University of Kansas and Lawrence, Kansas…

Our first day staying at Rock Creek COE park at Lake Perry, we drove the short distance over to the town of  Lawrence, Kansas. We wanted to visit the University of Kansas, Lawrence (founded in 1865) campus located there. We were familiar with Kansas as Texas A&M played them in all sports when we were in the Big 12 Conference. At these sporting events we heard them chant, “Rock Chalk, Jayhawk” and always wondered about that saying. Below is an explanation from the campuses web site:

"Rah, Rah, Jayhawk, KU" repeated three times. The rahs were later replaced by "Rock Chalk," a transposition of chalk rock, the name for the limestone outcropping found on Mount Oread, site of the Lawrence campus

Mount Oread, nicknamed “The Hill” is where the campus is found and it is quite a steep hill indeed (yes, Kansas is quite hilly over here). We read that the university had three museums so we stopped in at the University Natural History Museum and there we learned that sadly the other two were closed.  One was temporarily closed for remodeling and the other was permanently closed to reduced funding.  We were disappointed to miss seeing The Spencer Museum of Art which is considered one of the nation's top university art collections.

After our University walk, we took a stroll down Massachusetts Street in downtown Lawrence where we found a quite vibrant and eclectic downtown area. There was lots of energy there and we enjoyed the interesting architecture. This is certainly the type of town we could see ourselves living in. This five-block long downtown district was a delight! After our downtown walk we checked out the 23rd Street Brewery  and found a wonderful happy hour in full swing. We had great conversations with the locals and enjoyed one dollar 10 ounce crafts during their 3 to 5pm happy hour (definitely one of the best craft beer happy hours we have run across).