One of the nice things about Brandon not having a job lined up yet is that we were able to really take our time as we traveled across the country. Usually we have to travel as quickly as possible so that we can visit family and then hurry back home to get back to work. But this time we had no major time constraints. The only thing we really had to worry about was that the moving van had to be returned on Tuesday. That still gave us over a week to travel across the county at our leisure.
When I first started planning this road trip I assumed we would spend most of our time in Missouri and Colorado. I didn't think there would be anything of interest in Kansas so I just planned to hop on the interstate and blow through that state in one day. However, that quickly changed when I started reading the guidebook that I ordered from Kansas. I found many interesting things.
So rather than spend the day quickly driving through Kansas we'd spend three days and two nights exploring the state on the small highways and back roads.
We spent Thursday night in Hutchinson Kansas. The reason we stayed there was because this was the location of the Cosmoshere, which is a space museum that is the home of the Apollo 13 Command Module Odyssey. I'm a huge fan of the movie Apollo 13 and the space program in general so when I found out we could actually see this command module I knew that we HAD to go see it.
I had two questions about the Cosmosphere that I wanted answered. This place is a Smithsonian Affiliate and full of artifacts from NASA. I was curious why this world class museum was located in a place that I'd never heard of - Hutchinson, Kansas. Look at a map, Hutchinson isn't even located along an interstate. It's half an hour northwest of Wichita. My theory was that maybe some parts of some rocket had been manufactured here. That's why the US Space and Rocket Center is located in Huntsville, Alabama. So maybe this place had a special part in the space race.
My second question was why was this place chosen to display the Apollo 13 Command Module? Was one of the crew from Kansas? Was the Command Module built here?
The answer to this questions was not what I expected at all. And honestly it was way cooler than I could have imagined. I'll tell you about it as I tell you about our trip to the Cosmosphere.
On Friday morning we woke up and had breakfast in the lounge of the hotel. Then we packed everything up. We left the moving van in the hotel parking lot, and everyone got into the Honda so we could drive to the few blocks to the Cosmosphere.
Right when we entered the building I knew we'd found a special place. They had a actual SR-70 on display in the lobby. And right next to it was a replica of a space shuttle.
We bought tickets for the museum, but first the kids had to play with the toys in the lobby. They probably would have been content to stay here the whole time.
Lydia said this was a rocket.
All the kids had to take a turn pretending to be an astronaut. Here's Lydia.
Charlotte.
Derrick
And Veronica wasn't quite tall enough.
The lobby also had this fun little box where the kids could pretend to be a scientist. The girls wanted sort out the beads over and over.
Then it was time to go into the actual museum part of the Cosmosphere. This was a model of the Viking 1 that landed on Mars. They just had this sitting in the hall on the way to the museum entrance. I figured if this is what was out in the hall then the actual displays had to be amazing.
Before we entered the museum I found the answer to my first question. Why was this world class Smithsonian Affiliated Space Museum located in Hutchinson, Kansas? Well it was because of a woman named Patty Brooks Carey. And she is my new hero.
In the early 1960's Patty decided that Hutchinson needed a planetarium. Through sheer will power and persuasiveness she made that idea into a reality. She raised money for a star projector and set up shows in an empty poultry house at the Kansas State Fair Grounds. She began educating people from around the area. Later the planetarium was moved to the science building of the community college.
As the years went on the planetarium acquired more artifacts and entered into it's affiliation with the Smithsonian. The name was eventually changed to the Cosmosphere and thousands of visitors from all over the county come here each year to learn more about space and the space program. And it's all because Patty Brooks Carey had an idea and decided to make it happen.
This is a mural dedicated to Patty.
Finally it was time to enter the museum. We descended some stairs and passed under a stained glass window. The words say Ad Astra per Aspera - through the stars through difficulty.
I kind of expected this place to be just a few space artifacts and the Apollo 13 Command Module. But instead they had artifacts dating back all the way to World War II. The museum had displays explaining the very early days of rocket science.
