There's a giant herd of buffalo 15 minutes from my house and I had no idea...

HOW exactly do you miss a giant herd of buffalo near your house?

Where the buffalo roam…. (so close to my house!)

I have no idea. But we’ve been living in this same house for ten + years now (omg really!?) and I didn’t know they were there.

There is also a giant herd of elk in the same area. And a “town” straight out of 1855.

Which is incredibly relevant to my life right now, considering I’m working on a steampunk western series modeled after the mid-to-late 1800s.

SO imagine my surprise and indignation (indignation because apparently everyone else around here–including friends and family–knew about this place for years and never bothered to mention it!) when I discovered this gem … and only 15 minutes away from my effing house!

Not only that … but apparently I actually went there as a small child! I have no memory of it, but I’m still kind of aggravated that I just now (re)found out about this place!

How exactly did I (re)discover it, at long last?

Well, I wanted to take my son somewhere fun to take advantage of fall, because fall is my very favorite season for many reasons. (Changing leaves, crisp weather, pumpkins, twisty gourds, Halloween, pumpkin spice lattes, apple picking, NaNoWriMo, the list goes on and on!) Our choices for the weekend were a pumpkin patch or the Missouri Town Fall Fest, which a friend had recently mentioned in passing when I was talking about taking the kid to a pumpkin patch.

My son and I decided that since the Fall Fest was only for one weekend, we’d do that first. So we did.

And when we were almost there, I saw a road sign with a picture of a buffalo on it. (Or, okay, a bison, to be more accurate.) I thought… Bison? Do they have bison here? Really?

I turned the bend in the road and OMFG IT’S A BISON THEY HAVE BISON HERE LOOK IT’S RIGHT UP AT THE FENCE PEOPLE ARE FEEDING IT CARROTS OMG THERE ARE BABIES THERE ARE BABY BISON HERE WTF!?!?!

Of course I immediately pulled the car over and jumped out to see them and take pictures. My son had no idea what the big deal was. Apparently they have not gotten to the near-extinction of American bison in their history class yet (to be fair, he’s only in 3rd grade). I tried to explain it to him, but he still didn’t seem to understand how cool it was to see bison, much less see them up close and personal, like this:

Okay, so they were behind a fence. But it was still the closest I’ve ever personally been to a buffalo/bison, for sure. It was still very, very cool.

(Yes, I know bison are fairly numerous these days, and farmers raise them for meat and all, and they’re all over Yellowstone National Park and many other places, BUT STILL. I’d never seen one up close, much less had one sniff my hand with a wet, boogery nose!)

A lot of them were quite friendly, even some of the little ones! A few people had brought carrots and were feeding them through the fence. You still had to be careful though (there were warning signs on the fence every ten feet or so … it kind of reminded me of Jurassic Park…) – the cows wanted the carrots all to themselves and would chase off the babies or get a little cranky if you had nothing to offer them…

BABY!!!!!
Big Miss Crankypants… she butted the fence when she realized my hand was empty….

After my time gawking at the bison, I hopped back into the car and the kiddo and I went into the Fall Fest proper. It was AWESOME!

My novel-research-self went CRAZY. Though I couldn’t fully indulge since I had my son with me, and I didn’t want him to get bored to tears. But I do plan to visit the place again alone some day when I can ask all the questions and get all the answers to my writer’s heart’s desire.

Meantime, I simply tried to take mental notes on the broad stuff as I could, and enjoy the time exploring with my son. He absolutely loved walking through the old houses, which amused me to no end for some reason. I guess of all the things at the festival, I hadn’t expected him to be so very interested in the actual historical part of it. But he even said he wanted to build a replica of the town in Minecraft! LOL. (A noble pursuit, since it’s a rather large place.)

We also dined on apple cobbler and funnel cake, browsed the vendor tents, took a ride in the paddy wagon (and cantered!!! Have you ever sat in the back of a wagon at a canter?!? WOW it will knock you right off your seat!) and I found a leather satchel to finally complete my genderbent Arthur Morgan cosplay, bonus!

We were only there for about two hours before they closed, so we didn’t get to explore the mule-powered sorghum mill or the scenery in general as much as I would have liked, but it was still a great time! I definitely plan to go back to see it all and ask questions, like I said, and my son said he absolutely wants to go to the Fall Fest next year – all day long!

Then, on the way out … whaddaya know! There were elk! Tons of elk! And a big bull elk with antlers about as tall as me right up next to the fence! Ah!

So I’d say this was a successful trip, in more ways than one!

If you’re ever in the middle of Missouri for whatever reason, you might consider arranging a visit to the quaint Missouri Town, circa 1855. I bet you’ll be glad you did! (Especially if history is your thing … or, you know, you’re writing a novel set in 1800s America…)

You can find out more about this lovely little place here … though to be honest, there’s not much info about it online. I’m actually considering volunteering to create them a real website or something, as even I was growing a bit frustrated by the lack of info I could find when trying to discover more about this Fall Fest before we went!

If that actually happens some day … I’ll let you know! 😉

In the meantime, here are more pictures from our fun-filled day!