Places Work Takes Me: Wichita, KS

This was the first time work necessitated that I make the trek to Wichita, KS. While I'm witholding final judgment on this alledgely fine city, I have a few observations:

• It's not easy to get to. It's about a 10 hour drive, so flying is the best way to get there and back. The problem is there aren't a lot of options to get there in a timely manner. I ended up having to take a 9:30pm flight unless I wanted to arrive at 1:30pm at the earliest if I left during the daytime.
• It's not easy getting back. Northwest only has 2 flight options coming home: a 7:30am and a 5:15pm. Not much of a choice at all if I want to get home at a decent time to see my family, but still conduct meetings that day.
• Wichita is bigger than I thought: I was told that the city itself has a population of around 350,000, and the greater metro area of approximately 500,000. I thought is would be closer to 100,000.
• I DID know that the economy is largely based in the avionics industry. Cessna/Citation, Hawker Beechcraft, Boeing, and I'm sure there are a few I'm forgetting. Surprisingly, the houses and economy seems to be very blue-collar. Again, this isn't authoritative - just a first impression.
• It's VERY flat: you can see for miles and miles just be driving on an overpass along the highway. Granted, it is Kansas, but it is definite proof that the world IS flat.

And this is the picture out of my hotel window in Wichita. There are a few things worth pointing out from it.

• Many of those houses had more wood showing than paint on them.
• It was somewhat scary driving through these neighborhoods trying to get to my hotel at 11:30 at night. These streets had no lighting whatsoever.
• However, the hotel and parking lot DID have lots lighting.
• Why is there a 6' high WALL around the hotel? I doubt it's for aesthetics
• This reportedly wasn't a bad part of town.
• The hotel itself was very nice. Probably the nicest Hampton Inn I've ever stayed in (and I've stayed in dozens of them.)

So, I'm still wondering where to rank Wichita. If you have any thoughts or comments, be sure to post them.