Kansas Blog

While working at a marina in college, I pulled out dead minnows from our live tanks and threw them off the dock every day. Usually, I'd watch the minnows float away to see carp and crappies come up to snatch an easy meal. One slow morning, a big fish appeared out of nowhere, grabbed a minnow, and was gone in a flash. I ran up to the marina to grab a hook and line. I dangled another dead minnow just off the dock and before I knew it, my line snapped by that same lightning-fast strike.

Once a punch line of toilet-themed jokes, the soccer team formerly known as the Kansas City Wiz (and later the Wizards) is now the ideal franchise in all of American sports.

Their matches are also the hottest ticket in Kansas City.

After 12 years of sharing the cavernous football stadium and three more years in a tiny baseball park, rebranded Sporting Kansas City opened its first true home in 2011. Since opening Sporting Park near the Kansas Speedway in Wyandotte County, the club has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity.

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.

Imagine starting your day as you would any normal day, heading downtown to work or to run a few errands at the hardware store and bank. As you go about your business, you catch word that both banks in town are being robbed by five famous train robbers: the Dalton Gang. Did I mention that you're imagining life in 1892?