On The Road Again

For as much grief as I've given Kansas, arriving back to it, with all of its familiar sites, was nice.  I guess a small piece of me was fond of it afterall, or maybe the spring weather just brings you a sense of endless possibilities, no matter where you are.  However, we had a job to do there and here's what we were up against:

Our storage unit - 1/4th excavated

Mom and Dad came down and helped us sift through this junk and get it moved onto a U-Haul.  We will forever be grateful for their help with this move as we have no idea what we would have done without them!  Spending a week in the car and trying to sleep in the same room as a six-month-old is not considered traveling in the lap of luxury.

2-19-11 - Early-morning wake-up call for Grandpa

Kevin and George, coworkers from Fort Larned, also win the  "best surprise help" award as they helped us haul off a bunch of the things we couldn't take and made sure everything was packed into the truck a day early.  Wow!

On Saturday, we drove to Independence, MO, home of the Harry S Truman National Historic Site.  Nathan and I were almost late for the 9am Sunday tour of Truman's Mother-In-Law's house (coincidentally, he lived much of his life there and never purchased his own home), but Nathan mentioned where he worked and they made sure we got a spot on the tour!  Ah, the benefits of knowing a Park Ranger.

President Truman's House

Later Sunday, we also stopped in St. Louis and I made everyone tour the Old Courthouse and see the Arch (a.k.a. Jefferson National Expansion Memorial).  We didn't go up to the top, but I was OK with that when I heard that it sways in the slightest of breezes!

The Arch

On our third day we ended up driving just below a giant snow and ice storm, escaping horrible weather, but getting drenched the entire drive.  The fourth day, we made it to my sister, Samantha's, new house and got to meet her boa constrictor and street cats.  We did eventually make it down to our new place in Alexandria, VA.  I haven't seen any snow since because the weather has been in the 50's (at least) and the streets are made of cheese.  Just kidding, I will have the full report on our first impressions (good and bad) soon.

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.

Discrimination, Homesteading, & Goats in the Heartland

This weekend, we traveled to Lincoln and Omaha to introduce Alison to half of her extended family.  The trip was excellent and Alison did a great job!

I also had a lot of fun visiting two smaller National Park Service sites: Brown vs. Board of Education and Homestead.  Brown vs. Board is located in an old school building in Topeka, KS.  They have some excellent multi-media displays that discuss discrimination of all kinds from the 1600's to present.  It served to remind me of how far we've come, but also how recently we've really changed as a country with respect to civil rights.  It also gave me some hope that the discrimination we see today (LGBT rights, religious beliefs, and racial tensions) may someday be a thing of the past as well.

 Brown vs. Board of Education National Historic Site

Photo: Nathan King

Homestead National Monument celebrates the very first 160-acre farm patent issued by the Homestead Act of 1862.  This is the legislation that allowed you to stake out a claim in the vast openness of the United States, live on the land, and eventually be given that land for free.  Seems like a good, non-controversial idea, right?  Wrong!  The very interesting video and displays in the museum did a good job of pointing out how this affected the native populations.  It was also a pretty difficult thing to do as 60% of the families who initially staked claims, never proved up on the land (i.e. stayed long enough to take ownership of their farm).  The best part of this site is the beautiful prairie outside and the brochure and demonstration area about all of the different kinds of barbed wire.  Wow!  My life would NOT have been complete without this knowledge.

An example of 1 of the 500 types of barbed wire

On our trip, Kansas and Nebraska were being, well, Kansas and Nebraska by giving us major crosswinds to contend with on the drive up, allowing tumbleweeds and corn husks to collect in the bumper. On the way home we saw not one, but two trucks carrying goats.

Not that I don't find this hilarious, but I am really looking forward to moving to North Dakota later this month.  That's right, braving perilous snowdrifts sounds more fun than hanging out alone in Larned.  Go figure!

 Photo of a Homestead in North Dakota

Photo: Nathan King

Kansas, Not What You'd Expect

Kansans don't usually fit their over-religious-everyone-drives-a-tractor-to-work stereotype, but our hometown paper, The Tiller & Toiler, which comes out on Tuesdays and Fridays, apparently didn't get that memo.  Here's a blurb that appeared on the front page of today's paper (reproduced word for word):

"Hi Neighbor" goes out to all the farmers in Pawnee County, and we guess especially to John Dryden.  Jeff Delaney at the Pawnee County COOP tells us that John came in with the record test weight milo the other day at 65.7, where 56 is a common weight. They even made a sign to put up on the COOP door because John thought he deserved a little recognition.  When the sign came down later, John took it home to put on his fridge.  Now Tim Dryden, John's dad came in to the COOP a little later, and was asked if he knew about the great weight, but alas, he hadn't been informed by his son and fellow farmer.  We're guessing Tim's wife Marty might still be in the dark!  That's okay Marty, just go see John's sign on the fridge.  He deserves the recognition according to the folks at the COOP.

