5/12/15 - Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum

I knew Abilene was a famous cow town. In fact, it was the first cow town of the old west. (I hope you know that I sometimes read this stuff while we're traveling, and didn't know it until after we get there.) I didn't know Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) was from Abilene--and that's where the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum* is located.

We didn't have time for the movie before the Eisenhower Home tour, so we wandered down the sidewalk to the house. It looks a lot bigger from the outside than the inside. Hard to believe that the Eisenhower family with six sons lived here!

The Eisenhowers lived in this house from 1898 until Ike's mother Ida died in 1946, and contains furniture and items left by Mrs. Eisenhower. We had to stay on the gray carpet runner and could only look into the rooms. Looks like a nice plain home from the early 20th century.

After the tour, we walked over to what I would have called a chapel, but they call "Place of Meditation".  Still looks like a chapel to me. Both President Eisenhower, 34th President of the US, his wife Mamie, and their first son, Doud, are buried here.

 

There's a bronze statue in the center of the park. It's actually bigger than it looks, but I liked the Presidential Seal tool.

Dwight Eisenhower is the first President I remember. (My Weekly Reader--stories about Camp David, Mamie's hats and Ike playing golf--surely there was more but that's what must have impressed me in 4th grade.) The Presidential Museum and the Presidential Library face each other, both huge buildings. I think they look alike but I don't have exact pictures of both, so if you really want to know, you'll need to go to Abilene.

There are big murals in the lobby. I checked them out while George was getting his passport stamps. I'm not sure if he noticed.

The museum is like a huge maze. You just follow the exhibits around from one section to another, moving deeper and deeper into the center of the building. (I have no idea what their plan is in case of tornados--we'd never be able to figure out which way to go.) We jumped right into WWII.

There's really a lot of stuff here! I told George that there may be people who work here that have never seen everything in all the exhibits. It would take months during lunch hours. It's interesting how in museums like this, people migrate to the exhibits that interest them. So you better believe that George and I didn't always stop at the same displays!

I can pretty much guarantee that he walked right past the Mamie Gallery because he's not much interested in her wedding dress or hats. This is a picture of Mamie in her wedding gown in 1916.

I did like the 1914 Rauch & Lang Electric Auto that belonged to Mamie's parents. I waylaid George to ask some questions I had. Like why did it have dual steering, brakes and controls so it could be driven from either the left front or left rear seats? He didn't know...

There are three cases of medals and decorations given to Ike from lots of different countries after WWII ended. Some of them are beautiful, some just interesting.

There's a section on what he did during his presidency. Lots of interesting things there. Did you know  Eisenhower championed the formation of the Interstate Highway System? Don't forget it was Cold War time, so it's official name is "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways". I don't suppose he had any idea that it would get as clogged up as it does.

His Presidential Desk is there. Some pretty exotic Gifts of State. They even have his golf clubs on display! 

 

 

The Library is across the way, geared more for research, although there are a few exhibits there. We decided we'd seen enough for one day.

Go here for more pictures: Eisenhower Center

* This is #2 on the list of 8 Wonders of Kansas. That makes five of the 8 Wonders that we've seen. #1 is shared by two wildlife refuges (Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira) and #6 is a church in Victoria, but those weren't very close to where we were. I asked George if he wanted to go to see the world's largest hand-dug well, but he wasn't interested. (sigh) It's #8 on the list. (Just FYI, he didn't want to check out the world's largest ball of twine either.)

5/11/15 - Tallgrass Prairie NP

There used to be 170 million acres (if you're not a farmer, that's 400,000 square miles!) of tallgrass prairie in North America. Now there's less than 4% remaining, most of it in the Flint Hills of Kansas--and most of that at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. It's another one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas, listed as #7 in my brochure.

I think the Visitor Center is a strange looking building, and could be confused with a storm shelter, a warehouse, a prison, a school. That's not barbed wire around the roof, it's a fence around the tallgrass growing on the roof. George thinks it was designed to match the landscape. You decide.

History Alert: Stephen & Louisa Jones came to Kansas in 1878 to build a stock ranch on 7,000 acres of prairie they called Spring Hill Ranch. He built a fancy limestone house for $25,000. The barn and outbuildings (also limestone) were another $15K. Then he had the entire ranch enclosed with 30 miles(!) of dry stone wall for his cattle. (I have no idea how much he paid for the fence.) Later other people owned the ranch, split it, added to it, and in 1955 it became the Z Bar Ranch. Now it's mostly owned by The Nature Conservancy and jointly managed by the Conservancy and NPS. Didn't know they did that.

As I may have mentioned, it's windy in Kansas. Today's not only very windy, but colder than it has been. Nevertheless, the only way to see the interesting stuff at this park is to walk. Outside. First stop, the barn. It's huge!

It was cold inside, with natural insulation because it was built into the hillside, but at least it wasn't windy inside. We wandered around both ground and the second floor, then went outside without going back downstairs. (I found another fly net! I think the fly net thing is sort of like when you get a new car--you never notice how many others just like it until you get one of your own.)

From the back the building looks completely different. The ramps were used to take hay up into the third story, which looks like the second story because the first story is underground.

Opposite the back of the barn were the chicken coop and the carriage house. You can probably figure out which was which.

