Kansas City is one of the country’s best-kept secrets. Its at an interesting crossroad: its where the rust belt ends, meeting up where southern hospitality begins. So its an old gritty city with history and beautiful architecture like any mid-west or eastern city, but the people speak “southern,” and they are just as friendly as can be.

Here’s my very (very) rough and extremely over-simplified breakdown of the country’s friendliness demographics (so please don’t be offended! There are fantastic people everywhere and there are scum bags everywhere.)

East coast    :-(    not very friendly, but they’re honest about it. Buy a loaf of bread and the clerk may scowl with a brisk “thank you”, but then its easy to start a conversation with them.

Midwest    :-)    friendly. Buy a loaf of bread and the clerk will give you a real smile and “have a good one”

West coast    ;-/    more friendly than the East, but also less honest about it. Buy a loaf of bread and the clerk will say “thank you, come again.”

South    ;-D    very friendly. Buy a loaf of bread and the clerk will say “you have yourself a nice day, darlin!”

I went out with my friend Brian Burgdorf, who came shooting with me in the Kansas City Bottoms last year. He’s a firefighter and was promoted to captain this Februaury, so we had to celebrate.