Patti DeLano - Kansas Off the Beaten Path®: Discover Your Fun

Heartland native Patti DeLano has been traveling the globe since she was twenty. A flight attendant for Trans World Airlines for ten years, she gave up flying to raise a family. She and her late husband, Bob, a pilot for TWA, traveled extensively and, after his retirement, took to the roads in a motor home to see the small towns of America.

Now she lives in Venice, Florida, and she and David McKie used to spend their summers sailing along the East Coast from Florida to Maine where they had a mooring in Belfast. They gave up the sailboat and now take their trawler cruising Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia and up through the Chesapeake, spending time visiting the small towns off the beaten path along the waterway.

Sure, Kansas has the reputation of being flat, but Northeast Kansass Smoky Hills, where the Kansas and Missouri Rivers meet, are anything but. From the bustle of Kansas City to the quiet of farmlands, these rolling hills offer a variety of lifestyles.

Some of the suburban communities of Kansas City are stylish and sophisticated; others are small-town friendly. The city of Overland Park, for example, is a shoppers paradise, with unusual shops offering designer clothes and upscale merchandise. The Prairie Fire shopping and entertainment district has shops for everything. At Made in KC you can pick up the mugs and T-shirts you want to take home. There are toys for the kids at Fat Brain Toys, and of course boutiques like Threshing Bee. Take the kids to the Museum at Prairie Fire where they can become involved with exhibits on art, nature, and science.

But as you leave Kansas City and head west into Kansas, you will experience the dramatic change from big-city life to the quiltwork of fields and fences of the Kansas countryside. This is the most agriculturally productive section of the state, the soils thick and fertile.

Greater rainfall in the eastern part of the state makes it favorable for a wider variety of crops than can be grown in the

west. Northeast Kansas is an ideal location for growing fruit. In a good year orchard-graced Doniphan County can produce more than four million pounds of apples.

Northeast Kansas is also home to several Native American tribes: The Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Potawatomi have reservations in this area. From 1830 to 1854 the region was designated as Indian Territory. The Native Americans who inhabited the area were displaced from other parts of the country as relentless waves of settlers moved west. Kansas began to attract white settlers in the 1870s. Many of them were Mennonites from Russia, who brought the seeds of Turkey Red wheat. The seeds took well to the prairie soil, turning a wild and unsettled land into Americas breadbasket.

The river heritage here is strong. The Kansas (called the Kaw) and Missouri Rivers join here to rush together to the Mississippi. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark camped on the Kansas side of the Missouri River several times in June and July of 1804 while exploring the Louisiana Purchase.

This region was crossed by settlers on the California, Oregon, and Santa Fe Trails. Businessmen and railroad tycoons made fortunes here in those early days and left grand homes to mark their journey through life in Kansas.

Kansas City suffers from a split identity. Most of the metropolitan area is actually in Missouri, although a lot of people across the country think otherwise. Kansas City, Kansas, is a good-size city in its own right, with its own downtown, and when you sing goin to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come... you might be talking about 7th Street Casino at 777 N. 7th St. Trafficway (now thats a bunch of lucky numbers) where you can play 600 slot machines.

AUTHORS FAVORITES

Davis Memorial

Hiawatha

Deanna Rose Childrens Farmstead

Overland Park

Downtown Lawrence

Frontier Army Museum

Fort Leavenworth

Gates Bar-B-Q

Kansas City

Perry Lake State Park

Ruchi Indian Cuisine

Overland Park

Sylas and Maddys Homemade Ice Cream

Olathe and Lawrence

It is also home to the Kansas Speedway, west of Kansas City near the junction of Interstates 70 and 435. Fans can watch NASCAR racing at the 1.5-mile tri-oval track as well as Indy cars. For information, check the website at kansasspeedway.com. For tickets, call (866) 460-RACE (7223) toll free. If you want to experience that ultimate adrenaline rush yourself, you can do it at 400 Speedway Blvd. Ride shotgun or grip the wheel yourself of a NASCAR racer. Reservations are required so call (784) 286-2400 or look at nascarracingexperience.com. There are plenty of new restaurants around the Speedway, of course.

The city is actually a consolidation of eight towns, so the streets are not in a grid pattern. There are many main streets and residential neighborhoods as well as several ethnic communities worth a visit, such as the Strawberry Hill neighborhood, a Slavic settlement. You can learn the history of these people at the Strawberry Hill Museum (913-371-3264) at 720 North Fourth St. A completely restored, high-Victorian-style home built in 1872, the museum houses ever-changing exhibits of Croatian artifacts from the peoples of Eastern Europe. The gift shop offers a variety of unique ethnic items. The Tea Room is open the first Sat and Sun of the month from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Mar through Sept, then Nov to Jan. It is closed in Oct to decorate for the holidays. For $6.50 you can enjoy authentic homemade desserts with tea or coffee. It is open on Sat and Sun from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children ages 6 to 12, and free for those under six.

kaw river

The Kansas River is known as the Kaw River around here. The tribe the state was named for, the Kansa, is known as the Kaw Native American Tribe.

Kansas City was the end of the cattle drives from Texas so meatpacking was the business of choice here. Joe Krizmans Croatian grandfather came to K.C. to work at the meatpacking plant and eventually opened his own shop. Krizmans House of Sausage (424 N. 6th St.; 913-371-3185; krizmansausage.com) on Strawberry Hill is now a second-generation legend with locals who drive from all over the city to buy any kind of sausage you are craving: knackwurst, andouille, chorizo, Polish, or Italian, of course, but also the apple bratwurst or the lamb or chicken sausage. Smoked or unsmoked, its all the best in town. You can throw in a loaf of walnut povitica bread, too. Smoked sausages and bread can be sent to your house if you call and order. Hours are Tues through Fri 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sat 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

At Kaw Point Meadery (613 N. 6th St.; kawpointmeadery.com), you can taste one of the worlds oldest alcoholic beverageshoney-based meadeand step back in time without leaving the Strawberry Hill neighborhood. Is meade a wine? Is meade a beer? Well the answer to both questions is no. Honey is to meade what grain is to beer and grapes are to wine. Honey and water are fermented to make this delightful beverage. You can try semi-sweet to dry brews from very old recipes and some more modern takes like mocha and barrel-aged caramel. It is not just a tasting room, you will enjoy live bluegrass music while you sip and tour the on-site production.

Whats in a Name?

The term Huron is not really the name of a Native American tribe but a somewhat derisive nickname bestowed by the French. The Wyandot people wore a traditional headdress that reminded the French of the bristly hairs on the back of a wild boar, or a