I went to see the Wizard and, apparently left without a brain for me, and a heart for the Tin Man

Okay, as promised, here's the post about Dorothy's House and the Land of Oz.

But let me start this story with some background information. I tried to find the connection between Liberal, Kansas, where the "museum" is located, and the movie.

There is none.

No where in the movie does it state that Dorothy is from Liberal, Kansas. Nope. She's just from a small town IN Kansas.

But the town of Liberal decided to declare themselves Dorothy's hometown.

I thought that the "house" was the actual house that was used in the movie. In fact, I SWORE that I read that somewhere.

Apparently I was wrong. This is what the brochure read,

Follow the Yellow Brick Road. You will soon realize....5000 square feet of animated entertainment - good and bad witches, the Munchkins, talking trees, winged monkeys, and, of course, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and Toto, too. Oz memorabilia all along the Yellow Brick Road,  including the original model of Dorothy's house in the 1939 filming of "The Wizard of Oz".

Okay, what does that mean, exactly? I guess I'm stuck on the words "original model". Is it a model of the house used in the movie?

Jim opted to wait in the truck while I took the tour. I plunked down my $7.50 and waited for the tour guide, who was supposed to be dressed up like Dorothy, by the way, but she wasn't, find the keys. I think she was filling in for Dorothy.

We started the tour outside, following the yellow brick road. People could purchase a yellow brick, I think the amount was around $60. The Tour Guide or TG said that there were some movie stars, and pointed out Liza Minnelli's brick.

 

As you can see, the characters also had bricks on the yellow brick road.

President and Mrs. Reagan also purchased a couple of bricks, although they've never been to the exhibit.

Here is Dorothy's House.

This is "Auntie Em's" bedroom. I asked the TG if anything was authentic from the movie. Uh, no.

On Auntie Em's dresser was this interesting little item called a "hair receiver". Back in the day, every thing was a precious commodity. So after a woman was done brushing her hair, she would pull the hair that was clinging to the bristles and stuff them down the little hole in the top of the jar. The hair would collect in there. Women would make hair nets out of the hair, or cover a button with hair as a memento for a loved one.

This is the living room.

I have to say that at this point, the TG was saying things like, "and Dorothy would play things like..." and I'm thinking, "she DOES know that Dorothy is JUST a character, RIGHT?" I mean, it's one thing if she was dressed up as Dorothy AND there were kids on the tour, then she could say, "I would play with these toys, or this is Auntie Em's room." But if no kids were along, it seems like it would have been better to adjust the tour and say something like "This house is modeled after the one that was used in the movie. These items are typical from that period of time." It was just, well, AWKWARD.


Dorothy's room - notice the ruby slippers. Does this mean she wore them back to Kansas?

Here is a kitchen cabinet. I don't know the official term for this. The bottom drawer is lined in metal to store the flour. The counter was metal - easy to roll out dough.

This is an ice box - the top part holds the 25 pound block of ice. Supposedly this would only last a few hours.

This is a mustache cup. It's quite clever, actually, because back then men waxed their mustaches. When they drank their coffee, their mustache dipped in the coffee and the waxed melted. With this cup, the mustache "sits" on the ledge, preventing it from touching the hot liquid, and keeping the wax intact.

Oh how I would dread wash day if I had to wash the clothes like this! Wash by hand in the right basin, scrubbing on the washboard, rinsing, then put them through the ringer.

I should mention that right when the tour started, another woman joined us. She was in somewhat in a hurry (as was I). Her husband was also waiting for her in the car.

After the house tour we walked over to a large building called, "The Land of Oz". It is a 5,000 square foot building that tells the COMPLETE story of the Wizard of Oz.

Our TG proceeded to tell us the whole story, granted very fast, but sometimes in a baby voice. The other woman looked at me like, "You've GOT to be kidding me!"

I took pictures of some of the exhibits like when Dorothy ran away from home and ran into Professor Marvel:

Or when Dorothy's house crashes down on the Wicked Witch of the East and ends up in the Land of Oz.

Glinda, the good witch

The munchkins

The beginning of the yellow brick road.

Remember these three guys?

 

Remember, all the while the TG is telling the story! I wanted to say to her, "Look, we're both in a hurry. Can we just walk through the exhibit and skip the story?" Would that have been so bad?

We jump to the castle and flying monkeys. That's Toto hanging off of the drawbridge.

This was kind of cute - when the Wicked Witch of the West wrote in the sky.

Or when the guy says to knock on the door at the castle.

Remember when Dorothy walked down the big hallway to see the wizard?

The special effect of the floating wizard head at the end of the hall was pretty cool, but it was a hologram and the picture didn't turn out.

Here is the scene where the lion, tin man, scarecrow and Dorothy are all going to go home via the hot air balloon.

At the end is a room with a large display of memorabilia about the Wizard of Oz. Some of it was donated from the actual actors who portrayed the Munchkins.

Do you know how the author, L. Frank Baum, came up with the name of "Oz"? He was sitting at his  writing desk, and he looked over at his filing cabinet. He noticed the drawers, A-G, H-N, O-Z, and just took the dash out between the O and the Z. Wa-lah! "OZ"!

Did you also know that L. Frank Baum wrote 14 books in the Oz series, The Wonderful World of Oz being the first? Me neither!

This is the Tin Man statue outside. I gave Jim the nickname of The Tin Man because, at times, I feel he has no heart!

Here's the statue of Dorothy that stands outside of the house.

