5/6/15 - Cosmosphere

Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchison, KS, is #3 on the 8 Wonders of Kansas list. It has one of the biggest collections of US and Russian space artifacts in the world. It's in Hutchinson, Kansas, and is affiliated with the Smithsonian. I'd never heard of it...

Upon walking into the building, the first thing I noticed was an enormous black plane. Although it's mounted up high, part of it is still in the way. George knew exactly what it was, a Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird, the infamous spy plane of the Cold War. I found out later that they put the Blackbird on the pedestals, then built the building around it. (Wow! Hope they don't ever have to move.)

This is the back of the SR-71

...and 107 feet later is the front of the Blackbird!

If that's not impressive enough, there's also a T-38 training jet suspended from the ceiling and a full-size scale model of the space shuttle Endeavor. Actually, it's just the left side, but that side is full-size. It's not like they expect it to fly.

When you buy your tickets, you have to decide which of the documentaries you want to watch in the Dome Theater, then you're scheduled for that and the Planetarium and Dr. Goddard's Lab right then. That means you have to pay attention to the time...

The Hall of Space Museum is downstairs. Going down, I was mesmerized by the stained glass memorial to the 17 astronauts whose lives were lost in the Apollo I, Space Shuttle Challenger and Space Shuttle Columbia missions. Really impressive. (Apparently everyone in Kansas can relate better than I could to the Latin phrase--it's Kansas' State Motto, and it's on the Kansas State Seal and even the Kansas license plates.)

It's Field Trip season in Kansas. The Cosmosphere is arranged in little cul-de-sacs, so you can't really get away from the kids when they rocket into the area where you are. I don't think the intention was for them to learn anything; they just blast through like an asteroid, destroying everything in their path. We tried to just stop and get out of their way. One little boy asked George if he was a robot.

In the German Gallery are V-1 and V-2 rockets, demonstrating how their technology made space travel possible. This is a V-2. I couldn't get far enough away to fit the V-1 into a single frame

The galleries are like a maze. I kept losing George and finding more kids. (Don't worry; eventually George found me and we lost all the kids!) The Cold War Gallery has exhibits about the Space Race. They have a flight-ready backup for Sputnik I. (I had no idea they had backups, but it makes sense in case the first one didn't work. It's kind of cute, isn't it?)

They have a Red Thunder, Russian RD-107 rocket engine. (I actually have no idea what that is, but I really like the picture I took of it, sort of abstract with bright colors. Mostly it was hard to take pictures in the museum because of the lighting, but this one worked.)

Around another corner and outside is the Titan Rocket Pit. This is the bottom of the rocket you see on the side of the building as you arrive.

Back inside you go on to the Mollet Early Spaceflight Gallery, where there's a Liberty Bell Mercury Capsule that was flown by Gus Grissom, then recovered from the Atlantic and restored by the Cosmosphere. I thought they were just a museum, but apparently they do a lot of restoration for the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, and other museums around the world.

They have one of the few Soviet Vostok Space Capsules in America.

In the Lunar Exploration Gallery is a Lunar Module. (Looks pretty fragile to me. If I were roving around on the moon in zero gravity and zero air, I'd want something a LOT more substantial, I think. Something more along the lines of a lunar tank. I guess that's one more reason I never tried out for the space program.)

The Apollo Gallery is next. The Apollo XIII command module, Odyssey, is here and restored. The story on how they got it and all the pieces--and put it all back together is pretty impressive.

The last gallery downstairs is about the Astronaut Experience. Someplace I read how many space artifacts the Cosmosphere has...something like 15,000. And, like most museums, they only have a tiny percentage exhibited. If you've never seen one, they have a Moon Rock brought home from the first Moon Landing in 1969. (It's not as big as it looks, honest! And it's very ordinary looking, sort of like--you know--just a plain old rock.)

Showtime was upon us, so we headed back upstairs to the main floor.
2:00 PM - Dr. Goddard's Lab, a live show geared more to kids than adults. It was kind of fun though.

3:00 PM - Justice Planetarium. Not quite the planetarium I remembered from when I was a kid. The lights dimmed slowly, the narrator pointed out Venus and Mars, identified a few constellations, then whirled us from dusk to dawn with the night sky spinning above us. Then we watched a movie about Black Holes. (A movie???? Really? I wanted to see a planetarium show. AND I got a stiff neck watching it on the ceiling.) 

