Kansas... Who knew!

Kansas... Who knew!

I have to admit it, there is more to Kansas than I once thought.  For starters, its not nearly as flat as I thought.  The rolling hills on the eastern end of Kansas are quite scenic.  It was actually interesting see the two sides to Kansas.  On the western end it's dryer and flatter on the eastern half more hills and more humidity.  We noticed it almost at the start of our travels this morning in Salena.  The further east we traveled the more humidity and the greener the roadside became.  We also noticed the rivers and creeks had more water in them on the eastern half.

We slept in comparatively speaking this morning, not hitting the road until 8:15am for our 400 mile drive to St. Louis.  But we decided to take a number of detours anyway, after all, as Missy reminds me, what's the point in having an RV if we can't get off the Interstate and explore this country!

Our first stop was the city of Abilene, Kansas.  This is the birthplace and home to Dwight  Eisenhower.  We visited his parents home, complete with victory garden, his presidential library and walked the beautiful grounds.  

From there we walked across the street to the Greyhound museum and hall of fame!  This museum was all about the 4000 year old breed of dog, the greyhound.  They had the story of the breed and the history of racing.  Along the hall of fame were pictures of some of the more famous racing dogs.  They even had a pair of wonderful greyhounds there waiting to greet us and be pet!  It was tough getting the boys out of there.  I think the kids rated our visit here a 10!

From Abilene we pushed on to the little town of Wamicko, Kansas.  Here we visited the world famous, Oz museum.  This museum is rumored to have one of the largest collection of Wizard of Oz memorabilia in the world.  It as an interesting and eclectic collection for sure.  The whole town got into the act, with a Yellow Brick road walkway, a Toto Taco store and even The world famous (lol) Oz Winery where Missy picked up a few bottles.  Overall kid rating was about a 6 because they didn't have a full size replica of Dorothy's house.

Then on East again to Kansas City where we had to stop for lunch at Fritz's. This KC landmark serves up burgers and shakes with a railroad theme.  You order your food by phone then when it's ready a train overhead delivers it to your seat.  It's a riot to watch and loads of fun, and the food was pretty good too!  

After lunch we drove a short distance across the river to Kansas City, Missouri where Sammi, Alex and Missy checked out the Negro Baseball League Museum.  This was a fascinating journey into history where they learned all about the league, the players and breaking the color barrier.

The sun shone bright all day and it was hot and humid, not a cloud in the sky all day.  We arrived in St. Louis around 8:00pm!  Once we got ourselves into our site we shot these pictures of the view of the Gateway Arch from our campground!