Fort Riley

1st Infantry Division, where the only thing flatter than the terrain is the morale on a Monday in January — the Kansas prairie stretches out in every direction with a completeness that's either meditative or maddening depending on how many months you've been here. Junction City exists because the Army needed a place for soldiers to spend money, and Kansas needed a place to put a Taco Bell, a title loan office, and a barbershop. Manhattan (the Kansas one, before you get excited) has K-State, Aggieville with bars that play country music 365 days a year, and a college-town energy that makes Fort Riley seem less remote. The Flint Hills are gorgeous if you enjoy staring at tallgrass prairie until you hallucinate civilization — they're actually one of the last remaining tallgrass ecosystems on Earth, and the spring burn season turns the horizon into a wall of fire that's both terrifying and beautiful. Wind chill advisories are just the local weather forecast from October to April. The Big Red One's history is the stuff of legend: Normandy, North Africa, Vietnam, Iraq. The soldiers here carry that lineage with a pride that's earned. KC is 2 hours east with world-class BBQ that makes the drive a pilgrimage.