4:00 PM - Carey Digital Dome Theater. Weirdest theater I've ever been in. It's truly a dome, and they show the movie on the curved section in front of you. It makes everything strangely contorted, so sometimes what you're seeing is so wrong it doesn't make sense.  (We saw a movie about how the airplane has changed the world; I think I would have liked the space one better.)

Interesting place...in the middle of Kansas. Who knew?

More pictures:  Cosmosphere 

5/5/15 - Old Cowtown Museum

Located on 23 acres in Wichita, Kansas, Old Cowtown Museum is a living history museum of a typical Great Plains town from the 1870s. It's a fun way to learn how a famous old western town on the Chisholm Trail managed the move to become a Victorian town on it's way to what is now the largest city in the whole state.

After getting our tickets at the Visitor Center, we were given a map of town, and headed back in time--just like in a Twilight Zone segment. We found when we got there that a bunch of grade school kids had taken over the town. No, wait! It's yet another Field Trip! It's okay though--the Town Marshall is keeping a wary eye on them.

We stayed on one side of the street while they ran rampant on the other. That was okay because that way we could do the buildings in numerical sequence so I'd know how to label my pictures. Cowtown looks like a western town from the movies, false fronts, dusty streets, boardwalks. I'm glad the cattle drive is scheduled for later in the year.  (For some reason, George kept walking into my photographs today. It's something we both do to each other's pictures, but he was being a little rampant himself. You'll see what I mean.) 

They've got an old trapper's cabin from the 1870s, which they are pretty proud of because it's one of the top 10 intact structures from the settlement period. Not one I'm particularly drawn to, but I never had aspirations to live in a log cabin. At least it has wooden floors!

They give free wagon rides that go all over town. We opted to wait until later to do that. I don't know if George read the disclaimer that "Kansas has no liability for injury or death from a participant in domestic animal activities resulting from the inherent risks of domestic animal activities." So if we get stomped or stampeded by these great big draft horses, nobody's going to get rich...

We've been to a lot of museums and seen a lot of really old things while on this trip, but sometimes we see something that's really unique, I saw this macrame-looking thing hanging in the Harness and Saddlery and neither of us had a clue what it was.

Later when we were at the farm, I saw something similar out in the barn and asked the interpreter. He said it was called a "fly net" for horses. Apparently you throw it over the horse, and when he twitches his skin, the net sort of shimmies all over and keeps the flies off. Clever...

The First Arkansas Valley Bank building isn't very grand on the outside, but inside it's pretty impressive.  The teller cages are made of well decorated wood and glass. The boot rail on the floor is made to keep the cowboy's boots from scuffing up the wood, just like in a bar. I didn't realize that's why they put them in bars--I just thought it made it more comfortable to stand. This is clever too.

 

One more thing I'd never seen before was in the General Store. The top part spins, and the little triangular drawers are marked with bolt sizes. George says it's for nuts and bolts. jLooks like an 18th century version of a rotary display case. I'm sure I could find a use for it--but probably not in the 5th wheel.

We went to the saloon for lunch. Except for the sarsaparilla, it wasn't very impressive.

 

Wyatt Earp was Wichita's most famous lawman, although he was fired in 1876. That's when he headed for Dodge City and a rendezvous at a corral.

I liked the Grain Elevator and the Depot and the bright red stagecoach outside the livery stable.

 
In the newspaper office, there's an extremely ugly settee made of longhorn horns. It looks like it was placed there as an incentive to keep people from staying very long. There's a matching chair if you're interested.)d

As you might expect, there was a gunfight. But it was a bit different than other gunfights we've seen. Instead of a shootout between the Marshall and the bad guy, they did a little play based on a dime novel. It was more fun than the standard version.

It's not all about cowboys. There's one section of Victorian houses, so you can see what it was like at the beginning of the 20th century. It's a fun place to wander around and look at things in a frontier town, but you should try to time it when there aren't scores of children running around.

