Hutchinson/Lawrence, Kansas (State #33)-Clinton State Park

APRIL 10-17, 2016

(Disclaimer:  I don't know why the font is so crazy in this one but after trying to figure it out I decided to just let it go and move on!)

I must admit that I never cared whether or not we went to Kansas. Not sure why really but probably because everyone has said there is not much there. So I am happy to report that we found plenty to do and saw some very nice areas.

Our first stop in Kansas was the Strataca Salt Mine in Hutchinson. This mine produces salt primarily for de-icing roads (Morton Salt is in the same area but they mine salt differently).

We have been on one mine tour before and this was sooo much better (although we did like the other one too). We went down 600 ft in a DARK elevator to the mine museum. There we did some self-guided learning by reading displays, checking out old equipment and watching videos. 

Then we took a tram tour and a train tour. It was very interesting and informative!

We stayed overnight at the Kansas State Fairgrounds. For $20 we had 50 amp electrical with sewer hookups! Of course we had to check out the Kansas Barbecue at Hog Wild. The brisket was great but I didn't love the sausage.

The next morning, we went to the Cosmosphere (free with museum membership). According to wikipedia, it “houses the largest combined collection of US and Russian spaceflight artifacts in the world.” We learned a lot about the V1 and V2 buzz bombs from Hitler's time, the space race between the soviets and the US and saw many other interesting items.

They have a SR-71 blackbird suspended from the ceiling in their lobby and it is low enough to touch!!

This rocket-sled was pretty interesting. The US used It to test G-forces. In 1957, a chimpanzee was tested at 1326 mph!  And yes, he survived.

We even got to touch portions of the orginal German wall.

The museum was nice but I will say that the kids did not enjoy it much. It wasn't quite interactive enough for them. The good news though is that it appears from their website that there are plans in place to update it for that.

We then drove to Manhattan, Kansas through the pretty hills to the Flint Hills Discovery Center (also free with our museum pass). We watched a video on the Flint Hills Ecosystem then checked out their great interactive exhibits. In addition to learning about the Flint Hills, the kids tried their hand at Auctioneering and designing cattle brands.

Their favorite part however, was a traveling exhibit about how things are made. We did wax molding, made spoons by injection molding,

ran pennies through a rolling mill,

assembled a car

and learned about vacuum forming.

They also had rolling videos on coin making and wagon making. VERY cool!!

After Manhattan, we headed to Lawrence, KS where we would set up camp at Clinton State Park for the rest of the week.

In Bonner Springs, the kids and I visited the Moon Marble Company. We watched a live demonstration on marble making. It was pretty amazing how just dots of glass added to the outside could become swirls and beautiful designs on the inside.

These were so pretty!

In Lawrence, we visited the Reuter Organ Company for a tour. Next year, this company will celebrate its 100th anniversary! Our tour guide was great and showed us so much of the factory. We learned how they make their own metal, shape their pipes, design their organs and do all of the woodworking. We also learned a little more about the shapes and components of the pipes needed to create their sounds. 

We also go to go into the “voicing” room where they test all of the sounds out. I had no idea there are over 2000 pipes in a pipe organ (since each instrument needs 61 pipes)!  The one negative about this tour though was that much of it was just an explanation of what they rather than seeing them actually do it.

Next, we made the short drive to Topeka to visit the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site. It is located in Monroe Elementary School where Linda Brown attended school. We viewed many of the videos and displays, completed the Junior Ranger Booklet for our badge then played a little while in the recreated Kindergarten room.

On the weekend, we drove to Kansas City. We checked out a few areas of town and then we had to eat at the famous Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que. We had the Z-man which Zagat rated as the best sandwich in Kansas in it's 50 states, 50 sandwiches list.

Greg loved it. Jacob and I preferred the sandwich at Hog Wild, although this one was pretty good.

From there, we took a tour at Boulevard Brewery. It was a free tour as long as you got there at 10 am to grab some tickets. The tour guide was great, informative and humorous. At the end, you get tokens for 4 small beers to try them out. I do not like beer so I thought they were beyond GROSS but Greg said they were pretty good. His favorite was the unfiltered wheat.

We also found a cute little hamburger place called Fritz where your food is delivered by a train.  The kids loved it!  The train travels on a track overhead with your bin of food.  When it reaches your table a bar extends to knock the bin on a tray which is then lowered to your table.

My post would not be complete without reviewing the campground (Clinton State Park). It's April, so not really in season for Kansas yet but I suspect it's a pretty fun place during the summer. The whole park is quite large with over 400 RV sites. Our site was right by a great little playground. It's on the lake but its' view was mostly obstructed by trees. 

We were surprised at the number of Annual residents throughout the park, which we haven't typically seen in state parks. There were no full hook-up sites so we were off to the shower houses which seemed to be few for the number of sites. It was fine though and had plenty of hot water.

From here, we are heading to Nebraska.

Salem, Connecticut (State #29)-Witch Meadow Campground

August 23-30, 2015

This was a fun week in August of 2015. Witch Meadow Campground is in Salem, CT about an hour outside of Hartford. The reason we chose this area is because we had met another family at the rally in January that would be staying here for the summer.

The kids spent every minute they could together. As soon as everyone's school lessons were done, they were ready to meet up. The boys, of course, loved playing on their tablets and the Wii. The girls played with the dollhouse a lot and dressed each other up.

One evening both families went to the Waterford Speedbowl. It was great family entertainment. The adults paid $8 entry each and the kids were FREE. It was very kid friendly. Even some of the kids racing the cars were as young as Jacob!  The first race we saw was won by a girl Jacob's age. That really helped our kids to connect. They had fun watching the races but also just had fun hanging with their friends.

Other things we checked out in the area were:

Dinosaur State Park-Here we were able to see real dinosaur prints. They were pretty big and supposed to be some of the largest but I really think we saw larger ones in the Canyon Lake area of Texas. They had some really nice exhibits and had a couple of different programs.

One of the programs was on the dinosaur that left the prints and the other was about pythons

The kids could even compare themselves to a t-rex print!

Submarine Force Museum & USS Nautilus-This place had some really cool things. Of course these displays with a thousand buttons and switches were an immediate hit.

The kids got to peer through a real periscope and check out what was happening out in the parking lot.

And we got to see the Bushnell Turtle that we had read about earlier this year. It was the first submarine used in combat during the Revolutionary War!

We toured the USS Nautilus (audio tour) 

And just before we were leaving we were alerted that a real submarine was arriving into port! We stood outside and watched as it made it's way up the river with its crew on top. It was so cool!

Mystic Seaport-This is a living history maritime museum with ships and a village with various shops.

We were able to go aboard a few ships and watch them take down the sails for the day.

We also visited various shops with demonstrations like the cooper, the blacksmith, ship carver, sail loft and this building where they showed the steps in making rope.

It was a very interesting and pretty place.  You could definitely spend more than one day there.

Our week went by quickly and we were sad to leave our friends but later in December, we would get to see them again.  They would come to visit us in Austin!