Kansas At Its Best

EMPTINESS is the word for Kansas and its fields.

This time we put our book aside since countless stops for bird watching in Wildlife Refuge Areas wasn't our cup of tea. I started my own research on what to see and we have managed to find some exciting activities besides gazing at migrating birds in the sky.

After passing countless silo buildings, oil pumps and windmills in the fields of corn and cotton we started to explore Kansas at Dodge city. Cowboy cemetery, saloons, and the spirit of kansans spread its magic over us. Wild west vibe and authenticity set the mood for a wild wild western cowboy hat purchase!

We continued through the empty roads and gathered some fun facts along the way. First of all, most cities are located at the bigger road intersections. All the roads are just like a grid layered over the state.

Second - to see any nature sights we had to go off the paved road through dusty pathways. From four nature sights I found to visit, none of them were specially marked as a tourist attraction or mentioned in the book. I jumped to the conclusion, that kansans are not lovers of nature destinations. Or, actually, they just don't have much.

Third - one of the most beautiful visited places was privately owned. Thank you, owners, for letting people see it.

Besides nature explorations, my destination number one was an LSD missile silo, which I have found out about a couple years ago from a VICE documentary. It is known that during the 90's nearly all of the LSD in United States was thought to have come from the operators of the lab once located in this missile silo. To my big disappointment, we were not able to contact the owners, but passing by was still an ode to psychedelic culture.

Another point of interest from my list was Utopia College. It was meant to prepare students for the coming of the Third World War. Oh I love see these "great" ideas in real life.. Well, at least the building, where this idea was alive for a couple of years some 40 years ago.

In between the places there were just precious prairies with yellow grass and cows. And even more thoughts crossed my mind. Once again I proved to myself that interesting ideas come from not only immersion in stimuli but also boredom.

And the last one is about the picture we have about the United States as immigrants. We see this picture in Hollywood movies of large houses with expansive backyards and white fences where happy hard-working families live. Kansas let us get closer to this picture and we see it was a mirage. Instead, we arrive at ghost towns to meet lonely people in the middle of tall grass prairies and unemployment.