Welcome to Big Blend Radio's Parks and Travel Podcast covering parks, public lands, and historic landmarks across America and around the world. Welcome everyone to today's show which is the Parks and Travel Podcast here on Big Blend Radio, but I have a funny feeling this segment is also going to be featured on our nature connection show because we're going to be talking about tall grass prairies. In fact, it's going to be mostly on Flint Hills tall grass prairie and Katie Walls Kathleen Walls, the travel writer is back on the show. You can keep up with her at americanroads.net. She's an author of so many books. She's prolific. Welcome back Katie. How are you? I'm just great. Great to be back in with you. Thank you. How much writing do you do between all your books and your articles and travel? How do you balance it? It's pretty much done stopped since this last trip when I just came back which was Friday and went to bed and got up Saturday morning and had been pretty much on the computer almost no stop. Yeah, and you just did a big trip through Kansas. We've got one of your articles and podcasts up the oddities which I thought was fascinating. But all of Kansas is. I mean, I just love Kansas and I you know, if you had asked me about it a couple years ago, I would never have thought of these things. And you know, to me, I was seeing grass is just grass. No big deal. Then I got there and I realized not only is it something that was important, it's something that we've almost lost our love. And there's so much more to it than we think of we think of brass. We just think of what's going on on our lawn that we've got to get out there and cut. Yeah, the prairies are so fascinating to me because it is a hub of biodiversity if they're healthy, right? Right. And at one time, the tall grass extended all the way from Canada down to Mexico across the middle of the United States. And of course, as the European settlers came in and I mean, the Native Americans knew how to preserve this. And then the Europeans came and all they wanted to do was farm it, which was how they made their living. And of course, that destroyed the tall grass prairie and so much of it. And there's I think like 4% left. Wow. So did they give you any history? I know you went to the visitor center, the discovery center, you did a lot of actual information. Did the dust bowl occur in where these prairies are or did the dust bowl also happen? I mean, the agriculture was part of it. There was a lot of change of what happened in the dust bowl in Kansas, but did the last of the tall grass prairie did that kind of the prairie? I don't think would have been a thing. We didn't really get into that very much, but I don't think the prairie would have been because the reason with the dust bowl is a farmer continually planting. They didn't know about rotating crops and they plant plant plant plant. And this was nothing, nothing to hold the soil there, whereas when you've got the grasslands, there's all and it's amazing how deep the roots to these grasses grow. The Flint Hills discovery center, which was where we really learned about the grasses, there's an exhibit which has glass tubes, which actually show you the whole roots. And the roots are even bigger than the grasses. It might be four or five feet high in the ground, but I knew about it may go down like eight feet. When you first come into the experience there, it's a horizon branch Flint Hills emergency experience there, big birds. When you go in there, it's like a spiritual experience where you can smell the smoke, you can feel the wind blowing, and you're experiencing the way the plains were with the Native Americans, natural forces lightning would set fire, the buffalo would come in, the bison would come, they would graze the land's down, and it preserved to keep from tall trees growing in this, so it kept the grass able to continue. And because of that, I don't think the dust bowl affected that as much as places where a farm is just continually growing and harvesting. Well, yeah, but the grasses nothing left when they finish harvesting, it's just open land can blow away. Well, that's my point is like, if we destroy the grasslands, we're going to have a dust bowl. That was my big point of that. And the grasslands, we've been to quite a few, some in Colorado, Arizona, down the road from where we are right now, we're in Tucson. One of my favorite ones is down in, it's Aravaca and Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. And this was an old ranch. So there's a lot of invasive species of plants that happened there. And so they've been cleaning it out. And they also, the wildlife refuge was created for the bobwhite, the masked bobwhite coil, and to bring them back. And so they've had to really get rid of these invasive species is thousands of acres there and different ecosystems in this area. So you have the mountains where you get bare ones in a while around the corner, you get, you know, coatties, maybe you'll see them in the trees, you know, all kinds of birds, oaks, you name it, and then when you're in Mesquite and, but when you go in the prairie, there's a wildlife drive with pronghorn. And so now you're getting into the prairie land, which is in a short grass prairie, not as tall like in what you experienced. And the pronghorn are coming back because of these grasses. So it's a, and, but they said fire. So we went out numerous times over the years with the park ranger, actually the superintendent of the time, Josh Smith at the time. And he would tell us to come in before and after a burn. Yeah, he said, all the forbs would come up, all these little flowers, you always go, what are those notes forbs? And it was the nitrogen in their roots and how that's what made the grassland get back to being, they had to get down to the roots of what it was to get rid of the invasives, cut it back, but it made the soil healthy. And the birds that live within the grasses blow my mind, how they do that. We saw quite a few birds. I'm wondering if there's a herd of mice in the gentleman that we talked to Chad, the reverse list name, he was telling us he'd been a ranger volunteer for 20 something years. And Chad heading to H-E-D-I-N-G-R, 24 year veteran volunteer at the prairie, the kinds of prairie, and he was telling us that the mucklow herds are increasing right now. So that's good. And they naturally grazed the land down. We