I opted for a long weekend trip in Kansas. Why Kansas? I’m not sure… but I researched it and it seemed like there were a lot of things to do so I thought, sure, why not? I’ve never been to Kansas before and it seems like it has some cool things. I left on a Saturday and camped about midway across the state, as the base camp for the weekend. Camping saves on boarding and it was a nice enough weekend out that I didn’t mind at all! And then I was able to save up extra money for all the things that there were to see in Kansas!
Keep on reading for my day-by-day adventures!
Day 1, June 6: The Oz Museum and Konza Prairie Biological Station
The first stop once I crossed into Kansas was the Oz Museum! The Oz Museum has everything related to the Wizard of Oz, from the 1st edition books written by L. Frank Baum, Wizard of Oz themed merchandise, modern remakes of the movie, and even items from the musical Wicked! There were even scenes or sets that one could pose with. According to their website, there are more than 2,000 artifacts in the museum! Next door was a Wizard of Oz taco shop and the Oz Winery. Lunch was at Toto’s TacOZ and then a flight of wine was had at the Oz Winery. All of the wines were named after something Wizard of Oz related. The most impressive part was the designs on the labels. I even bought a shirt with the wine label for the “Emerald City Lights” wine. A few other wines were “Yellow Brix”, “Poppy Fields”, “Flying Monkey”, and “Lion’s Courage”. It was a fun winery to visit. Afterwards, a small hike around the Konza Prairie Biological Station was had. There’s a hiking trail that contains the largest area of unplowed tallgrass in America! It’s owned by the biology department at KSU but it was a nice walk. At the beginning of the walk though, there were hundreds of cicadas. They were huge and kept trying to fly into me. That was not so enjoyable but once I got past the trees, it was a clear shot around the tallgrass. That night I set up camp and went to bed, ready for another day of exploring.
Day 2, June 7: Nature Centers, Zoo, Mushroom Rocks and Underground Salt Museum
The first thing I saw today was Coronado Heights, the place where Francisco Vásquez de Coronado gave up looking for the seven cities of gold and went back to Mexico. The location of Coronado Heights is named for the hill but there is a stone castle on top of the hill. Standing up in the castle allowed me to see the fields of Kansas. The next stop was in Hutchinson. It was the Dillon Nature Center which had a small interactive museum inside the building and a three mile trail where I could see plants, wildflowers, grasses, birds and other wildlife.
I had some downtime in the morning so I opted to go to the Hutchinson Zoo. It’s really small and only houses around 150 animals. It mainly just features animals that are found in the Kansas area. It wasn’t bad, but I also had low expectations for it. One of my favorite things that I saw were the Mushroom Rocks at the Mushroom Rocks State Park. It was created by beach remains from 144 to 66 million years ago. The biggest rock is 27 feet in diameter and is known as one of the “8 wonders of Kansas Geography.” To get there, I had to drive down a dirt road and stopped to move a turtle? in the middle of the road over to the side of the road. Actually, I’m not sure what animal it was but I’m pretty sure turtles live in water and that road was a hot dusty road. The last stop of the evening was Strataca, the Underground Salt Museum! It was fun! Everything was 650 feet underground and there was a train ride, exhibits about mining the salt, different kinds of salts on display and a museum with movie memorabilia because it’s a really stable and safe environment to store priceless items.
Day 3, June 8: Barbed Wire Museum, Castle Rock, and Monument Rocks
The first stop of the morning was the barbed wire museum. I really like fun and quirky museums and the barbed wire museum seemed like just the thing for me. It’s a room full of displays of different barbed wire. There were over 2,400 different varieties in the museum. Aside from just different kinds, there was information on the evolution of barbed wire and even books on patents for barbed wire. Did you know there’s a barbed wire festival? It was the first weekend in May so I missed out on it but that would have been an interesting festival to say that I had been to! Castle Rock was down this dirt/grass road. It’s just a small limestone pillar but is named Castle Rock because it looks like a castle… made from rock. There were also a ton of owls and a lot of dead mice near the base of Castle Rock. This is also named one of the 8 wonders of Kansas! 31 miles west of Castle Rock is Monument Rocks… also an 8th wonder of Kansas. That’s where I was headed next.
Monument Rocks was as far west in Kansas as I got… which is about 10 hours drive from home. I haven’t seen rock formations like these before, and I know there were even more the farther west I drove (and perhaps if I continued into Colorado. But today was my last full day and I had a 10 hour drive ahead of me tomorrow, plus I still had some other stops along the way that I wanted to see. So Monument Rocks was as far west as I went. There are a lot of fossils in the large chalk formations and some are as tall as 70 feet. They are said to be 80 million years old.
Day 4, June 9: Heading Home
In the town of Abilene, Kansas is the Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home. This was one of the largest presidential museums I’ve been to and one of my favorites that I’ve visited. It took all morning to go through the multiple buildings on the grounds, and I wanted to stay longer but knew that there was still a long drive ahead of me. Before leaving Kansas, I had to stop at the geographical center of the continental 48 states. Yes, this was an hour and a half in the middle of nowhere added to my drive time home, but I was not going to miss out on this site! There is hardly anything there. There is a tiny tiny chapel, a plaque, a marker and a flag. I’m not sure everyone appreciates this as much as I did. It’s right next to Lebanon, KS, so I had to pass Lebanon to get to the center of the US. But what’s in Lebanon? That’s right… the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. In 1957 it weighed 5,000 lbs. And then every August there is a twine-a-thon where residents and visitors add more twine! As of 2013, the ball was weighing in at 19,873lbs!
All good trips have an end, and my short 4 day weekend was coming to an end. I was excited to be back at home and not stuck in a car! While it was fun getting to see different parts of Kansas, I really did drive around the entire state. It’s a pretty simple trip from St. Louis and I would recommend Kansas to anyone anytime!