I would have loved to read ever information plaque and examine each artifact. But let's be real. I was here with my kids. And they were all scared of all the displays. I don't know if they were picking up in the creepy NAZI vibes or if they just didn't like the dimmer lighting. But ALL the kids were crying and asking to leave during the first part of the museum.
They called down a little bit as we made it further in time. One thing that surprised me was that this didn't just detail the US part of the space race, but it spent a lot of time explaining the Soviet technology.
We made it to the 1960's part of the museum and we could see one of the signature displays of the Cosmosphere. This was the Liberty Bell. It was a capsule from the Mercury Space Program. Gus Grissom was the astronaut who flew into space in this rocket. When he returned to Earth his caspule landed in the Atlantic Ocean as planned. However, quickly sank into the sea. Gus Grissom was able to get out safely, but the Liberty Bell capsule was lost forever - or at least until 1999.
The Cosmosphere team took care of restoring the capsule. It is usually on display at the Cosmosphere, but right now it's on loan to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. So instead we saw a mock up.
Several astronauts took dimes and dollar bills into space (and then trying to sell them.) Some dimes and dollar bills were found on the Liberty Bell.
Here's Veronica just *loving* all this space history. I swear, when these kids are older they are going to learn about all this historic stuff in school and I'll be like, "yeah we took you to see that when you were three - you cried the whole time."
Soon we went around a corner and entered into the Apollo era of the museum. This is what I had been waiting for.
And there it was the actual Apollo 13 Command Module. THIS is what brought the three astronauts safely back to earth.
So how did it end of in Kansas? Well that's another really cool story featuring another amazingly talented Kansas resident. Well after the mission was over the Command Module was stripped of all it's parts. The parts were sent to the various contractors who had built them so they could be evaluated and tested. The stripped Command Module was put on display in Paris, France of all places. (NASA considered this mission such a failure so they didn't want to keep the reminder in the country.)
Well as the Cosmosphere started acquiring NASA artifacts for it's collection they discovered boxes full of parts that had been on Apollo 13. The directors of the Cosmosphere started the long process of getting the Command Module back from the French government, and then put back together.
In order to put it back together properly the Cosmosphere used the talents of their Master Restoration Specialist - Greg "Buck" Buckingham. He took the literally thousands of parts and put them back into the Command Module to make it exactly how it had been on the day of launch.
We all admired his hard work.
We also took a moment to appreciate the heat shield. This is what kept the astronauts safe as they made a fiery decent back to Earth.
Of course the Command Module wasn't the only thing on display. They also had the famous "White Room" that was perched on top of the scaffolding next to the rocket.
Charlotte had fun posing where the command module door would have sat.
Lydia wanted to stood there too.
And there was this display of a mission control console.
Charlotte and Lydia's favorite part of the whole museum was this moon rock.
Then the girls pretended to be walking on the moon. They liked hoping around on the grey floor.
Charlotte was so excited to point to this engine.
I've only posted a fraction of the pictures that I took. This place was so amazing. It is THE BEST space museum we have ever visited.
We finished up with the museum and went back upstairs so the kids could play with the toys again.
We spent a lot of time in the lobby. The kids like putting pennies into these spinny things so we had to do that. They all think it's so fun to watch the pennies spin. I love that they are so easily entertained.
Veronica found her way over to the nose of the SR-71. This is a pretty fitting place for this girl.
We'd spent at least 3 hours in the museum and it was all worth it. But soon it was time to get back on the road. We drove back to the hotel and picked up the moving truck. Then we started driving west to our next stop - a little town called Greensburg.
We were there to see The Big Well.
The Big Well is a 109 foot well that was hand dug in the late 1800's. The well was only used by the town for a while before it ran dry. The town also went through a boom and bust cycle. The town decided to use the well as a tourist destination. They billed it as "The Worlds Largest Hand Dug Well." When I first read that I thought, "Big Deal." It sounded like one of those desperate tourist things like world's largest frying pan. I planned on skipping it.
