Kansas Blog

Winding my way down a path lined with bright orange tulips, I stopped under tall pine and redwood trees to peruse an artist's collection of watercolors featuring bright colored flowers when the sounds of a fiddle and accordian filled the air. The musicians were among a lineup of acts performing under a canopy of long-standing trees during Art at the Arb, an event at the Bartlett Arboretum in Belle Plaine that coincides with the city's annual Tulip Time Festival.

"I can't drive 55!" sang Sammy Hagar in 1984.  However, if you're cruising down the Native Stone Scenic Byway in eastern Kansas, it's the perfect speed to take in the sights.

The museum that bears the name of Martin and Osa Johnson is not exactly what you'd expect to find in the middle of Kansas. Then again, Martin and Osa Johnson were not exactly your run of the mill people. 

If you have the chance to spend an early spring day in the native tallgrass prairies of Kansas, you may hear the low booming sounds of a male greater prairie chicken attempting to attract a hen. Birdwatchers and hunters both flock to Kansas in search of these gorgeous birds, known for their peculiar breeding behavior.

Beef production in Kansas is big - cattle represented almost half of the agricultural cash receipts in 2010 and Kansas ranks third in the nation with 6.1 million cattle on ranches and feedyards. That's more than twice our state's human population! Our family saw a good many of these bovine beauties on a recent trip to western Kansas, where we sampled some Kansas beef at Plank's Barbecue in Garden City.

With the arrival of spring in Kansas, the glow of a great tradition across the state rolls into our lives again: The Drive-In Movie. 

When you visit Mine Creek Battlefield on a quiet day, you can almost see them there: 7,000 Confederate soldiers charging across a battlefield on horseback towards two highly outnumbered Union brigades cresting the hill. The Union forces freeze in their tracks against the odds, but are destined to carry the day. 

Osawatomie is a great little Kansas day-trip full of history from a time when the state was new and people were passionate about their political positions. The town was a pivotal spot during the Bleeding Kansas fight for freedom. It stakes claim to being the place Kansans were first called "Jayhawkers" and is where the Kansas Republican party was founded. BUT, it is perhaps best known for its relation to the famous abolitionist, John Brown.

Many wonderful songwriters have come from Kansas, and we are on the hunt for the next one.  Submit your original composition of a Kansas song for a chance to win this month. Entries will be judged by singer/songwriter Logan Mize, an up and coming Nashville star raised in Clearwater.

In the western Kansas town of Oakley sits a quaint little museum named Fick Fossil. According to DiscoveRoakley.com, during the 1960's Ernest and Vi Fick began collecting fossils from the long gone inland sea that once inhabited the area. By 1971 they owned thousands of shark teeth, complete fossils and a lot of folk art that Vi had made using their discoveries. Soon the collection outgrew their home, thus the museum was established in the mid 1975 to showcase their findings and Vi's art.