The path continued to the house, built in the Second Empire style. Top picture is the back of the house, bottom is the front. Note the extra floor in front. Just like the barn, it was built into the hillside for insulation. Or, since this is Kansas, maybe just so it wouldn't blow over.

Other outbuildings included a Curing House and Outhouse near the house, and a Cistern and Ice House up the hill a bit. These pictures are of the very fancy outhouse. (The smaller one was for their little girl.) Not sure if there were monogrammed towels.

The trail continues out into the prairie, where it's called the "Southwind Nature Trail". Today the wind was coming from the west, bringing a cold memory of Colorado Rockies with it. Occasionally the trail would wander into the protection of a hill, and the temperature went up 15 degrees. That's the Lower Fox Creek School towards the north, up on a windy hill. The Joneses built the school, but apparently didn't want it in their front yard.

This area of Kansas is called the Flint Hills. There's a lot of limestone mixed in with the flint. Makes for nice houses--and lousy farmland.

The tallgrass isn't very tall this time of year, but by late summer it's high enough to hide grade school kids, which may or may not be a good idea. It's springtime, and wildflowers are blooming. This pretty little daisy is called Fleabane. It may or may not deter fleas, but I think it's pretty.

They have buffalo at the Preserve, but they've moved them to another pasture. We watched small brown dots move up and over a hill. If you really want to see them, I suggest binoculars or a really good imagination. 

More pictures here:  Tallgrass Prairie NP 

5/7/15 - Strataca

Strataca used to be called the Kansas Underground Salt Museum, which I think was a much better name. I keep trying to call it "Saltaca" or "Stratacata". Even George has trouble remembering its name...and neither of us is quite sure how to pronounce it.

Before you ask, it's #4 on the list of 8 Wonders of Kansas. And just in case you think I'm not serious about the list, I have proof. Check out the sign on the side of the building.

I had no idea there were underground salt mines in Kansas. I would have guessed Death Valley or Utah, but Hutchinson, Kansas? The salt deposit extends across (well, I guess "across" isn't the right word for something underground--how about "below"?) 27,000 square MILES of Kansas. They're still mining nearby, but the museum is in the historical section that was mined last century. Old Engine #2 was built by GE in 1919 (one of only three ever built) was used by Carey Salt Company until 1963.

As we should have expected, there was a group of kids on a field trip (different tour, hooray!) Not much to do in the waiting area while waiting for the tour, so I watched some of the boys at the salt lick. (Lick the finger, touch the rock, repeat. Yuck!) There's an assortment of different chunks of salt rocks, intended for looking and touching, definitely not meant for sampling. 

There's a safety video, then everyone dons a hard-hat and gets squashed into an elevator for the 650' descent to the mine. The guide asked if anyone needed the lights on, and since no one objected, we rode down in the dark, like the miners do. Takes 90 seconds, and it's kinda weird, and very black, but not claustrophobic or scary. I was trying so hard not to bump into someone around me, I didn't think about it. (Sorry, no picture. Use your imagination. Black is black.)

Once down, you're in part of the old mine in a section they call the Permian Room, named after the sea that left all this salt behind when it evaporated. The guides point out the layers of salt in the walls, tell you a bit about how the salt was formed, then let you wander down the giant hallway at your own pace. The salt is the light layers, the dark stuff is very old dried up mud.

The salt isn't pure enough to use for table salt, so is mostly used for roads. Washington isn't in the "Salt Belt" and doesn't use salt on the highways, so I didn't realize how much salt other states use in the winter. Of course, they have more snow than we do, but Seattle has been known to blow it's whole sand budget on one good snow early in the season. Our cars don't rust out on the bottom.

There's a whole salt mining gallery, explaining the history of the Carey Salt Company. Mike Rowe, the host of Discovery Channel's show, Dirty Jobs, did a segment on the mine. This is definitely another job that would have been on the list of jobs I'd never want to do, but it was interesting.

Apparently it's not cost efficient to haul trash back up, so they just stockpile it there. They even have displays of trash. (What goes in the mine, stays in the mine-they don't haul anything except salt and people back up.)

There's another section about secure storage. Underground Vault and Storage uses part of the mines for storing documents and movie film and memorabilia. (Really? Who'd expect to see Batman's costume in a mine? I guess they send a lot of stuff to the salt mine.)

The Salt Mine Express is a 15-minute train ride that goes through a section of the mine active in the 1940s and 50s. The train is cute (it's a hand-me-down from the Hutchinson Zoo). Obviously it was intended for children, so George wasn't very comfortable in it. It was okay for me...

Occasionally one of those skinny layers of salt and mud break off from the ceiling. This was in a side tunnel. The miners keep a close eye on the ceiling to catch any separations before they fall and do real damage.

The Dark Ride is ride on a tram (little bigger--George was happy) through the tunnels, looking at things left behind, learning more about salt mining. It's dark except when the motion sensor lights turn on as we get near.

 
This old car was used to move supplies within a section of the mine after it was converted to electricity. No, it's wasn't like today's electric cars that are plugged in to charge the battery--it was plugged in to an extension cord. They could only drive it as far as the length of the extension cord! Poor ugly little thing.

Near the end of the tour, we stopped next to a couple piles of salt. We got to choose a piece smaller than the palm of our hands as a souvenir. George got a bigger piece 'cause his hand's bigger.

So if you go to Strataca, here's a bit of advice: (1) don't expect good pictures and (2) don't lick the walls.

More pics: Strataca