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All American Indian Center Wichita
2 Reviews The All American Indian Center in Wichita is a great cultural resource for all Americans. The large building is used for indoor events, dances, etc and houses a museum and gift shop. Tuesdays mark...
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The Kansas City Hot Air Balloon Invitational is held on the final weekend of May in Gardner, Kansas. It's a colorful, family-friendly event that normally includes 20 to 24 balloon teams competing in contests and participating in evening group ascents which are great for photographers.
Before the coming of European settlers to the Great Plains, spring time prairie fires were a natural occurrence as a result of lightning strikes. It was nature's way of preparing the soil for new growth of the indigenous tall grasses and ridding the prairie of foreign plants. Because the vast areas of Kansas' Flint Hills are still grazing land (now beef instead of bison), ranchers annually set fire to those lands - usually in April. If you are driving through this small vestige of the remaining prairie in the spring, you may be fortunate enough to see this burning ritual - especially awesome when seen at night. Those interested in learning more about the practice of prairie burning will find the following video (by the Emporia Gazette) helpful: www.emporiagazette.com/videos/2010/apr/18/231/
Helianthus annuusThe Helianthus or Wild Native Sunflower is the Kansas State Flower. There are eleven species of sunflower recorded from Kansas. Most of them are perennials. They grow very well in the hot, dry Kansas summers. Nearly 3,000 years ago the sunflower was domesticated for food production by the Native Americans.
Sturnella neglectaThe Western Meadowlark became the state bird of Kansas on January 29, 1925 (Kansas Day) after a vote by over 121,000 school children. Meadowlarks are members of the blackbird family. The meadowlark sports a yellow breast with a black bib over its mottled brown body. Meadowlarks are ground feeders. The majority of their food during the growing season is insects, spiders and other small invertebrates.
This is far more than a local event that takes place every September in Winfield, Kansas! The Walnut Valley Festival draws thousands of music lovers and musicians from all over the world. A week before the festival begins, you will see campers and RVs lined up for miles waiting to get into the camp ground.The music is what it is all about, but it is a great social event, as well. 2004 was Nancy and my first visit to this festival, but we discovered that people have developed close friendships at Winfield and get together for fun, food and music yearly in September. In 2005, we returned to the festival for two days with hometown friends in tow. We have made reservations to stay three days at the '06 gathering, meeting Nancy's sister and brother-in-law. We hope to return year after year. What a great event!The music is eclectic. My impression was that it would be primarily bluegrass, but...
Us Kansasan's tend to dress down rather than up for most all events. Going on a date? Wear Jeans. Going to a nightclub? Wear Jeans. Going out for dinner? Wear Jeans. Going to the Theater? Wear Jeans. (Note - Some people do dress up for the theater). I have even seen people wear jeans to a wedding & believe it or not, seen the bride & groom get married in jeans. Yep, when it comes to clothing were pretty laid back.If you feel out of place when you come to town ..... don't fret, most any retailer sells jean's, just head to any of our local malls.
I noticed in more than one place in Kansas that the streets were paved with red bricks. Although they are rough and noisy to drive across, I still found that it was a nice way to retain an air of history and permanence. It actually reminded me of the Portugese custom of using small hand-cut rock squares for both their sidewalks and streets.As you can see, it is another busy Saturday morning at 9 AM in downtown Fort Scott!
After getting out of the car for a closer look, I noticed that many of these quite large fruit were laying on the ground beneath the tree. Their skin was very rough and the fruit felt very hard to the touch with not much give. Overall, not very appealing to either the eye or feel! This fruit is not eaten by humans and research suggests that it is also not eaten by any creature native to North America. This is thought to be unusual because, normally, fruits of this type are spread by seed dispersal through wild animals which eat it. One theory holds that the Osage orange tree was originally spread in Texas and Arkansas by ancient giant sloths, which happened to die out at about the same time that horses were introduced to North America by the Spanish. In today's world, the only animal that eats the Osage orange are horses. Where no horses are present, the fruit of the tree simply lay on...
About 3 hours after I had left Kansas City, Missouri, I was pulling into the tiny dorp of Pleasanton, Kansas when I passed by a very unusual looking tree. It was so unusual that I had to stop and reverse back for a closer look. It stood all by itself beside the road and along a division between two fields. What caught my eye were the very large fruit hanging from its branches, as well as numerous others scattered below on the ground where they had fallen.A little research after returning home tells me that this is an Osage Orange, a strange tree native to Texas and Arkansas. In the 1800's, it was spread through some parts of the USA as living fences and hedges because of its thorns (this was before the invention of barbed wire). The properties of the wood of its branches and trunk also allowed it to be used to make bows by Indians as well as fence posts because of its ability to resist...
I was struck by the wide streets in the downtown area of all the towns and villages that I drove through in Kansas. Apparantly, when you have that much space, there is no need to crowd things! That being said, there was also not much traffic, which is not surprising in a state only slightly smaller than New Zealand yet with only 2.7 million inhabitants!Angle parking seemed to be the standard here, something that disappeared for parallel parking many years ago where I live. Also, the core areas of all the places that I drove through had that 'Old West' look to them with multi-storey brick buildings, even if they looked a bit run down in a few locations.The houses seemed to vary from large Victorian-type mansions to small bungalows, with large porches supported by solid pillars. These small houses reminded me of ones from eastern Canada and New England that I had seen in my youth. In many...
Homewood Suites by Hilton At The Waterfront Wichita
1 Review and 156 Opinions Service was outstanding from front desk to the maintenance man who went out of his way to say good...
Eldridge Hotel Lawrence
5 Reviews and 93 Opinions It was not this time, but some time ago. The place seems to cater more to a dinner crowd now. The...
Sheraton Overland Park Hotel At The Convention Center Overland Park
1 Review and 211 Opinions I only stayed here once. It is stale and not many people usually stay here. It is the anchor hotel...
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