Fresh-Air Weekend
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
By Brandy Nance
nance@emporiagazette.com
There are several events in the area this weekend to keep people busy and keep them out in the fresh air.
Cottonwood Falls
The Chase County Chamber will host River Suite, an evening with food, scenery and music on the historic Cottonwood River Bridge in Cottonwood Falls. The event will begin at 6 p.m. Friday with a social hour and hors d’oeurves. Dinner will be at 7 p.m. and will be catered by the Grand Central Hotel followed by a concert by the Brown/Ireland Trio, a group of classically trained musicians with Chase County roots.
Tickets to the River Suite are $35 per person or $210 for a table seating six and are available through the Chase County Chamber of Commerce at (620) 273-8469. Advance reservations are required.
The Flint Hills Folklife Festival will be in Swope Park in Cottonwood Falls Friday and Saturday. The festival is an annual event of reenactors demonstrating the skills necessary to every day life during the 1800s. Herbalists, soap making, rope making, wood carvers, blacksmiths, quilters and other will have products for sale.
Melvern Lake and
Pomona Lake
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in partnership with federal, state and local agencies and non-profit organizations and recreations partners, will participate in the first National Get Outdoors Day on Saturday.
Six Corps of Engineers sites were selected to be featured nationally including Melvern Lake in Melvern, Pomona Lake in Vassar and Clinton Lake in Lawrence. The events will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Melvern and Pomona Lakes. A variety of outdoor recreation opportunities at these sites will be held, including geocaching, hiking, bicycling, photography contests, scuba and water safety demonstrations, Dutch oven cooking, disc golf demonstration, children’s fishing derby, ironman triathlon event and a virtual fishing simulator.
“Each National Get Outdoors Day event will have feature activities where guests, and especially kids, can use a fishing pole, go geocaching, help pitch a tent and more,” said Derrick Crandall, chairman of the American Recreation Coalition and chair of the National Get Outdoors Day coordinating council. “Each event will be unique, but they will all share a common mission to connect people to the outdoors.”
For more information visit http://www.getoutdoorsusa.org.
Council Grove
If you don’t have tickets (or even if you do) to Saturday’s Symphony in the Flint Hills concert in Morris County, there will be a host of events in nearby Council Grove in celebration of the event. The Council Grove Republican reported that Council Grove will offer horse-drawn rides, chuck wagon dinner, tours of historic sites, an art walk and music on Friday and Saturday. The event starts on Friday with a working ranch tour, a concert by the Tallgrass Express String Band and the Kaw Mission Historic Site, chuckwagon dinner, cowboy poetry, old-time music, trick roping and horse-drawn carriage rides downtown.
Saturday’s events will include a two-mile guided walk to Allegawaho Heritage Memorial Park, a quilt show, early American rug-hooking demonstration, art and author walk to downtown shops, nature hike at Council Grove Reservoir and guided historical bus tours.