So. That's the big tour of Dorothy's House and the Land of Oz. I give it 2 stars out of 5. I think a tour guide can make or break a tour. This guide left a lot to be desired. The brochure said "animated". Doesn't that mean that things move, like in Disneyworld? I didn't see any characters move. Kids would probably enjoy this. Adults? Not so much. I read mixed reviews on this place.

I clicked my ruby slippers, oh who am I kidding, my fuzzy slippers, and I'm not in Kansas anymore. We are in New Mexico.

Sorghum, road kill, and Dorothy, oh my

Okay, day three of this packing up and driving 300 miles daily, and I'm already tired of this crap. Maybe because I'm not up to par with my cold and everything.

By 9:30 a.m. we were ready to pull out of our site. Jim says what he always says, "Watch out for that side." Yeah, like I'm supposed to do something about it. It was somewhat of a tight turn pulling, Jim turned the truck, and I heard a loud snap! Yowser! It was the tree branches that were hanging over the trailer. There was nothing we could do but continue to pull forward. We pulled up in front of the office to throw our garbage out and look at the branch sitting on top of our trailer.



Jim got the ladder out to get the branch down. If he just waited a minute, the wind would have blown it down.



The majority of the day was spent on roads just like this one. Just a two lane road through the country.



We would pass miles and miles of fields of corn, but mostly this crop.



It was very hard to get a good picture of it, without it being blurred, even if I panned the camera. Jim thought the crop was possibly sorghum.

Kansas is a pretty flat state. So we could see these buildings a few miles down the road. They are granaries. They are EVERYWHERE.



Here is a HUGE pile of corn. To get an idea of just how tall that pile is, look at how small the tractors are in front of it.



Here is a different pile of corn. Look at all the trucks just waiting to load up.



Railroad tracks ran alongside the road for a long distance. We saw many trains. Here's one coming up.



And, again, because this state is so flat, here's the train as far as the eye can see.



We passed through some funny named towns like Cheney, or this one:



Or this one - not for the weak at heart:



I saw four identifiable dead animals on the road - a raccoon, a deer, a white spotted owl, and a skunk. I saw many unidentifiable smooshed animals - too bad I didn't have this guide with me:



Something typical you would see out in the country:



Something not so typical:



I have NO idea what those pots are used for, or if they are just decorations, but they are HUGE. Compare them to the trees in the background.

As far as interesting cars, I saw this old truck drive by. It's a little blurred, being that we were both moving. Look at the hat on that good ole boy driving!



This little VW Bug passed us up. I got a kick out of the license plate.



We arrived in Liberal, KS close to 5 pm. The campground owner was very friendly and nice. She came to our trailer to collect the money. There happened to be a field of that crop right next to the campground that Jim and I were wondering about and I asked her about it. She said that it indeed is sorghum, or milo, and is used to feed pigs, and also is put in bird seed. I walked over to get a closer, clearer, photo of the mysterious crop.





They had bales of hay piled up high. Here is a "study in hay".



I am attracted to barbed wire fence. Maybe it's the bad girl inside me wanting to get out. This caught my eye.



As I walked back to the trailer through the dried out weeds and grass, I was bombarded by grasshoppers. One actually hit me hard in the chest. I let out a yelp and walked faster, but those babies where hopping all over the place. It was like the fricking plague out there. I couldn't reach the stones fast enough. If anyone saw me they'd think I was crazy the way I was waving my arms and yelling.

I found out that right here in Liberal, KS, that I could have followed the Yellow Brick Road. That's right. They have the original model of Dorothy's house that was used in the 1939 filming of "The Wizard of Oz". They also have 5,000 square feet of animated entertainment including good and bad witches, the Munchkins, talking trees, winged monkeys, and Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and Toto, too. I was so disappointed to find out that the Seward County Museum, where this all is located was already closed for the day by the time that we got to town. And they don't open till 1:00 pm on Sundays and we'll be long gone by then. And listen to this! Next weekend is OZ FEST! They have actual MUNCHKINS from the movie come to town, they have a parade and everything. Doesn't that sound like fun? Gosh I wish we were passing through next weekend. Click this link for the best website I found with pictures of the Land of Oz.

Liberal also has International Pancake Day, which is celebrated with all-you-can-eat pancake and sausage breakfast on Shrove Tuesday (the day before Lent begins). This is after having 3 days of festivities such as cooking, eating and flipping contests, and many other events. After the breakfast on Tuesday, the races begin. Children's races begin at 10 a.m., with kids as young as 3 participating. Women over 50 race at 11:30 in the Last Chance Race, and then the Men's Pacer Race starts. The official International Race begins at 11:55 am. The shriving service is held at the First United Methodist Church, then a live web chat is held between the two communities and a parade ends the activities in the afternoon.

According to the Liberal Visitor's Guide,

"The Pancake race began in Old England when it was customary for the housewives to drop whatever they were doing and hurry to the church at the rolling of the bell to be "shriven" for their sins. In 1445, a housewife in Olney started cooking her pancakes to use up the cooking fat. As she had begun rather late, the church bell began to ring before she had finished her task.

Not wanting to leave her pancakes to burn, she hurried to the "shriving" wearing her house dress, kerchief and apron and carrying the griddle and pancakes running as she went. When she arrived at the church, the bell ringer gave her the "kiss of peace." In 1950, a Liberal businessman and veteran of the war, recalled the event as told to him by a soldier from Olney. Believing that international goodwill was important, Liberal and Olney began an annual celebration of the event. A kiss of peace is still bestowed on each winner at the end of the race."








This only proves two things:

1) Wherever you go, there you are.

and

2) Wherever you go, there's always something to see and learn.