did not get to see it alone. We did see quite a few birds. Did you get meadowlocks? Because that in Colorado, they were in the grasslands. They sing so beautifully, they sing beautifully. Because there's so many bugs, I mean, that's the biodiversity. So they talk to you a lot about fire. And everyone, Katie's got an article, look in the show notes in the episode notes, an article up on parks and on our nationalparktraveling.com website. So if you go in there, just type in Flint Hills or just type in Kansas. And you'll find this article about the prairies and the grasslands. But it's all linked in the episode notes. But you talked really like the fire part is a huge, not just a very important thing. We don't think of it as being essential. But as he pointed out to us, he pointed one place on the side that had trees and stuff which was not real prairie. And then he pointed to the prairie. And it's because of the fire, the big trees can't grow and the grasses can thrive. And that's what really keeps prairie going. And the only reason that it stayed in that particular area of Flint Hills is because there was so much rock right under limestone, right underneath the soil, it was too difficult for farmers to plow it. So I guess they figured this land is worthless. Oh, wow. That's really what kept preserved. That amazed me there too. When you're driving there, every building you would see is built out of limestone. And even posts have made posts. We used to sing wood posts and limestone posts because there was so much of this limestone. And at the Museum, the Flint Hills Discovery Center, it takes you through from the Native American time and how they were the Flint from the earliest cell is way pre-Columbian, way pre-Columbian, on into the Native Americans up here when the Europeans came, the difference in the our heads and the way they would ship them and shape them. That's cool that they connect the human history because human history, we either work and coexist or we destroy. And it chined in with the grasses because these people knew how to preserve it and they knew it was important. They didn't need any environmental engineers to tell them this, you know, probably their grandfathers and their grandfathers before them had already told them, you know, you let the buffalo graze, you let the fires burn and they knew this. Yeah, if you want food, you know, and they balance the food, you know, it's going, I mean, the prairie, I think Kansas is beautiful and they have amazing sunrises and sunsets because, you know, we just drove across the country from Asheville, North Carolina to Tucson. And as soon as we crossed into Oklahoma, it's just like this, and they have prairie land too, the grasses. And when you talked about the wave of the grass, that, that, that waving movement, which is beautiful, and they talk about that with the grass, the saw grass, like in the Everglades, I know you're in Florida, so I'll bring that to the Everglades, how it moves, like that. Cypress. Yeah, beautiful out there. So that's like your underwater grass, right? But right, there's a whole different type of feeling. I never understood when they talked about seeing a grass, a wave of grass. But when you're there and the wind blows, this grass ripples, just as if you could see the sea rippling. It's like a different sound too. Like it's almost like, you know, the forest, you hear the breeze and you can hear the, you know, the trees move with the breeze or the wind, it's kind of like that. And each kind of forest has a different sound, you know, it's like a pine forest is different than going into magnolias and harbors, you know, it's much different. Hey, you know, you think of being all flat lands, but yet there's so many hills, we took a hike, almost three mile hike, and then we carried different hills. I was definitely hiking that, but it was beautiful. We've done a lot in Kansas, in regards to the prairie areas and in Iowa and that area, especially what we do with the Jefferson Highway. And, you know, like I was saying, even Oklahoma, those grasslands and the prairie, you know, everything opens up and it's green and it's thick and there's birds, you can just hear them. And it's just this, I don't know, it's beautiful. I think the Midwest is absolutely gorgeous. It is. It's an amazing place. And it gets overlooked. People just think, oh, fly my states. And yes, there is so much there. Yeah. And I'm glad you got to see your birds, because I know you like birds like we do. I do. And did they talk to you about the biodiversity, like the web of life, how the grasslands are important to the birds and the insects and the birds, one thing. And you do, you see the butterflies, you, you know, the little tiny bugs, things. I don't even know the names. One thing that really, I was a quote that they have on the wall at the Flynn Hills Discovery Museum. And I'm probably going to mispronounce this guy's name terribly. I had never heard of it before, but it's by someone, Camille O'Brien, who was a Danish branch impressionist painter. And he said, "Blessford are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. And that's so true when you think of lots of Kansas and especially the grasslands." I always thought tall grass was one kind of grass. And when I got to the museum, and again, when I got out on the prairie itself, it's all different species. They're all tall grass, but they're very different. One now, the gentleman I volunteered, I showed a shed, had almost like a feather shape on the leaf. And of course, they called out the Indian grass. And different little marks, one of them had a little indents on it. He actually pulled up some of the grass that we could see the difference. And it's all different. I mean, it's not just grass, it's Indian grass. Multiple cuts in this. And then the oats, many different kinds of grass. And they're all growing in there together. It was kind of funny. One of them says, "Beautiful yellow flower." And I mean, I probably have seen it a million times, but it didn't kick in. And I asked them, "What is that?" Anandelion. Oh, good dandelion. But seeing it in that content amongst the grass rather than growing up a bunch of weeds all around it, it looked different. It was beautiful. Yeah. And that's a healthy soil. Whenever you see dandelions, you know something was healthy. Don't spray them. They're good for the earth. They're really