Considering a job prospect in Garden City... Anything outdoorsy to do in that area? (Wichita: neighborhoods, movies)

[High Plains Guy]

Cool. Yeah I'm noticing there are state parks and monuments like Castle Rock that are a quick drive away, so there are things in a reasonable distance that could keep me occupied. I'm starting to get excited about this idea, and I still have to fly out there and see it up close, but I'm thinking I just might go through with this.

One of my hobbies has always been astronomy, and I love using my telescope, but here in Florida there is so much light pollution that I can barely see any of the deep space objects. I'm guessing the sky gets pretty dark though in western Kansas, so I'm really excited about what I'll be able to see! I think I might even buy myself a good DSLR camera and try my hand out at astrophotography.

[Gunluvver2]

The meat packing industry is the biggest employer/s in the area. Typically they hire a lot of ILLEGALS and this brings in the associated problems with crime, drug use and other serious social problems. Look at cities in Kansas and Nebraska like Schuyler, Grand Island, Dodge City. Liberal, Emporia etc as examples of what can happen.

[Mattks]

Originally Posted by GrumpyYoungMan

Cool. Yeah I'm noticing there are state parks and monuments like Castle Rock that are a quick drive away, so there are things in a reasonable distance that could keep me occupied. I'm starting to get excited about this idea, and I still have to fly out there and see it up close, but I'm thinking I just might go through with this.

One of my hobbies has always been astronomy, and I love using my telescope, but here in Florida there is so much light pollution that I can barely see any of the deep space objects. I'm guessing the sky gets pretty dark though in western Kansas, so I'm really excited about what I'll be able to see! I think I might even buy myself a good DSLR camera and try my hand out at astrophotography.

I love astronomy and Kansas is great for that, I have a Canon dslr, but generally use my iphone mounted to my telescope for astrophotography. We have a great amateur astronomy group SW of Topeka (too far from you, but you should check your local area). They have discovered over 150 various objects in space, mostly asteroids. You could contact them and see if they know of a group in your area.
https://nekaal.org/doku.php

Just for fun, you can look at this dark sky map and compare Kansas to Florida. Also, remember those lights are where people live, so if there are no lights, there will most likely be less to do.
DarkSiteFinder.com - Light Pollution Map

Kansas is not known for having much to do, but their are some good things you can do here. Astronomy is one, Pheasant and Quail hunting is great out in Western Kansas, my family used to go every year, but it's been 5 years or so since I have gone. There are actually a lot of good reservoirs to go fishing, swimming, and boating, we go to a privately owned lake a lot during the spring and fall, we camp, do some small hiking, swimming, fishing, grilling out, etc. It's a lot of fun.

Plus, you are very close to Colorado, so you can take weekend trips out there almost anytime.

Kansas is very conservative, and the government is not doing a good job right now, but the quality of life in most places is fairly high. Do your research if you move here, make sure you are not moving to a dying town or rural area, there are many of them, but there are many rural areas, towns, and cities that are doing well too. Most people are very friendly, but may keep their distance as well.

The worst part of Kansas can be the weather, the last 2 years have been very temperate, but we are known for having very hot summers and very cold winters, add in all the wind, and many people hate it and that's why a lot of people leave.

Anyway, as long as you try to find things to do, you shouldn't be bored. The worst thing that could happen, you move out here, don't like it, and move back to Florida or somewhere else after a while. But, it seems like you need a change from Florida.

[High Plains Guy]

Yeah I've been looking at ClearDarkSky every day getting an idea of what the skies are like out there right now. I can already see just how much darker and clearer the sky is out there compared to here.

That was fantastic info there, thank you matt. Maybe I just might have to take up fishing and hunting? I've never been much of a fisherman, even growing up in a place like Florida where water is in abundance, but I've enjoyed it whenever I've done it. Hunting is a different story... never hunted, not even once. I've fired guns and rifles at ranges before, but never gone hunting. Might have to give that a shot (no pun intended).