I've got lots more pictures of houses, furnishings, a high-wheel bicycle, a one-room schoolhouse and more. Old Cowtown Museum 

5/1/15 - Fort Larned NHS

Not coming from New Mexico, I didn't know a lot about the Santa Fe Trail. I remembered it went to Santa Fe, but I didn't know Kansas had a vested interest. I'd only learned (or do I mean "relearned"?) in the last couple weeks that it wasn't an emigrant trail, but a commercial trade route. The Plains Indians figured that part out quicker than I did, and they made a practice of attacking the travelers and mail shipments on the Trail.

Fort Larned National Historic Site is a complete and authentic frontier army post from the Indian Wars era of the 1860s-1870s. Ir was one of a series of military posts set up for Santa Fe Trail protection and escort duty for mail stages and wagon trains. They called it "Guardian of the Santa Fe Trail." There were no walls surrounding it. (I read why but don't remember now. If you're interested, check it out and let me know.)

The Visitor Center is in one end of one of the Infantry Barracks where we watched the video, got passport stamps and checked out the museum.

It's also one of the host sites for "Kansas Kids for Fitness Day", held on the first Friday in May. (We didn't know that part until we got there.) There were 3rd graders everywhere! Park employees and volunteers, with the help of older kids from Larned High School, set up all sorts of games and programs for them to do. I think the adults sneaked in a bit of history while they were playing games like pull-the-cannon and build-a-teepee; they certainly didn't get much when they whirled through the buildings like tornadoes.

We did a bit of a do-si-do with them most of the day. When kids in matching t-shirts came out of a building, we'd go into it. We usually managed to stay a bit ahead or behind most of them most of the time. They were noisy and they were rowdy, but they were having a lot of fun. They made us laugh--and the best part was that none of them came home with us. (Been there, done that!)

There are 9 original buildings restored to their original appearance. Many of the buildings have been furnished just like they would have been 150 years ago. There are living history interpreters in period costume who will answer questions and explain what it was like while the fort was in operation. First stop was the Infantry Barracks. (I didn't realize soldiers had such nice big beds. Turns out they're made for FOUR people, two top and two bottom, head to toe. I think I'd opt for Officer candidate school.)

The other half of the building is the Post Hospital. I'm guessing that since there's only one pillow they don't have to share beds here.

This is an interesting stretcher, but I don't quite get the hood. As windy as it is in southwestern Kansas, I'd think that if you put it up to protect the poor soldier from the rain, the wind would catch it and he'd go flying like Mary Poppins.

The Shops Building included the bakery and blacksmith shops. The smithy was busy making something to hand out to the kids before they left.

There is one reconstructed building at the fort. The original Blockhouse was dismantled in 1900, but they rebuilt it with historical accuracy.

The Commissary is set up with authentic supplies. They're probably empty boxes, but it's fun to check out what they had in stores. Some of this stuff looks like governmental excess spending, but maybe it's just governmental surplus. (Or is that the same thing?)

The Quartermaster Storehouse had everything needed for frontier military operations, including clothing and bedding for the soldiers. They had a Clothing Allowance List posted, which was pretty interesting. They were allotted 7 Caps in a 5-year period--and 11 Flannel Drawers--which I assume is underwear. (And whoever said the Army doesn't have their priorities straight!)

Then it was on to the Officer's Quarters--the Commandant's wife was there to great us.

If you were a lieutenant, you got one room--even if you had to share it with a wife and a child. More rank = more rooms.

Many of the sandstone blocks used to build the fort have names and dates carved into them. Since the soldiers could get into big trouble defacing government property, there aren't many from that period. But lots of visitors to the area while it was a ranch left their marks.  People must have been crawling all over the place because almost every chunk of rock front, sides and back of the buildings belongs to someone.

While we were in the neighborhood, we drove a few miles down the road to the Santa Fe Trail Center. I expected it to be a history of the Santa Fe Trail. Mostly it wasn't. Mostly it was a history of the area with a bit about the Trail in the corner. Nice place if you're into antiques.

I did like the sod house they've built out back (and one really cool windmill!). It would have been bad enough living in a house with a dirt floor--but to have the walls and roof made of dirt blocks too? Ugh! 

 

More pictures here: Fort Larned NHS   And here: Santa Fe Trail Center