While all my friends go away, this is why I stay!

    'Tis the season for all of my good friends to return back to Kansas City and for me to venture out to visit friends who have moved away. Two weeks ago, I got to have lunch with a friend who is living an exciting life teaching down in Guatemala. My best friend temporarily left her successful life in San Francisco to visit this past week. This week, I will be venturing down to Oklahoma to visit a great friend who relocated to Oklahoma for work. All of these trips remind me of how few of my friends are still in the KC area. Yet, as I wallow in self pity, I have to remind myself why I'm still here.
    There was a time early in my husband's and my relationship that we were dead set on moving to Texas. I think we had it in our heads that we could move near Austin, get good jobs (immigration is one of my research interests), and never have to shovel another driveway. That "dream" faded away (honestly, WTF were we thinking?), and we settled down in Kansas. Sure, Kansas is its own kind of special. When it makes the news, it's usually because Fred Phelps' group is spreading hate or our very, very conservative government (as in so conservative that some Republicans are siding with the liberal gubernatorial candidate this year) is denying some minority group its rights. Yet, despite Kansas' many attempts to make me want to leave, here I am. So in a Buzzfeed-like fashion, here are my top 6 reasons I'm still here:

1. You get a lot for your money- There was a piece on Buzzfeed (very scientific) about what kind of a house $300,000 can get you in different US cities. Number 8 on this list is Topeka, Kansas, where you can get a 5-bedroom house. Compare this to the spacious 1 bedroom/1 bath "homes" you can get in major cities on the coast. We certainly did not pay that much for our home, but we still have a decent sized home with an acre of land. We're close enough to our neighbors to interact with them when we want to and faraway enough to spend time outside without being bothered. I cannot even fathom what a house like this would cost in California or some other state I might consider living in. Sure, I know it's worth it when you love the place you live (a guy in Hawaii called it a "luxury tax"), but I prefer to just save money living in a place I like and then retire and live half of the year in the mountains and half of the year somewhere warm.

2. Kansas is beautiful- My eighteen-year-old self would smack me for saying this because this is a newer revelation for me. As a teenager, I thought Kansas was dull and flat. Trips across Kansas to get to Colorado seemed like torture, but as I got older and as my trips across Kansas became more frequent, I started appreciating the beauty that the Kansas landscape offers. We even have photos of the Konza prairie throughout our home! The wide open expanse of the prairie at sunset can be breathtaking. The sites I'm able to see while riding my bike through rural Kansas make me feel lucky to be here. In fact, last night I saw a man riding a horse down the road while talking on a cell phone. Where else can you see that?!

Lone barn south of Lawrence, Kansas

Our regular Sunday ride- look at that sky!

A lovely (but not so lovely on a bike) brick road south of Louisburg, KS

3. It's actually diverse!- We may not have the kind of diversity that larger cities enjoy, but we have a sizable population of immigrants and refugees living in the area. Even in the white-washed suburbs, small populations of immigrants thrive. For example, I'm helping conduct research at elementary schools in the suburbs whose populations are majority minority. The diverse people bring diverse food and diverse ideas to a place that really needs it! I have my anthropology students write a culture shock paper, in which they must go experience something out of their cultural zone. The range of restaurants, ethnic grocery stores, religious services, and special interest group meetings they can visit is amazing!

4. There's a lot to do....- This is another thing my teenager self would not have agreed with, but now that I've lived here for awhile (and am over 21), I can see there are tons of things to do. For one, there are now several neat, small breweries, including KC Bier Company, Big Rip Brewery, and Cinder Block Brewery. I haven't tried one yet, but we also have wineries. There are good places to see a show, and we have plenty of award-winning restaurants. One of the exciting things I'm doing this week is going to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle party at Alamo Drafthouse, where there will be all-you-can-eat pizza and a showing of the original TMNT movie. In addition to all these things, there are plenty of bikes rides, runs, and triathlons for the athletically-inclined. We even have an outdoor ski slope within an hour drive!

5. and you can get their pretty easily.- My friend from San Francisco could not believe the ease in which she and a friend were able to get in and out of the Justin Timberlake concert in KC. This is because when she saw him in San Fran, she waited 3 hours to leave the concert. Even though I live a little bit outside of the suburbs of KC, I can drive 30 minutes any direction and get to something interesting, whether it be downtown KC or the wonderful little college town Lawrence, Kansas, or the airport (I can't always stay in KS).

6. My family is here!- Both my husband's and my families still live in Kansas. Our parents are very important to us, especially to me as an only child. We want to make sure that our future kids are raised close to their grandparents. When we go out of town, we know our parents can watch our current children (cats), and we can doggy-sit for them. It's just nice to have that kind of support nearby. 

The real reasons why I stay: they can't survive a car ride longer than 5 minutes!