"If I went West, I think I would go to Kansas."
-Abraham Lincoln
Having been in Kansas for a few days now, I have visited a few different places, we have been to Truman Lake, a WWI memorial, a theme park and a lot of shops.
Truman lake is a large lake in Warsaw. I was quite excited about the prospect of driving all the way from Kansas to Poland but it turns out that this Warsaw was in Missouri. Shana drove. Nik was in charge of the radio. Mum was head of crochet central. Dad and Rex were looking after the back of the car. I tried to keep control of Koijo the dog. Two hours later we were there with a bigger repertoire of country music, a lot of scratches and half a blanket. The lake itself was very nice. It was big and had lots of trees and hills around. There was a visitors centre that told us a bit more about the lake and the area. In comparison to the museum that we visited in St Louis that described the settler-native relationships from a far more native point of view, this visitors centre looked upon the natives as a "rebellious" bunch of "indians" who resisted the settlers attempts to "control" them. Now, I'm not a expert on US-native american relations but I'm pretty sure that the language used was not helpful. The actual lake was beautiful; we saw lots of eagles flying over it and you could see a long way because the weather was so clear.
There were also a little replica village that had been built by the visitors centre. The man told us that he had built it himself using old fashioned tools and techniques… these included old fashioned mirrored windows and corrugated metal roof. We had a little look around the house, shop and outhouse. I think it would be ok to live in apart from the outhouse and tin bath, I don't think I'd be up for that. We also signed the visitors' book. 3 entries with the same surname but from 3 different countries? Excellent.
The WWI memorial and museum is the only of its kind in the USA. Unfortunately, the museum suffered a power failure on the day we visited and so it was closed but we were still able to see the Egyptian style buildings and memorial tower.
Worlds of Fun is a theme park about 25 minutes away from Nik and Shana's. It was rightly named. I had worlds of fun whilst there. The park is split up into different continents; hence the name. There was Americana, Europa, Africana, the Orient and then they had a bit of a brain block. I think they were looking for a continent that had a lot of sea because there were water rides. A continent with a lot of sea? Maybe with a lot of islands? A place where fish are an important part of life? Ah! Got it! Scandinavia! Scandinavia?!? Really, Worlds of Fun, you are going to shun the South Pacific (Australasia) and Asia for Scandinavia? To add insult to injury they also had allotted part of the park to Snoopy World. I think someone needs to brush up on their geography. Despite this, the rides were good. They had a very tall one called Mamba where the worker on the ride said "Sit up right and hold on tight cos Mamba's about to strike. Boom boom hisssssss," every time a carriage left the station. We got about 3 quarters of the way up the tallest part of the ride before I realised just how high it was and started to freak out a little bit but it was fun after that. Another ride, called Detonate, was on a vertical pole. Once you were on the ride you didn't know at which point it was going to suddenly launch into the air and up the track. Whilst waiting for Boomerang, a backwards ride, to start, the worker asked if we are nervous before saying "I'll give you something to be nervous about" and pressed the button to start the ride. Unfortunately for him the ride broke before it had left the station so we were left sitting there for 10 minutes waiting for the technological folks to come and set us free. There was also a little girl behind us on this ride that hadn't wanted to get on in the first place and was in tears for most of this experience. The worker assured us, once we had been freed, that he had pressed the right button and didn't break the roller coaster simply to give us something to be nervous about.
Last, but not least, we have been shopping. Challenge of the week: find an outfit for Mum and Dad for Erin and Thomas' wedding. Team Krana (Krista and Shana) took action, presenting the targets with items of clothing. Target dad was overcome quickly with the options and styles being simpler for males. Target mum took significantly longer with half of the team succumbing to the pressure after a few days. Krana was even able to persuade target mum to try on a dress at one point but it was declared unsuitable wedding attire. Finally, today, after hours and hours of searching and trying on we finally found some suitable clothes for a low low price. Awesome (as the girl in the shop said about 20 times). Mission accomplished.
