The best fajitas I’ve ever eaten were at a little joint in Kansas. I’m pretty sure it was Topeka. Also got to see (and crawl around in/on) some great historic airplanes nearby.
Kansas is cool. Will be passing thru again soon.
Actual headline: “Church ends probe of Gay Bishop”
Actually, there are two cities named Kansas City. There is Kansas City Missouri, but there is also Kansas City, Kansas. It’s all one big metro area, with several other towns that have become part of the urban sprawl. In some places the river seperates the two, in others you can walk across the street and be in another city, as well as another state. When my sister did her pharmacy internship in KC, back when Kansas still didn’t have liquor by the drink, she said students would finish the day in dry Kansas and walk down the block to wet Missouri, to relax.
Agoraphobia (literally: “fear of the marketplace”) is the most common form of fear of exposed or open places, I think, but it’s technically a fear of exposure to public embarassment. It’s associated with a fear of public, open places because agoraphobia leads sufferers to fear places where it would be difficult to escape from view. It does fit with the sense of exposure you mentioned.
I think DSM-IV defines kenophobia as the fear of voids or empty spaces, which might also fit. Fear of outer space, BTW, is simply “spacephobia”.
As to Kansas and phobias…well, all I know is that Courage the Cowardly Dog is set in the middle of Nowhere, KS. 
As a good friend summed up for me year ago when I first moved out here to Kansas:
It’s a nice place to live, but you wouldn’t want to visit here.
I stand suitably chastised; what I meant was that the two cities are gegraphically adjacent, and many people commute from one to the other, etc. Aside from governmental differences, my impression when I lived in Overland Park was that most people considered it one city, or maybe thought of KCK as a “district” of KCMO.
I didn’t mean to chastise, I was just sayin’.
I think the attitude has changed somewhat recently, with the bi-State tax controversy and the (outwardly amicable) battle over the NASCAR stadium. There has been a schism between KCK and KCMO, and I think there is quite a bit more separation now.
Here’s one you probably won’t find on a map: Stull Cemetery, supposedly one of the seven gateways to Hell and another site with plenty of pictures and an annoying tombstone that scrolls down the page with you. The church and cemetery attract some of the Blair Witch type of crowd and local law enforcement will send you on your way if you were thinking about stopping by.
No one’s mentioned Dodge City? Plenty of Old West touristy stuff going on there, and most famous for it’s former lawmen, including Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.
And meth labs seem to abound in abandoned farmhouses throughout the state. Though the biggest ever found was in an abandoned missile silo.
You’re always welcome to chuck an egg at Fred Phelp’s house whenever you’re driving through Topeka.
If you like cycling, but don’t like many hills, then try Biking Across Kansas. I did this ride in 1989 and 1991, it was good fun. For off road rides, try The Flint Hills Death Ride. I was on the first of these rides 15 years ago.
Kansas is also a good place if you like extreme weather. During one calendar year I cycled in 104 degree heat, and a frigid -5F. The big thunderstorms are cool, as long as they stop short of becoming tornados.
Grew up in Kansas, in the, then, outer suburbs of K.C. on the Kansas side. Since moved to the outer suburbs of S.F., seemingly hooked on two-letter cities.
Gotta say, I LIKE living where winter is strictly optional, and one can visit it, rather than having it delivered to your door, but, at the same time … Here, a friend is ‘fairly close’ if they are less than an hour drive … when I was growing up, it was a BIG deal to go ‘downtown’ since that was a full 30 min. drive!
ahhhh … and the Lights on the Plaza at Christmas time. No where I’ve lived touches that one!
This I can answer. I’ve driven from Colorado to Pennsylvania, and back again, more times than any sane man would. In fact, I’ve done it with 6 (or was it 7?) kids and a dog. And the trip back was worse. (I do, of course, have a great story about really, really, really having to take a piss, while driving, surrounded by trucks, through some infinitely long construction site in Kansas.)
The answer is: Pikes Peak can be seen from Limon CO.
BTW, Kansasians, Kansas is nice. It seems like a great place to raise a family. There is just entirely too much of it. Not that eastern CO is any better. (And Dodge is nice. And, I’ve even been to the well! )
And Nebraska too. Way too much of that state.
As mentioned earlier, my grandparents lived on a farm in SW Kansas. Up to the age of 13, when I rebelled, I was forced twice a year to get in an automobile with my parents and three siblings and drive the width of southern Kansas to visit the grandparents. Here is an overview of those trips:
Vehicle: A 2-door sedan. No air conditioning. No seat belts. Comfortably seats 4.
Persons in vehicle: Six (2 adults, 4 children).
Departure Time: About 4 a.m. Dad would get in the car and wait impatiently in the darkness while Mom frantically tried to get 4 children up and travel-worthy, gather up everything needed for the trip, and ensure that the house would be safe during our absence. Once in awhile Dad would honk the horn to remind Mom how much she was annoying him with her dilly-dallying.
Travel time: Endless.
Entertainment: Argue about who got to sit where. Argue about who had been sitting in the good spot for an unfair amount of time. Draw imaginary lines in the car seats to mark one’s territory; scream and hit when line was crossed.
Number of times parents threatened to pull over and leave children by side of road: Approximately 50.
Actual number of stops made by Dad for any reason other than car failure: 0.
Life on the farm: Life is pretty no-nonsense on the farm. The opinions of children are neither solicited nor welcomed.
As a female, I was expected to participate in the endless ritual of feeding the men. I was forcibly drug out of bed at 4 a.m. to begin preparing the enormous breakfast which would be served at 6. I didn’t get to go back to bed after breakfast, oh no. I had to help with clearing the table and washing dishes. This was a huge task, which extended until it was time to start preparing the enormous lunch (usually fried chicken). Lunch (actually it was called “dinner”) cleanup ran onto “supper” preparation. After supper cleanup, it was bedtime.
While the females toiled in the kitchen, the men and boys were just hanging out, as far as I could tell; occasionally they all got in the pickup and disappeared for awhile.
Sometimes the children (including me) got to ride the horse, which was totally cool. Sometimes we got to drive the tractor. At about age 8, one was considered to be capable of driving a tractor unsupervised. Several times I came close to overturning the tractor upon myself. There is a strong Darwinian aspect to farm life.
The most fun was when I was able to sneak away with my brothers and cousins. We’d get a can of gasoline from the shed and roam the property, seeking out the huge ant mounds that flourished in the arid fields. Find a good ant hill, pour a gallon of gas down it, drop a match, and WHOOOOOOOOOM! Very satisfying, but ultimately not enough to make a country girl out of me.
Well, you know what they say: You can take the country out of the girl, but if you take the girl out of the country, they’ll bust you.
Thank you. Hmmm, well I was driving so I only got to look out of my rearview mirror at it.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Kansas. My grandparents live in Manhattan. My dad lived in St. George until he died. Going there always felt like going back in time 20 years. That was the place where I completely understood the phrase “the silence is deafening.” The people were nice but it’s definately the plainest place I’ve ever been.