I've been reading as much as I possibly can about Garden City, since that is the town I would live in if I take this job. I wouldn't want to commute very far, and the business is in Garden City proper. As far as I can tell, people are suggesting that GC is doing okay as a town and is slowly growing, even in spite of some other KS towns not doing so well. I honestly don't know how to quantify these things though. All I know is that the business I would work for is an internet business that isn't dependent on GC's local economy, so my job would be safe... but I acknowledge that I don't want to live in a place where everyone else is losing their jobs and crime is rampant.

Speaking of crime, I hear people talking about illegals and crime in places like GC, but when I look at the crime stats, they are very minimalist compared to what we deal with here in Tampa. The police blotter on a Saturday night in Tampa is probably twice as long as GC's for the entire week. So I still feel like personal safety is better there than it is here. I'm just not a fan of city life anymore. The weather there has got to be better than here, too. I understand tornadoes are commonplace there, but from what I gather, they are still relatively rare. Whereas here, it's not uncommon at all to have severe tropical storms and hurricanes multiple times in one season. I'm pretty familiar with severe weather. I'm more concerned with the hail that tornadoes bring than anything else, but I assume that I can stay safely indoors when a tornado watch is going down. The climate there in west Kansas looks very ideal to me, actually. I like the temperature swing from night to day, and I like the low humidity, as well as knowing that the seasons change there (unlike here). It would be cool to live somewhere where there's a clearly defined spring, summer, fall and winter.

And I really want to live in a dark sky area. I only get to see the Milky Way when I travel, so being able to walk outside of my house and do some serious stargazing would be a dream come true. I have a motorized telescope mount that can track stars which has a bracket for holding cameras, and that way I could take extremely long exposure shots of the night sky. I have never had an opportunity to use it with a camera before, so I think I would take the opportunity to purchase a nice camera if I move there.

Thanks for all your help.

[Mattks]

You're welcome! I think you will find Kansas has both good and bad things about it like everywhere. Take a grain of salt with a lot of things people say on here.

My family is headed to Florida for vacation this year, I've never been there before, so I'm pretty excited about that.

[High Plains Guy]

I find it to be very beautiful here, especially our beaches. So I think you will love it. If I could take the humidity, I would probably not even be considering moving. But it stays too hot and humid throughout too much of the year, so I am someone who says Florida is a great place to visit, but living here is a different story altogether. It would be one thing if I didn't have to work and I could just go to the beach every day or something, but that's not how things are for most of us.

Anyway, not sure where in Florida you are going, but wherever you go I'm sure you'll love it. It's definitely very beautiful here.

[thriftylefty]

If you want dry you'er going to get it in spades. There is the drought out in the western part of the state that is no doubt taking its toll on some of the lakes.

[High Plains Guy]

I've been reading about the drought. I understand the Ogallala aquifer is drying up, too. That's kind of scary. And how does GC get away with that gigantic swimming pool in drought times like this, seriously? I wondered about that.

[Dustyroad70]

Originally Posted by GrumpyYoungMan

I've been reading about the drought. I understand the Ogallala aquifer is drying up, too. That's kind of scary. And how does GC get away with that gigantic swimming pool in drought times like this, seriously? I wondered about that.

The amount of water in that swimming pool would be the tiniest drop in a the bucket compared to the amount of water that is pumped out of the Ogallala aquifer each and every day of the growing season. You should google it and study it. Look on google maps to see all the irrigation ciricles and ponder all the water that is used. It is amazing and scary. And I am talking about just the surrounding areas of Garden City. Finney county, gray county etc.

[High Plains Guy]

I've been reading about it all day today actually. It's pretty sad that we deplete our resources like this. Is it because of lack of oversight, or are there no alternative farming methods? Is it just the type of crops being grown on the high plains that causes this over usage? Could they not just switch to dry farming methods?

I've never once had to think about a water source drying up before, what a scary concept.