With Missouri’s official launch into legal sports wagering in 2025, the Midwest’s entertainment map has shifted. The Show-Me State’s arrival in the regulated gaming arena puts it shoulder to shoulder with neighboring heavyweights like Illinois, Kansas, and Iowa. But legality is only part of the story. For sports fans, weekend travelers, and casual gamers alike, it’s about the full experience, convenience, pricing, culture, and game-day energy. From St. Joseph to the Bootheel, and across state lines into neighboring metros, the borderlines define more than geography. They now shape how and […]

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Charles A. Ray is a retired U.S. diplomat and former ambassador to Cambodia and Zimbabwe. Before joining the Foreign Service, he served 20 years in the U.S. Army. Over his diplomatic career, he held key positions including Deputy Consul General in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Deputy Chief of Mission in Sierra Leone, Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs. He is a prolific author of more than 400 fiction and non-fiction books, with genres spanning leadership, history, diplomacy etc., and […]

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Located in the far south east corner of Kansas (just across the Oklahoma state line), this tiny community of 10,000 is not on the itinerary of most travelers – in other words, visitors generally do not randomly pass through its city limits. Perhaps known as the site of the last two bank robberies attempted by the Dalton Gang (Coffeyville was their hometown). Visitors will want to stop in the quaint old historic part of town – (almost feels like being on a movie set). Visitors can walk in the Dalton […]

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LAWRENCE, KS – The quirky and eccentric town of Lawrence, Kansas, is gearing up for the 16th Annual Lawrence Busker Festival presented by Free State Beer, scheduled to take place from May 24 to May 26, 2024. This extraordinary event promises a weekend filled with oddities, wonders, and the finest street performances that will leave you marveling at the talent on display. Circus on the Streets: Where Quirky Meets Magic Prepare to be enchanted and amazed as Downtown Lawrence transforms into a playground for the peculiar during the Lawrence Busker […]

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In Guanajuato, I discovered something I never wished to stumble upon in Mexico and I never did anywhere else in this beautiful land: the dreaded Chinese tourist, the scourge of the Seven Seas, bane of all decency, destroyer of innocence. This is not racism; it is fact. Pose the question to anyone with experience dealing with this species of tourist, as I have to numerous Thailand tour operators: mirror, mirror, on the wall, who are the worst tourists of them all? They will tell you without blinking an eye or […]

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I stopped in Chicago, one of my favorite food and wine towns in the entire country. I enjoyed some exceptional wine and food at the Greek Restaurant Avli on the Park on top of a tall building just up from the waterfront. I headed south that evening, arriving in South Chicago. It was very dark. I arrived on a street filled with people running around, yelling, drinking and cars double parked. I felt out of my element. My desired space for the night was a corner located run down building […]

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LAKE OF THE OZARKS, MO – It was announced during a press conference that the Lake of the Ozarks will make a second attempt at breaking the current record for the largest official boat parade in the world on Saturday, June 11, 2022. The current record, according to Guinness World Records, stands at 1,180 vessels and was set in Terengganu, Malaysia in September 2014. Over the years, there have been many attempts to break the record by different cities, including last year’s attempt at the Lake of the Ozarks, but […]

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In the debate of nature versus nurture, I’m pretty certain I was a food lover from the get-go. Born into a family of serious eaters, my food-obsessed parents honed my innate proclivities from a very young age. My New York City childhood was a culinary horn of plenty. While other babies were slurping rice cereal and applesauce, I nibbled spicy Indian samosas and Jamaican beef patties. I was blessed with restaurant-loving parents who exposed me to Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Malaysian and other ethnic food while I was still in my […]

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Lake of the Ozarks, MO – In a recent article published by Condé Nast Traveler, the Lake of the Ozarks’ Ha Ha Tonka State Park, located at 1491 State Highway D near Camdenton, was named the most beautiful place in Missouri. The article, which listed the most beautiful and compelling place in each of the 50 states, urges readers to consider the list as a “starting point to the most epic cross-country trip ever.” According to Condé Nast: “Picking just 50 places isn’t easy, but we polled our Facebook followers, […]

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DENVER – New direct flights to and from Colorado’s eight regional airports and expanded service on the Winter Park Express will provide skiers and riders from across the country easy and convenient travel options to their favorite Colorado ski resorts by train, plane or car this winter. The Amtrak Winter Park Express, coming off a highly successful inaugural season, will offer expanded service for the 2017-18 ski season. The Winter Park Express will depart from Union Station in downtown Denver each Saturday and Sunday from January 5 through March 25, […]

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At 9, I thought it was crazy. My dad was going to squeeze Mom and all six of us kids into a boxy, top heavy, narrow Volvo station wagon, and we were going to drive for three months from our home in Paraguay to Kansas where my father grew up. This trip had been his dream since coming to Paraguay in 1951 to found and manage a Mennonite leprosy mission. “Is there really a road that goes all the way from Paraguay to the States?” I asked. Dad pulled out […]

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John M. Edwards researches a future trip to a country he suspects doesn’t really exist. . . . I’ve never been there, and neither have you. The imaginary kingdom of Belarus, way off the beaten track, so far away in fact that no one ever seems to find it, belongs more to the world of fictionalized Tintin comics than the grip of postcardy Paid Advertisements. Even asking former communist expats from the various SSRs how to get there usually comes up with no evidentiary goods or services. Only blank stares. […]

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Normally, I’m not big on cocktails before 10am. But when we blearily wandered in at 8am to the Blue Heaven, one of Key West’s signature restaurants, that’s what our server suggested. Sitting in the crazy-quilt courtyard, with its rustic artwork and scurrying chickens, looking up at the former bordello on the second-floor, and knocking back some booze seemed in keeping with all things Keys. I opted for the pancakes, which I found just as intoxicating. But I need to back up. The Keys have long been on my “must” list, […]

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When we were initially made aware that Amelia Earhart was going to recreate “her” flight around the world in 2014, we thought we had scored the interview of the century. However, we quickly realized the modern day Amelia Earhart is named after the famous aviatrix. But the similarities do not end with a name – Amelia is also an accomplished pilot and is going to recreate and symbolically complete her namesake’s 1937 flight around the world. She is poised to be the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe in a […]

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In early November, I spent two serendipitous days in the tiny resort town of Eureka Springs, located in the Ozarks, at the edge of Arkansas. I had accepted an invitation from a friend in the American Midwest to join her on her ranch in Kansas, and she was taking me on a road trip. Since we would be riding through Missouri, I asked if I might see something connected with Mark Twain. “Hannibal is on the other side of the state.” I was mildly disappointed. However, as a Canadian and […]

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