And then I saw a picture of the well and the spiral staircase that went down inside it. And I had to see it in person.
Most of the kids were pretty excited to go down the well. Derrick kept saying, "In the tunnel." And I tried to get him to say, "In the hole."
You can see Brandon taking Charlotte and Lydia down into the well.
We could also go up to an observation area that looked out over the whole town. Derrick was pretty excited about it.
Veronica liked going up to the observation deck, but she would NOT go down in the well.
Here's the look down from the very top. Isn't that amazing.
After we went up it was time for me and Derrick to go down into the well.
It was so pretty.
The staircase ended at a platform with a harness that maintenance workers used to get to the bottom of the well.
Here's the look up from the very bottom.
Here's my climbing buddy. He wanted to go up and down two times. My legs hurt for DAYS.
Charlotte and Lydia thought the well was so much fun. They went up and down a lot too.
The well wasn't the only interesting thing about this town. Back in May of 2007 an F5 tornado hit the town and destroyed everything. The residents made the decision to rebuild the town as a green town. Windmills were brought in and buildings were rebuilt to be as energy efficient as possible.
The observation deck area had information about all the new structures written on the windows. It was amazing to see how this town took tragedy and turned it into triumph.
This is a statue of the Last Supper that survived the tornado. The little paper reads, "When nothing is left but God, God is enough."
Anyway, this was another amazing place that was worth going out of our way to see. I'm so glad we had the time to take a little detour through Kansas.
We still had a lot of driving ahead of us so we hurried to get back into the car. That's when I discovered something terrible. I'd arrived in Greensburg about 45 minutes ahead of Brandon. The wind had been blowing terribly hard so instead of playing at the park near the well I'd just let Veronica and Derrick play around in the front seat of the car. And one of them must have flipped on one of the lights because the battery was completely dead.
This wouldn't have been such a big deal if the jeep had been working. We could have figured out a way to jump the Honda with the Jeep, but we were pretty certain the Jeep's battery was faulty. So instead we popped the hood of the Honda and I stood around looking overwhelmed while Brandon ran inside the Big Well to see if one of the ladies in the gift shop could come jump the car. My plan ended up working better because a nice man stopped his car and helped me out. Brandon came back and the Honda was started again.
Then we were really on our way across Kansas. We had to make it to our motel in Colby, Kansas which was 3 and a half hours away.
Our route took us through Dodge City, Kansas. I was partially planning on stopping to see some of the Cowboy themed things they have there, but I didn't really want to stop. I took a weird way through the city and ended legitimately uttering the phrase, "I just want to get the heck out of Dodge." I made it back on the highway and headed north.
Derrick and Veronica watched a lot of movies in the car. I didn't want to listen to those movies so I made sure to download lots of pod casts to my phone through the Spreaker App. I listened to shows from Radio Ronin, Life on the Rocks Please, Baconsale, and Cracked. I'd brought my bluetooth speaker and found that the best place for it was to perch it on my shoulder. So this is how I looked during most of the drive.
Western Kansas wasn't quite as beautiful as eastern Kansas. However, it was still fun to drive through.
And the sunset was still worth a picture.
We'd been hoping to stop and the Monument Rock's located outside Oakley Kansas, but it was too dark when I went passed that area. My sister Lindsey called and I talked to her for a while.
Soon we were in Colby, Kansas. We were pretty much out of fresh food in our cooler so we'd planned on eating out for dinner that night. I found a Burger King and called Brandon to let him know where we were. He showed up with the girls about 10 minutes later. We had a good time eating dinner.
Then it was time to go to our hotel. This was probably my least favorite hotel of our trip. There wasn't really anything wrong with it, but it also just felt off. The kids had a great time jumping from bed to bed so that was fun.
Then it was time for bed. I was so tired that I fell asleep between Derrick and Veronica while I was trying to get them to calm down. Brandon was so tired that he never bothered to move the kids into their own bed. He shared with Charlotte and Lydia all night long.