So, there you have it!  Kansas, it's not what you expect!

To Salina and Back

"Can you pull over so I can walk around for a couple seconds?"

Ah yes, traveling while pregnant is fun, so we haven't gone anywhere really exotic this summer.  However, yesterday Nathan and I did take what will probably be the last road trip we take just the two of us for a while: we drove two hours away to Salina, KS!

Not only is this our nearest "big city", which boasts such luxuries as a Kohl's, Target, and the Kenwood Cove Waterpark, it's the home of my Aunt Jeanine, Uncle Allan, and cousins Jocelyn and Ciarra!  We were pretty excited to see everyone and get some errands done at the same time.

They took us to a great Italian restaurant for lunch, Martinelli's, which was exciting given the fact that there are zero Italian restaurants within a 1.5 hour radius of our new house.  We were warned that this was "Kansas Italian", so even though it didn't compare to the amazing "pizze" in Italy, it was quite good for the US - even Kansas.  We also got the Tour d'Salina, which culminated in Salina's most exciting and exotic attraction: the yellow submarine bench!

 We don't live in this.

I insisted on visiting the Kenwood Cove Waterpark in the afternoon, seeing as I've gotten no use out of my maternity swimsuit yet.  It's better than your average pool, with several water slides, a wave pool, lazy river, and separate lap pool.  Weeeeeelllll, the lap pool was closed (due to some cloudy chemical in the water that I'm sure was added because some kid peed -or worse- in the pool), and I was not allowed to ride the water slides.  I thought I'd be fine floating the lazy river and enjoying the wave pool only, until I found out the wave pool, which my cousin Jocelyn warned me was more of a ripple pool, really was just shallow, crowded, and lame.  After briefly considering explaining to the slide bouncer that I wasn't pregnant, just fat, we left to go run some errands at Hobby Lobby and Kohl's.

We stayed for dinner and had some delicious steak burgers and custard at a place called Freddy's, which is the Kansas equivalent of a Culver's.  Even though I am Wisconsin-breed just like Culver's I have to admit Freddy's had better custard, but NOT a better burger.

On the way home, we got sidetracked at dusk and ended up wandering into Cheyenne Bottoms, an amazing rehabilitated wetlands area close to Great Bend.  We didn't see the Night Heron Nathan was looking for, but we did catch a gorgeous sunset instead.

 Almost looks like the ocean, doesn't it?

Good night, Sunflower State

Perfect end to my vacationing days without kids.  Just now I realized this would have been just as fun and probably more fun with the kiddo, so I'm pretty happy to include another person in our future expeditions into the unknown.  Bring it on!

The Real Kansas

When you think of Kansas, do you think of wheat fields as far as the eye can see and tornadoes?  Where we're at in Central Kansas, aside from the pockets of civilization and amazing wetlands, that's exactly what you get.  I'm not here to dis-spell any myths or stereotypes because they are all true.

Over the past two weeks, I believe we've averaged about one amazing thunderstorm per day.  No tornadoes yet, but when the wind is howling and rain pelting through the improperly installed living room window, you may as well be in the middle of a tornado.  We made the mistake of setting up our weather radio one night and didn't make it three hours before it woke us up.  It is now on silent mode.

Me, guest-starring on Storm Chasers (just kidding, that storm is chasing me)!

I don't think they grow anything besides wheat here, but one thing I didn't realize this that those "Amber waves of grain" are really green in the spring-time.  It doesn't make for boring landscape because I could watch the wind running through a prairie or wheat field for hours.  Now, thanks to our new location, I can.

There are more trees in Kansas today than there were 200 years ago

I was also extremely worried about the rumors I heard about politics and the over-the-top religious zealousness of this state.  In reality, the politics crack me up.  I haven't seen any signs for Democrats yet.  It's not that I don't think there are any, I just think they are in hiding like Anne Frank during World War II.  I also think the Democrats necessarily have to hide under the Republican party banner to get anywhere in this state, so I'm looking forward to examining what each "Republican" says intensely so that I know which Republicans I can vote for with a clear conscience.  The religious thing hasn't been a problem.  Despite the plethora of "Smile: Your Mom Chose Life" billboards, everyone is just super-nice and minds their own business.

There's an incredible sense of community here unlike anywhere else I've ever been.  Let me give you just one example.  These small towns simply cannot support a commercial, for-profit movie theater.  So, the town of Larned came together to build their own.  In just a few years they've raised enough money to pay off their mortgage and buy a new projector capable of running 3-D.  The tickets for adults are $6 and you can get a "small" popcorn and soda for $3 during the show.  All of the workers are volunteers and every cent was raised through the local community.  What's more, their competition seems to be running the for-profit movie theater in Great Bend into the ground.  Not bad!  With this much self-sufficiency, I can see why you might not been too keen on the government taking all your money.  There's a reason Kansas has these stereotypes, but there's also a reason behind the supporting evidence for those stereotypes.  This is a very interesting place.

