My earlier post talked about staying in the city park in Marysville and the wonderful Pony Express Museum. I would like to share more of the numerous memories we made in such a small town.
We made the short drive to the Historic Trails Park. There are plaques that describe the different historical trails that passed through Marysville on the way west. There is the Morman Trail, Military Trail, Oregon Trail, California Trail, Overland Express, Pony Express, St. Joe, and Otoe-Missouria.
There is also a model of the original ferry that crossed the Big Blue River there in Marysville. The Donnar Party crossed here and the first person, the mother-in-law died at this location.
The park isn't far from town and doesn't take long to check out and is a great history lesson.
Yesterday, Tuesday the 14th of July, we stopped by a gas station here in Marysville, Kansas. After two hours on the road I was beat - I know, pretty wimpy.
I was pretty tired so I had Cody run in and ask the attendant if there was a campground close by. She said we could camp at the city park. I wasn't too sure about this, but thought we could check it out.
It is awesome!
During our last visit we took a stagecoach ride through the city park.
We can stay for free and it has 50 amps, water, and a sewer dump. We are so thankful. There is also the most awesome playground ever. It is made to be similar to the actual town!
Look for the black squirrels around town.
We got up late this morning. We hiked to the Chamber of Commerce. They had a lot of great info. We visited the Pony Express Station One museum, and hiked to the Pony Express Monument and Murals. The murals look like they are moving! It all was a lot of great fun. Gabriel has decided he wants to be a Pony Express rider and not a bull rider! Sounds good to me!
The Pony Express Museum was wonderful. It was $3 per adult and just a little for kids, I can't remember the exact price. There was a movie, a pretend horse that Gabriel didn’t want to get off of. Josephine thought the carriage was her princess carriage. She sat in it for over ½ an hour.
The front doors of the real Pony Express Barn
The history in this town is amazing. The main streets are still made of brick! It is stunning.
The old buildings and shops are so neat to see. We went to the Koester House. It was from the middle 1800’s. We got to see an old piano worth over $100,000! Had to watch the kids in that room. Since the kids were so well behaved, the tour guide took us behind the ropes and played an old music box worth over $15,000. It was so beautiful sounding, I could have listened to it for hours.
This is the same lion mentioned in a Laura Ingalls book
We toured the courthouse, also. We went to the Trails park where 8 different trails heading west came through this area. Some were the Oregon, California, Morman, Military…
We had a great time at the pool today. It was a wonderful place. There is a kiddy pool for seven and under. There is also a huge water slide. We bought a season pass as that was less money than buying numerous daily passes for our entire family.
