Salina Kansas, possibly moving to, what can you tell me about it?

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by ColdAilment

So they are gone now?

Is there much in the way of state parks or geographic landmarks nearby? I get the uneasy feeling that Salina is in the middle of Wheat Country with nothing but miles of farms surrounding the city. Not completely unused to that. Northern Indiana is mostly farmland too, though they do have more trees, but it's also rather flat.

Konza Prairie biological station is in the Flint Hills east of Salina, just south of Manhattan. Cheyenne Bottoms is out by Great Bend and Milford reservoir is west of Manhattan. If you are expecting much of the way in state parks or public land you will be dissapointed as the vast majority of all land, probably over 99%, is privately owned.

[pioneer88]

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This is what the area around Salina looks like. A lot of land is going to be privately owned but there are reservoirs and state park lands nearby. Also, you can probably find people who own land that would allow you to hike or ride horses.

You're also not far from the Flint Hills and lakes to the east.

[ColdAilment]

Originally Posted by pioneer88

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This is what the area around Salina looks like. A lot of land is going to be privately owned but there are reservoirs and state park lands nearby. Also, you can probably find people who own land that would allow you to hike or ride horses.

You're also not far from the Flint Hills and lakes to the east.

Those are some very nice pictures! At least it's a very green area. I'm not exactly a nature explorer, but having always lived in either the midwest or the southeast I've grown very accustomed to lots of foliage and green surrounding me, except in the winter months of course.

[pioneer88]

It definitely get's a lot drier than further east but is still much more green than out west even further west in Kansas. You won't have large forests but you have some rolling hills, river valleys, wild flowers and wheat fields all with an awesome sky for the backdrop. There's definitely beauty to be found. Good luck with whatever your future holds.

[Ithuvanian]

Originally Posted by thriftylefty

I think they should still be there It's been too long since I checked, there are the smoky hills and one of the early explorers stopped there so there is some site marking it .
If I remember right they don't have chiggers out there because it's do dry.

That would be Coronado Heights, which is southwest of Salina, near Lindsborg. The catch is, nobody knows for sure if Coronado stopped there, but I believe the WPA built a stone monument there in the 1930's. When you see the heights from a distance on a hazy day, it looks startlingly like a mountain range (of course when you get closer you sadly discover it's on a much smaller scale, but still...)

Lindsborg deserves special mention, about 20 miles south of Salina. It was originally a settlement of Swedish immigrants and retains much of its heritage, which definitely makes it a distinctive place in Kansas. Everyone seems to like Lindsborg. Kanopolis Lake and State Park is not far from Salina, and provides some interesting landscapes. Manhattan is about 1 hour away and it gets high marks for being an interesting university town, so you may find yourself going there a lot. I seem to remember the area around Manhattan had a fair number of trees, at least by Kansas standards.

Incidentally, as a Kansas native I lived in Mississippi for a year (coast region) and quite unexpectedly, I felt like a comparative liberal. Kansas has a way of getting media attention for right-wing antics, real or imagined, but there is also a pervasive Midwestern moderate streak that isn't always appreciated, and doesn't necessarily show up in election results.

[RadioSilence]

I attended a wedding in Salina a couple of years ago. We ate downtown, and it seemed to be doing well. It's a traditional downtown mostly along two streets, with a hospital and a small religious college just south of downtown.

Much of the newer development, the big box stores, the hotel where we stayed, is crammed along a street (9th?) on the southwest side of town, parallel to I-135.

The church where the wedding took place was on the southeast side, several blocks from any development. The pastor said the city had not built at the pace he expected.

If you like low-flying aircraft, Salina is a good place to be. There's a testing ground nearby.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as a Kansas accent, although the earlier note that we speak fast and slur our words is accurate. I have the toughest time pronouncing rural without saying "rule." We're caught between Texas twang and the slightly more northerly accents of Nebraska/Iowa.