important for insects. Love them. Butterflies love dandelions. You know, that's the thing when you see a healthy prairie or grassland, when you go look at a flower or anything, you'll see more than one kind of insect on that. You know, that's what I always find amazing. I had never seen before like little lady bugs for different colors and lots of bees. And I mean, our bees are so important. You know, we can't lose our bees. We lose our bees. We're in trouble. Exactly. Now you're really right. We've got to take care of our animals and our nature and our insects. You know, people get mad about insects, but you know, they have a place in nature. And lady bugs in particular are huge. I don't know if you call them pollinators. Yeah, they are pollinators. I guess all pollinators are very important to plant life. Absolutely. I just, I love the grasslands. I really do. And when they're out there, and you just see that big open sky, the big beautiful sunrise, sunsets, and the grass moves, you know, and it does. It really flows like a sea flowing out. I always just expect to see ostrich and stuff when I'm out there. You know, it's raised in Africa. And yeah, when you're used to that, yeah, you see secretary birds and the grasslands are actually a deer or any kind of wildlife. I wouldn't have loved to have seen some of the bison, but we just know that theirs is important too. There's a wildlife refuge. And I think it is Kansas that has buffalo that we saw. And also was she the mountains in Washington. I'm not saying it correctly. So my apologies, everyone on the mountains as National Wildlife Refuge. You see the bison roam and there were deer, there was a long corn cattle. In Florida, I haven't been there in quite a few years, but there was a preserve where they have the long long cattle. And they're pretty cool though. You don't want to mess with them. And even the wild horses, Cumberland Island, the wild horses out there. You know, wildlife is so important. It is. We're taking this basis away. Do you like to go to parks on your travels? Yes. In fact, when I haven't been doing much RVing lately, I got rid of my last RV. But when I was doing RVing, that would be my favorite place would be stopping at a state park because they don't have all of the resort. The swimming pool and all of that. And that's not important to me. What's important is seeing the nature most state parks preserve something in nature that's the whole point in a state park. Absolutely. He got some beautiful ones in Florida. That's for sure. Oh, yes. And you really, where's your next destination? And where did you just come back from? I just came back from Panama City. And so everybody mixes up Panama City and Panama City Beach. What we were seeing was Panama City, not the beach, not the tourists and t-shirts, the other end of it, the history. I was amazed. We did our boat. That's when I got seasick. But it was, it was a fantastic, we took a trip out on to, with it called Shell Island. We didn't, we didn't land, but we didn't be able to get out in the water. And our captain, great guy Chris, he got on there and drove and he'd pick us like a beautiful starfish. And we could get pictures of it and everything. He's very environmentally conscious. Anything would be like, you got a conch on a big conch on with a live conch in it. And of course, showed us suicide, put it back in the water. If, if it had anything live in it, it went back in the water. And it was a great trip. And I did go to St. Andrew's State, I was St. Andrew's State Park there, which is actually, St. Andrew's State Park. Panama City is separated from Panama City Beach by St. Andrew's Bay. And the State Park is really on the beach side, but we were on the bay side of it, seeing it mostly in its beautiful park. Oh, did you? Yes. Yeah. I was amazed at and how much history and every restaurant we went into this art of all kinds, we did a cannon making experience where we made our own candles. And it was an amazing trip. We're getting way off of our grass, but it was fun anyway. No, but it's canceled. All of them. Where are you going next? Where's next? My next trip is going to be South Carolina, and it's going to be a big combination of seeing. We're going to do a tour, a capital tour of the capital of South Carolina. And we're also going to Lake Murray area, where we're going to purple Martin flight. And that does come to be the highlight for me. I have not ever, I've seen bats flying out of bat houses at at night to highlight right after singles. But this will be my first chance to get to see the purple Martin flight. Oh, I love them. They're beautiful. They're beautiful birds. I've seen them from all individual boards of people here. And you know, one or two, a little purple Martin's better to be able to see this is apparently the whole flocks of them. Wow. Well, I can't wait to hear about your. It's going to be interesting. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Katie. It's always fun to have you on the show. And I know I always enjoyed this. Thank you. And thank you for keeping us posted on the grasslands, because like you're saying, you know, the Flint Hills tall grass, everyone, this is a place to learn more about it. Go to Manhattan, Kansas is the area. But really to start putting some grasslands on your list when you travel, because if you love nature, in your parks, I mean, they're just beautiful. And also just to understand the necessity, they're like our wetlands. You know, our wetlands are down, you know, a strong it's it's horrible how much of our wetland habitat that we've lost in this country. We have. And so I feel like the wetlands and the grasslands are two things we really need to focus attention on to, you know, preserve and protect, you know, right? That's more important than the economy or anything else. One of my favorite things is a folks singer, one of his songs, he says, what could us all your money are going to do if you can't drink the apostate water or breathe the radon air. And that's, yeah. It's absolutely, it's all money is useless. Exactly. Exactly. Everyone, thanks for joining us. Take care, Katie. We'll talk soon. Bye bye. Thanks for joining us here on Big Blend Radio's Parks and Travel podcast. Visit nationalparktraveling.com to plan your next park adventure and to see our parks and travel digital magazine. You can keep up with our shows at bigblendradio.com.