TIK - This Is Kansas

TIA is a common expression in Africa, used when something goes really unexpectedly wrong - beyond what you might expect in the Western world.  For example, the lights on the runway at Kilimanjaro International Airport aren't lit up and you have to turn back to Nairobi, you find out the road from Dodoma to Arusha is all dirt and your driver finds it important to back-up for a better view of the Mozambique Spitting Cobra 10 feet away from the car and your open windows, or the fact that hot water is unavailable because the rainstorm put out the fire heating it.  This. Is. Africa.

Well, I found myself adapting the phrase for Kansas as Nathan and I moved here on Wednesday.  The ride took us 14 hours and was actually a beautiful ride.  Kansas is not entirely flat and wheat-filled.  It's especially gorgeous this time of year when everything is green and migrating birds are abundant.

Everything was going well until we got close to Larned, our new home.

We found out while driving to Larned with the 24-foot truck filled with everything we own that the house we're renting was not ready yet.  The owners were trying to get some new carpet laid (the company brought the wrong carpet the day before) and so they'd be working on it Wednesday night.  TIK.  That's fine.  We figured we could grab a room at the local Best Western and stop by Thursday.  Not a big deal as there should be plenty of room at the inn because who would be staying in a hotel in Larned?!

EVERYONE, apparently.  Due to a giant farm equipment show, all the rooms in Larned, Great Bend, and even two hours away in Hays were completely booked.  TIK.  We had to stay at the house that night, and luckily we were able to get in.

I expected the house to be a little out of order, but what I did NOT expect was to walk into a full-on construction site.  The carpet was laid, but there was no refrigerator, the stove wasn't hooked up, dust covered almost everything, the electrical sockets weren't covered, there were no baseboards, the floor covering was half-done in the sun room, and the list could go on.  TIK - now I'm getting worried and making a mental note never to let Nathan line-up housing ever again.

First room we ever saw in the new house.

Kitchen: A day later we at least had a fridge!  That's the stove still in the foreground.

I forgot to mention that the owners still have a bunch of stuff in the house.

My favorite feature: the second bathroom is really a toilet in the corner of a giant storage room with no doorlock.  Yeah, Nathan and I will be able to share the upstairs bathroom just fine.

Let's make a long story short and just say our new landlords, who are actually Nathan's new co-workers, were able to get the place cleaned up pretty fast.  It cleans up really nice (more pictures to come when we get the boxes out of here.)  They had done the best they could to get the house ready before we got there, but a complete renovation of a very old house takes a long time.  We're living without baseboards, but at least we've got a working kitchen (except for the garbage disposal leakage issue - TIK).  We're getting a good deal, so I guess I should have been prepared to help with a little construction work.

Other things haven't gone exactly right.  We've learned that auctions are a big deal out here and when we tried to drop off our U-Haul on Friday, we were met with a closed shop and this sign.

TIK

I am really liking the town, aside from the rocky start.  The people here are amazingly friendly.  Nathan pointed out there's a difference between the Kansans and North Dakotans in that in North Dakota, if people don't know who you are, they're usually too embarrassed to ask (Medora IS a smaller town by about 4500 people - so maybe they really think they should know you).  In Kansas, they just come right up and ask who you are, so you meet new people every time you leave the house.  The city is really cute, and has a lot of amenities (nice tennis courts one block away!), which makes it easy to skip extra trips up to the much larger city of Great Bend (30 minutes away).  I'm still skeptical, but there are a lot of things I like about this place.  I guess my time in Africa taught me how to better roll with the punches and above all, to ignore the giant spiders on the walls.

Fancy a Bite to Eat?

Since Nathan and I will quickly find ourselves 25 minutes from ANY restaurants this winter and next spring in a city where Subway, Wendy's, McDonald's, and Sonic are 2/3 of the entire restaurant selection, we're throwing dietary caution to the wind and trying to get our fill of our favorite restaurants in Rochester while we still can.

Last night, we checked off Famous Dave's, which is Nathan's favorite. Dave's is still a slim possibility in the future, since there are franchises located within the state borders of North Dakota and Kansas, but apparently BBQ is big in Kansas, so we're hoping for great things in Great Bend, which is 30 minutes from where we'll live.

Larned, KS from space (this makes it look like a decently-sized city! yeehaw!)

Last weekend, we found a coupon to Jenpachi, one of those "Japanese" steakhouses where they cook the food right in front of you. It's not something we'll be able to get any time soon and the food is good, plus you get dinner and a show for the price of dinner.

On the list remaining are The Redwood Room (my favorite restaurant in the entire world), City Cafe, Beetle's and Noodles.

In case you were wondering, it's official, we are pulling up stakes here in Rochester. We met with our real estate agent Friday and plan to put the house up for sale next year. Oh, I'll be back to work occasionally and more importantly to visit people here, but keeping up three residences with a house in the one place we almost never are sounds pretty annoying to me.