Liberal, Kansas (Wednesday)

The wind shook the RV all night and just howled all day.  Our agenda this morning was Dorothy's House and the Land of the Wizard of Oz.  This is a wonderful museum.  I don't think I've ever actually seen that movie, but they did a great job here.  A home built in 1907 was restored to reflect the Gale farmhouse.    You check in at the Coronado Museum next door, then follow the yellow brick road to Dorothy's House.

You can buy a brick for $65 and have it "engraved."  Some famous people have bricks here including Liza Minelli (Judy Garland's daughter) and President and Nancy Reagan.

The rooms and furnishings are that same as the movie.  It was amazing how much of the "artifacts" here and in the museum are things that Joe and I can remember at our grandparents' homes.

Something we had never seen was a "mustache cup," designed to keep the waxed mustaches dry when these old guys drank their coffee.

Another interesting display was an old Sears & Roebuck catalog from around 1938, I think.  They had enlarged some of the catalog items, including a picture of a house that you could order and put together by number.  The house that Joe's mother lives in is one of those houses, and it strongly resembles this picture.

From there our tour guide took us over to the Land of Oz, and that was a WOW.  She took us on a route with movie sets from the movie, and she "reenacted" the gist of the movie.  After school and on weekends, they have school children dress as Dorothy and guide these tours, describing everything in first person.  But the kids were in school, and our tour guide did a great job.  She had a little girl's voice and made it very interesting, but she did it in third person.  Here's some of the sets.

Of course, the main characters were represented as well, Scarecrow (without a brain), Tin Man (without a heart), and Cowardly Lion (without any courage).  And the witch.

We finished up here and went back over to the Coronado Museum.  Here are some of the artifacts from here.  My maternal grandmother had a Victrola, and a Singer treadle sewing machine.   My paternal grandparents had the wood cook stove.  I would love to take my mother and sister here and let them reminisce with me about some of this old stuff.

There were several statues on corners on the main thoroughfare in town of Dorothy and Toto.  And a great picture of a "horse of a different color," although the one in the museum was just white.

We loved this museum and would recommend a stop here to anyone coming through.  If we come through here again, we would go back but try to time it when Dorothy is one of the kids.  I think they have kids dressed as the Tin Man, Scarecrow, etc., as well.

One other interesting tidbit, when the author was writing about the "land," he didn't know what he was going to call it.  Next to his desk was a 4-drawer file cabinet, with the files separated alphabetically by drawer, e.g., A-D, E-I, J-N, and O-Z.  He saw the OZ, and that's where the name came from.

We drove back to the Campground.  It was extremely windy and I wasn't sure if we were traveling today but you know Joe, the old ex-truckdriver.  Nothing scares him.  So we decamped, hooked up the car, and off we went to Dodge City.  It was only 80 miles away, and he was sure he could do that.  He had to crank on the steering wheel all day to stay halfway in our lane, and it was funny, as we came past these rows of grain elevators, which would block the wind for a few seconds, we would end up in the other lane.  The a gust would hit us as we cleared the elevators, and push us to the other side of the road.  This was not a day for the faint of heart to be driving an RV.  It was 51 degrees when I got up, had dropped to 44 by the time we pulled out about 11:00 a.m., and continued dropping all day.  It was was 36 when we went to bed, and 36 when I got up, but we got a smattering of snow overnight. 

Dorothy's House and the Land of the Wizard of Oz was an Excellent Adventure.  The drive on to Dodge City was also an adventure, but I'm not sure I would classify it as "excellent."