Visiting Dorothy and an Army Air Museum.

We had some time in Liberal, Kansas and thought it would be nice to visit a couple of museums.  First, we toured the Mid-America Air Museum.  When we started touring the huge hanger where the planes and other items were on display, we were the only people in the building.

With over 100 airplanes to see, we knew it would take a while to tour. Most of the planes are Army but quite a few were Cessnas.  They also had some helicopters and experimental aircraft.

Dwaine Wallace was from Liberal.  He and his brother revived the Cessna Airplane company from bankruptcy.  He also designed several of the early Cessna planes.  There are a lot of planes from his personal collection that were donated by his wife after his death.

The primary activity at the airfield was training bomber pilots and crew for WWII.  In its day, the air field was filled will B-24 and B-25 planes.

There were several more planes to look and and some that were outside.

Time for lunch.  I only mention this because the ribs we had were GREAT!

Now that we are well fed, it is time to go to Dorothy's House and the Land of Oz. Around the house is a very nice statue and a Yellow Brick path.  The bricks are sponsored and several were a surprise like the one from Liza Minnelli, many of the Munchkins, and other famous people.

We started in her house which is furnished to represent the time frame of the movie.  They used as much information from the movie to be accurate.

After touring the house, we entered OZ. That building was divided into areas representing the primary scenes of the movie.  It was dark in many areas but there were several automated characters with sounds and dialog from the story.

The tour ends with memorabilia from the movie and all of the Oz books.  One thing they did have was the actual model house that was spinning in the tornado scene and a Glenda the good witch dress.

Finally, we toured the town museum. It also happens to be where you buy tickets for the Oz tour and the gift shop.

The Spanish explorer Francisco Coronado passed through this area in his search for the City of Gold.  Several confirmed items were found from his exploration.

We love small town museums and this one did not disappoint.