already almost 90 degrees- at 10 in the morning- and very humid.  The sun wasn't in the best location to get good photos, but a few came out and are posted here. 

We saw 4 or 5 crashes, and in this shot I by total luck happened to capture a kid in mid-air as he flew off his bike.  None of the kids who crashed were hurt, in fact they all jumped back on their bikes and took off trying to catch up.  They are all wearing virtually football uniforms, too, which probably helps when they crash, but must've made the heat even more unbearable.

Swimming and Archery

A little after 9am this morning I went to the Capital Federal Natatorium at Hummer Sports Park for the Sunflower State Games swimming competition.  In case you were wondering, natatorium is a Latin word that means "place for swimming", though in modern times this very ancient word is usually used to imply an indoor swimming pool.  I worked my way around the huge pool and shot photos and video of some of the races.  There was a good crowd watching, and it's pretty loud in there with the p.a. announcer, whistles, cheers, and all the splashing.  While I was there the swimmers were racing one length of the pool, however far that is.  It was little kids at that time, so they must start with the youngsters and work their way up through the adults.  The race lap times are shown live on a giant scoreboard on one wall, and at the end of the race all the swimmers turn at the same time and look at it.

I left the swimming action and drove way out south to 97th and S. Topeka Blvd. for the archery competition.  There is a long line of targets at the far end of a field, and a covered area for the competitors to stand and fire their arrows.  The bows they are using are amazingly hi-tech.  I didn't dare touch or bump into one.  You don't want to have to pay to repair one, and you don't really want to anger a burly guy in camo holding onto sharp pointed weapons.  The guy running the show went over the rules, then the first round of competitors lined up to fire.  About 15 people all fired about 10 arrows each.  I stayed safely behind the caution tape and captured the action.  The commissioner guy sat under a brightly colored umbrella and watched down the line as they fired.  Once everyone was done they all walked down and wrote down their scores and retrieved their arrows.  Next weekend is the final one of the Sunflower Games, and there are still a couple of good events worth photographing.

                                        

                                        

                                        

    

Evan Takes the Gold

Yesterday morning we went to Hughes Park, which is in the 800 block of Orleans St. in Topeka, for Evan's Pickleball competition in the Sunflower State Games.  Pickleball is similar to tennis, only  you use a wiffle ball and kind of like a large ping pong paddle to hit it with.  The court is not as large as a tennis court.  It is much like playing tennis, only the ball doesn't fly back and forth so fast.  You still get a great workout because since the ball is flying slower, you have time to aim your shots to send your opponent running all over the place.  And where in tennis it's a lot to hit it back and forth more than four or five times, in Pickleball it's not uncommon to have 10 or 15 hits or more in one rally.  I have a couple photos here of Evan in action. 

Evan was the only person in his age group registered for the tournament, so he automatically won the gold medal.  He was placed in a bracket with three guys who were in the 61 and over group.  All three of them were pretty good players.  One of them had come up from Wichita, though he was kind of a complainer about having to play outside (apparently in Wichita they play indoors most of the time) and he even disappeared for a while, causing one of Evan's matches to have to be rescheduled.  When it was time to get his gold medal the commissioner announced his name to the crowd, and everyone clapped.  Here is the moment when he is shaking Evan's hand and giving him his medal:

Later in the day Evan and I went over and watched some of the Sunflower Games Horseshoes tournament in Gage Park.  This sport is mostly older guys who all seemed to be taking the competition quite seriously.  There was one younger guy in his 20's, and he was a bit of a hot-head.  A couple of times he slammed a horseshoe into the ground in anger after missing a shot, and once he threw one into the fence.  His behavior may have been unspectacular in a basketball game, but in a horseshoes competition it seemed a little out of place. 

While we were there they were doing the segment of the horseshoes competition brackets for the top level players, those who are rated as having a high percentage of ringers.  Sort of like having a low handicap in golf, I presume.  As Evan and I watched we discussed the likely origination of a game like this- some bored cowpokes hanging around the barn inventing a game to pass the time while they waited on television to be invented.  I doubt some businessman in New York invented it. 

I'll end this entry with a photo of your intrepid reporter on the scene, taken by Evan.

Let the Games Begin

Last evening Lyndy, Evan and I went to Hummer Sports Park for the Sunflower State Games opening ceremonies.  This is the third year we have gone.  Some of the games have already been  held.  For example my event, disc golf, was last weekend. However, there are only a couple other events held that first weekend.  The second weekend is when it really gets going, and they have the ceremonies the night before.  The track and field competition was held today, and when we got there they were still pole vaulting.  I positioned myself alongside and to the left of the runway and took some photos.  It also happened to be a nice, shady location. 

 The opening ceremonies are in a parking lot near the Hummer Park football field.  They have food, vendor booths, music, etc.  It's fun to walk around and see all the stuff.  KU had a booth there giving away information and posters about the upcoming football season.  There is also a 5K/10K running race, called the Governor's Cup.  But first, they light the Olympic Torch.  The person lighting it is usually a long-time Sunflower State Games participant.  I got this shot of the big moment. 

We watched some more pole vaulting, then found a location to watch the Governor's Cup runners start their race.  There were somewhere in the range of 150 or 200 runners in the race, so I snapped about 6 photos as they streamed by. 

They circled around the parking lot, then headed out into the city.  Police cars were all over blocking traffic and clearing the race route for them.  After the runners had moved on we headed to the car.  We were very hot, so we headed down 6th street to G's Ice Cream to cool off.  I ended up having a cherry limeade instead of ice cream.