55th Class Reunion on a Two-Wheeled SUV:
A Two-Wheeled What?
Laying On the Utility
Thinking Small for a Big Trip
Day 1: Tucson to Las Cruces
Day 2: The Road to Santa Rosa
Day 3: Kittycorner to Kansas
Days 4 and 5: Wet Wichita, Sunny St. Joseph
Day 6: This Way to Humboldt
Enjoying Humboldt (Iowa)
Gas Tank Blackjack
The Real Kansas in Technicolor
A Liberal Dose of Memories
Holbrook? How Did We Wind Up In Holbrook?
Painted, Petrified, and Perfect
The Home Home Stretch
Day 4 of return, a sojourn in Liberal. This is the day I planned when I had to hasten through on the outbound passage -- the day, in particular, to visit the Mid-America Air Museum. This is not the biggest in Kansas (that's the Cosmosphere, in Hutchinson), but it has plenty of distinctive touches to recommend it.
Liberal, it seems, was the site of a World War II training base for B24 crews. After the war, the base was closed, but years later, in 1986, some of the veterans decided to commemorate it. A year later the museum was established, featuring memorabilia of life in a B24 training base. There are photographs, placards, leftover planes and parts, and training tools for vintage equipment. (Even the plane's big nosewheel required training.) Pictures and stories remind us that those were serious times, the winters were cold, and the flyers' life was -- ahem! -- Spartan. I'm glad I took it in.
Of course, the museum's collection grew every whichway, as such things do, accumulating later aircraft and space exhibits in addition to its specialty On the lighter side, I loved this specimen in the collection of experimental planes.
Notice the nautical-style steering wheel. (Surely the designer meant it as a yoke.) And look at that broad rear seat, for two slim passengers or one wide-bodied. The seat belt stretches all the way across.
