Good evening! Daddy and I are in Abilene, Kansas, and it has been one eventful day.
First of all, we didn't leave Independence right away. This morning we went to Harry Truman's presidential museum. His boyhood home was nearby. It was basically a rehash of what I learned in 10th grade AP US History: the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Marshal Plan (Truman's plan to rebuild Europe after WWII instead of penalizing it), postwar issues, etc. It was completely Daddy's idea to go, but I can't deny that Truman is an underappreciated president.
After the Truman museum, we got on the road, and we were in Kansas in no time. I expected Kansas to be like Ohio: nothing but cornfields, flat as a pancake. But Kansas is actually a little hilly! And not at all the gray wasteland that L. Frank Baum described in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." The grass is lush and green, and the corn looks healthy.
Speaking of Oz, we stopped in Wamego to visit the Oz Museum. It was a neat little place. There were replicas of set pieces from 1939 movie, many figurines of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion, and, most happily for me, an exhibit on "Wicked." My description of this latter exhibit will mean nothing to most of you, but nevertheless, here I go. There was a map of Shiz University, a magazine that one of the students holds during "Dancing through Life," and a great picture of Idina Menzel belting her face off. It was friggin awesome.
Thank you for letting me nerd out for a second. Onward.
We arrived in Abilene around 3:15, and immediately went to another presidential museum, this time Eisenhower's. That was cool. I was reminded today that he was our last president to be born in the 19th century. And his work on the highway system is what makes this cross country trip possible.
Pictures are below.
Until next time,
SRL