Friday, January 28, 2005

Top 10 Reasons to Visit Hutchinson

I started this a long time ago, but never posted it. With my impending trip home next weekend -- and the fact I haven't posted much lately -- I decided to take a moment post just a few reason why Hutchinson, Kansas is a great place to visit (even if I don't have a desire to ever live there again).

Underground Salt Museum – this actually isn’t open yet, but if you have connections, you can tour the salt mines themselves. My sister-in-law works for a company called Underground Vault and Storage where they store all sorts of items and documents for both government and private companies. My favorite is the movie vaults because they store all the original film for most of the major production companies. And it’s not just the final cut version of the movie, it is every footage of tape that they filmed. Because its climate controlled and very secure down there, it’s a very logical place to store these kinds of things.

Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Museum – If you’re interested in space travel, it’s a pretty interesting place to visit. Unless you get car sick easily, you will also want to take time to visit the Omnidome theater while you’re there. You actually feel like you’re moving.

Kansas State Fair – It’s your typical fair full of everything a fair has to offer (including the mullets). Our house is less than a block from the fair grounds, which is nice because you don’t have to pay for parking, but bad because you wake up every morning to the sound of the car races and you’ve got all kinds of weird characters walking through you’re yard and looking in your windows.

Anchor Inn – By far the best Mexican food in town. It started out as this little hole in the wall family restaurant that has now expanded multiple times to be able to accommodate their customers.

Prairie Dunes Golf Course – I’m not a golfer, but the 2006 U.S. Senior Open will be held there and the 2002 U.S. Women’s Open was held there. I guess it was a pretty big deal because people were renting out their houses to the women in the tour while they were there.

Dillon Nature Center – Nothing too exciting, but it’s very peaceful and a nice place to go if you want to get away for a while. Also the site of several of our family pictures.

NJCC Basketball Tournament – Probably one of the biggest things to take place in Hutch every year (which is pretty sad). I loved tournament time though because I would make a ton of money babysitting.

The Hutchinson Zoo – not as exciting as it sounds. No lions, tigers or bears, but plenty of livestock, snakes, and prairie dogs. Doesn’t take long to see, but a good way to waste some time on a nice day.

The “burn off” sites – Hutchinson had a problem with pockets of gas from an underground reserve building up under the city and they would explode. It blew up 2 businesses and a trailer park. So now when you drive through town, you occasionally see a pipe coming out of the ground with flame coming out of it so they can burn off these pockets of gas.

My mom (sorry, not link for her) – For those who have gotten to spend time with my mom (especially in her house) you know she is the Queen of Hospitality. She’s a great cook and will feed you all weekend and make sure you have everything you need. Definitely worth the trip. I like visiting Hotel Mom.

3 comments:

Krista said...

I can't say I've ever been to Hutchinson. You must have all kinds of fun stories if you live that close to the state fair. My parents live down the street from a bar so I've seen several very interesting people walk through the yard. It's fun to watch them out the front window.

Stacey said...

Oh, yes. We once had marijuana growing wild in our back yard behind the shed. We assumed it came from a stash belonging to one of the "carney's".

Anonymous said...

Hey Stacey, sorry I haven't been to your site much but I had some extra time to poke around and it's great I think. Thank you for mentioning out great Hutch is because sometimes I forget - ha ha and remember if you ever want another tour Underground just let me know!!

~ Joanna