Not In Kansas Anymore

Last weekend, Nathan, Alison, and I moved from Larned, KS to Medora, ND for the winter.  I must admit I am a little relieved because the truth is, I didn't like Kansas. 

Now, to be fair to the state, I'm sure the cities are very different from where we lived.  I'd visited Hays, Salina,  Hutchinson, Wichita, and Topeka.  All of those looked like lovely places to live with things to do and a more neutral political scene.  I, however, landed in rural South-Central Kansas, expecting my preconceived notions about the state (formed mostly through the media, I suspect) to be completely wrong and pictured myself happily blogging about what life is really like in Kansas.  Instead, I found the stereotype to be scarily, dead-right.  While I discovered that Kansas is not the place for me, that doesn't mean that the people there don't love it and aren't great people.  They really are, I just discovered a lot about myself while there and have different feelings about how I want to live.

 Larned Sidewalk Fail

What I loved about Kansas:

1. The fall and spring weather!  When we arrived in May, there were almost daily, spectacular thunderstorms.  They were amazing and as long as my house stayed standing, I enjoyed them.  The fall is the BEST time of year in Kansas.  We had 70-degree weather right into November.  Allie and I got to take walks everyday and I'm thankful we were able to do that so long.
2. Living close to my Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins: the Lyttons.  I've never lived in the same state as anyone I'm related to and being able to drive an hour to go watch my cousin cheerlead or visit my Aunt & Uncle in Salina was awesome!  I will miss that.
3. You can always find a parking spot and it's always free.  I didn't have to stand in line at the DMV.
4. There is a great sense of community and communities banding together can accomplish a lot.  Just read about the community movie theater in Larned.  That was quality.

What I hated about Kansas:

1. Food & Water Health:  Dirty Food and Dirty Water.  Call me a hippie, but I don't like to drink water laden with pesticides and I'd really like to support locally grown, organic food. 
   
   When you're in the middle of feedlot country, you don't find a lot of farmers trying to work sustainably or an infrastructure that supports sustainability.  Sure, Great Bend had a Farmer's Market three times a week, but it was mainly people bringing excess food from their gardens, not farmers.  Most of that wasn't grown organically, and only one vendor sold grass-fed beef and chicken.  For that, you had to travel two hours to get your meat once or twice a year.  Sure, Rochester and Madison have spoiled me, but I shouldn't have to drive hours to find healthy food for my family.  No one should. 
   
   I was excited that we had the Pawnee Fork of the Arkansas River so close to us, but when I asked whether they have a lot of kayakers/canoers around, I was told, "Ew! Gross!  I wouldn't go near that water."  Because of all the farming, the river is loaded with pesticides and the local water supply for drinking is too.  You are basically required to have a filter in your kitchen, otherwise you're asking for trouble.
2. It literally smells like sh*t.  There was a feedlot on the other side of town and it's windy.  Enough said.
3. Housing: Kansas and I definitely got off to a bad start after a string of unfortunate events which you can read about here.  The rental market is horrific in Larned and we actually got a deal renting a place from Nathan's co-worker.  While I'm very thankful for them letting us live there, we were pretty much forced to move out before Allie became mobile because it would have been a small child death trap.  Nathan had taken a look at a few other places in Great Bend and declared them worse.  We've also had visitors from the local area who thought our place looked "great".  That just goes to show you that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I for one would like to live in a place that could pass a housing inspection.
4. No one has an up-to-date website.  Calling to get information such as store hours is fine, but it's tough to figure out what's going on in town if it's not published anywhere and that brings me to my next point.
5. If you're not related to anyone in town, you're deemed an outsider and it's pretty hard to become integrated or even to know what's going on.
6. There are no indoor pools.  I'm a swimmer and I would have liked to start Alison in swim lessons over the winter.  That just isn't an option near Larned.
7. Summer weather tops 100 degrees starting in May.  I definitely prefer the Northern temps.
8. Politics:  I understand why most people are Republicans down there.  They don't want to pay money to the government because they don't see a lot of help from the government except for great roads, schools, libraries, emergency facilities, flight for life, health department that offers most services like immunizations for free, parental education, subsidies for the local hospital, subsidies for the local humane society, subsidies for housing, subsidies for medicare, subsidies for local businesses, unemployment, FARM SUBSIDIES, jobs for government workers...wait...why are people so mad at the government?  One of the reasons we couldn't find a place to live is that all of the apartment buildings that weren't for seniors in town were only for low income families (subsidized by the government).  People don't want to pay the government, but yet most are getting some kind of regular check from the government.  This happens in other places too, but those in Larned seemed to not realize that the very entity that helps them live a better life is the one they are trying so desperately to shrink. 

There is more, but why go on?  Kansas isn't horrible, it just isn't for me.  We may end up back there next summer and if we go, I will be focusing on the "Things I Loved" and not the second list.  For now, I'm happy to be back in Medora with a beautiful park, where the air smells fresh, and the postmaster knows my name.