2. In and around Garden City, Kansas

Garden City is now most well-known for its large (and the noticeable smell of) meatpacking plants, the largest employers in town. It is also home to an ethanol plant and other agribusiness interests. As the center of the southwest Kansas area, and county seat of Finney County, it also contains many big box stores, and hotels you may expect in such an area, like the Hampton Inn (where I spent my night). GCK is not a big place at all, with a tired (though still fairly active) downtown. Due to the large number of immigrants working at the meatpacking plants and other places in GCK, it has a variety of food and culture one may not expect from western Kansas. Several Mexican and Southeast Asian eateries may be found, in addition to the typical Mcdonalds and others. It also has the largest zoo in western Kansas. It has enough to do for a day or two, though longer stays might be trying.

A tower, picture taken from the GCK Amtrak station:


The Garden City Co-op:


Garden City's Hotel Windsor was once the nicest hotel in the area. Those days are behind it now. Some locals are working to refurbish it into a new hotel, but with GCK's relatively small size, this may be a tough task:


Upon driving around, I saw a fast food restaurant that I had never heard of, though I assumed that didn't mean much, as my particular area only received its first Sonic a few years ago. Called "Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers", I went ahead and tried it. Steakburgers are very thin, cooked to order, and came with shoestring fries. Fries could be dipped in either ketchup or "Freddy's sauce", suspiciously close to Thousand Island, as well as the In-n-Out spread. I thought both were good, but can't say they were worth going out of the way for:


I also ordered a frozen custard, which I did enjoy and ended up getting another, as frozen custard has yet to make its way to my immediate area: