We started out on Weds, May 3rd with a stop at the OZ Museum in Wamego, KS. You know you can't go to Kansas without doing at least something related to The Wizard of OZ, arguably one of the best movies ever made. When you think of making this movie in 1939, without all the CGI (computer) special effects used in today's movies, you get an idea of what they were faced with. For instance, nobody had ever filmed a movie scene with a realistic tornado before that. Getting the behind-the-scenes story on how they did it was a story in itself (they used a wire frame with a muslin cover on a moving gantry and fullers earth - there's more to it but that's the basics). And during filming, MGM repeatedly caused brownouts in nearby Culver City due to the electrical load required for the lighting needed to bring the "technicolor" film process to life. Lots of interesting exhibits. Definitely worth a stop and the modest price of admission if you ever get in the area.
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Wamego also has an old theater, the Columbian Theatre, which was built using various parts of buildings from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. It boasts the largest collection of artwork in existence remaining from the fair. Six huge murals are on display and they have about a dozen others that need to be restored.
After Wamego, we drove east on I-70 to Bonners Springs KS where you'll find the Moon Marble Company. They actually make glass marbles there and we were lucky enough to see the owner, Bruce, doing some creative glass work. It turns out that it's rare to find Bruce doing any glass work on regular business days. He's really an artist as you can tell from his creations. How they make some of these colorful designs is still beyond me.
We stopped for the night just across the border in Kansas City, Missouri. Well, on the outskirts, anyway.
Next morning (Thurs, May 4), we got up and drove north through Missouri all the way to central Iowa, stopping at Fort Dodge. We drove back, country farm roads the entire way. We wanted to get a feel for Iowa off the interstate. After leaving the KC area, I think the biggest town we drove through all day had a population of maybe 1,000. And it was the biggest by far!
We did make a quick stop at Templeton, Iowa - home of Templeton Rye whiskey. They have a good rye whiskey made famous during the Prohibition. It was said to be Al Capone's drink of choice.
We spent the night in Fort Dodge, IA. There was a fort there for a few years between 1850-1853 but the town's main claim to fame seems to be as the gypsum capital of the US (at least). Apparently most of the drywall in the US comes from this area.
Factoid: Drywall, using gypsum, was patented by a Fort Dodge resident.
From Fort Dodge, we drove to Bloomington, MN, just outside Minneapolis-St Paul. For something different, we spent the entire afternoon hiking indoors at the Mall of America - we walked about 3-1/2 miles! Didn't buy much, just window-shopping mostly. Our car is so jam-packed we really can't buy too much more to carry around with us!
Today, Saturday, May 6, we drove a very circuitous route from the Minneapolis-St Paul area, up through central Minnesota through the great "North Woods" then back around east to finally arrive at our destination on the shore of Lake Superior. We turned a 3-1/2 hour trip into an all-day affair.
Minnesota is known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes". In fact, Minnesota has 11,842 lakes that are over 10 acres in size. On our drive through the North Woods it seemed there was a lake around every bend. We skirted one, Mille Lacs, which covers 207 square miles (for you central Pennsylvanians, Lake Raystown is just under 13 square miles).
Minnesota was historically the source of a significant portion of the world's iron ore for over a century. (I'd actually remembered learning about that in geography class way back when.) The mining occurred in what is still termed the "Iron Range" which is in the North Woods area. There is still a significant mining presence here. In fact, just a few miles north of here, in Silver Bay, is a huge taconite processing facility. Taconite is low-grade iron ore.
If you've never seen Lake Superior, or any of the great lakes for that matter, when you are standing at the shore you might as well be at the ocean. They are that big! Lake Superior is considered the largest freshwater lake in the world with a surface area of 31,700 square miles - that's roughly the size of the state of South Carolina!
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| Lake View at Sunset |
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| Lake View at Sunrise |
Next up? An abbreviated version of the Great Lakes Circle Tour. We're going to drive part way around Lake Superior, then across Wisconsin to Lake Michigan, then around Lake Michigan into Illinois, with a quick drop-down into Indiana (need that to get our lower 48 cycle done), then somehow across Michigan to Lake Huron, then down through eastern Michigan to Ohio and Lake Erie. Not sure of all the stops yet but stay tuned!
That's all for now ..... Dan
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