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Published Mar/Apr 2007 |
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Kansas ranches put out the welcome mat to guests who are looking for a different vacation experience.
By Pam Grout |
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 This is not a story about dude ranches with cutesy hay wagons or line dancing lessons. These Kansas ranch families are not here to serve Starbucks coffee in the morning. Or to bring room service. Or provide CNN. These are working ranches. Guests live with real families, eat with their real kids and, if they want, chip in with real chores. That’s not to say the families are not welcoming. These Kansas ranchers are darned proud of their land. They love showing off their wide open spaces and sharing their heritage that goes back several generations. They relish the idea of educating guests about ranching, reconnecting them to the food they so often take for granted. “I’ve had guests tell me that being here on the ranch is a childhood dream come true,” says Nancy Moore, who runs Moore Ranch located 40 miles southeast of Dodge City. Far from traffic lights, strip malls and blaring horns, guests can sleep under the stars, eat grub from a chuckwagon, swim in the creek and live like honest-to-goodness cowboys and cowgirls. Add some longhorn steers, a bucking bronc, an ornery heifer or two and you’ve got one heck of a classic western–with you as the star. Moore Ranch If you click on the Web site for Moore Ranch, you’ll hear a rousing rendition of the theme song from the John Wayne movie, “The Cowboys.” It could just as well be the theme song for Joe and Nancy Moore’s 4,000-acre cattle ranch. From 1866 to 1890, an estimated 10 million Texas longhorn cattle were driven to Dodge City and other railheads in Kansas. Today, the Moores drive their cattle 30–35 miles twice a year to an overgrown pasture near West Kiowa Creek. In 2002, they decided to invite a few guests along on their yearly spring and fall drives. Shorter drives are conducted in the summer. Even before that, people had been coming to the Moores’ ranch to ride horses, learn to rope and pick up a few cowboy skills. The resourceful duo even bought an old Cunningham, Kan., motel and carted the seven stand-alone units to their ranch so cowpokes would have a place to bunk. But as Nancy is quick to point out, “We are not a dude ranch. We don’t put on any airs. Guests are welcome to join in with whatever we happen to be doing, but you won’t find us driving cattle around in a circle.” In addition to the cattle drives, the Moores also invite guests for cowboy school and cowgirl weekends. The ranch sells Western items such as longhorn skulls, tanned hides, wagons built by Nancy’s father and spurs made by a neighbor. Halves and split halves of their grass-fed, chemical-free longhorn beef are also available. Moore Ranch is located at 2933 County Road E. in Bucklin. Sun Rock Ranch After years of teaching natural horsemanship (training a horse in a manner that’s consistent with its behavior and personality) at her 3,000-acre ranch near Junction City, horse breeder Elaine Harder decided to open her 130-year-old ranch home to guests. She turned her grown kids’ bedrooms into guest accommodations and, with son, Kelcey, officially hung out the welcome sign. Visitors come for hayrack rides, bonfire roasts and to fish in one of five stocked ponds. Although most guests choose a trail ride through the beautiful Kansas prairie as their activity of choice, the ranch also has 200 head of cattle, half of which are calved in the spring and half in the fall. Guests also can hike and just enjoy the respite from city traffic. The working ranch offers three bed-and-breakfast rooms, camping–including RV hookups–and a horse motel, complete with a big indoor arena. Sun Rock Ranch is at 9126 Skiddy Road. C&W Ranch The great-grandfather of former Kansas Gov. John Carlin homesteaded this ranch in the 1860s. The ranch’s guesthouse was built with limestone. Each of the seven rooms is decorated with Victorian and turn-of-the-century antiques, but if that’s too froufrou, C&W has a genuine cowboy bunkhouse for experienced equestrians who come to get a taste of riding and working with the cattle. Joel and Jeri Wimer run the 5,000-acre ranch and raise Angus and Angus Baldy cattle. Playing host is a sideline, a way to make sure there’s still a ranch to pass down to Melissa, Matthew and Michael, their three children who also work on the ranch, doing everything from rounding up cattle to cooking for the guests. C&W hosts hunters, family reunions and folks from as far away as Japan and South Africa. The ranch is located at 4000 S. Halstead Road in the Smoky Valley north of Smolan. Hedrick’s Farm and B&B You won’t find Angus or longhorn cattle on this 45-acre ranch in Nickerson. What you will find are more than 250 animals, including kangaroos, camels, giraffes, zebras, ostriches, water buffalo, yaks and the entire stable crew from the nativity scene used in the Radio City Rockette’s traveling Christmas show. For years, Joe and Sondra Hedrick kept this unusual menagerie to themselves, sometimes renting animals for petting zoos, camel races and Christmas parades. In 1992, they opened the exotic animal farm to the public. The bed-and-breakfast sports a frontier facade that includes a bank, hotel and livery stable. Guests can look out into a courtyard filled with kangaroos. Each of the seven rooms is decorated in safari motif with mosquito netting, zebra sheets, painted ostrich eggs and llama wool feet warmers. After a hearty breakfast, customers get a tour of Hedrick’s animal farm and feed lambs, kangaroos and giraffes. If you want to be kissed by a camel or licked by a llama, visit Hedrick’s Exotic Animal Farm located eight miles northwest of Hutchinson off Highway 96 at 7910 N. Roy L. Smith Road. This spring, introduce your gang to a Kansas ranch experience. Pam Grout is a contributor from Lawrence, Kan. |
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