Wamego Kansas and the Wizard of Oz

Welcome back to the road. Today we are making an extra special visit to the land of OZ, or Wamego Kansas. On the surface, Wamego appears to be your typical Kansas town, or maybe every Kansas town has some hidden wonder to it. A lot of geniuses come out of this state after all, there must be something special here. It s not a big place, with less than 5 thousand people, making this place all the more special. The town has a lot to make it special, but the main thing that attracted us to stop by this time was the Wizard of Oz museum. Of course we cant visit the Oz museum until we have followed the yellow brick road, and yes, Wamego has a yellow brick road. Along the road there are a lot of depictions of events from the great story most os us have experienced in movie form. You will also notice Toto throughout the town. In this case the yellow brick road seems to have led us to the city park, which has a few surprises in addition to being a beautiful green space. There are ponds, fountains, a recreation of an old town, a veterans memorial, and even an old dutch mill. Lets have a look. I especially like this dutch mill. It was built my an immigrant farmer back in 1870. In the 1920s it was dismantled and moved to the park. Now lets head back down the yellow brick road to see this oz museum. Theres a lot in here, and Im told that a lot of this was probably very scary to kids who grew up watching the iconic film. While I cant say I was completely ignorant of this story and film growing up, I was definitely more familiar with Journey to the West and the monkey king. You can look that up sometime, Dragon Ball Z was based on it. artwork and memorabilia, as well as incredible reconstructions of costumes and props. Does everyone have a favorite of the three companions, not meaning to exclude Toto, that went along with Dorothy? I always liked the scarecrow, and here he is. They have the other two as well, so don t worry. That s really scary looking. I think I mentioned that this film may have haunted some childhoods, I can imagine so with this sort of imagery. The museum also has some bits and bobs from other later films centered on the land of Oz. For our last stop we re heading a bit out of town to visit the Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie. There isn t much here, but that s the beauty of it. I don t know how to describe the sound of the wind rushing over the tall grass other than one of the most soothing sounds I have ever heard. It s a sea of grass complete with waves. If you have never experienced this, I highly recommend coming here at dusk or dawn. I know life was hard for settlers, and those who came before them, but what a thing they had in the unspoiled beauty of nature. This is a unique place out here on the prairie. I cant say the town is struggling, life carries on here as it has for generations. There is incredible beauty in these plains, I cant imagine the Wizard of Oz trading it even for the emerald city. I hope you enjoyed the visit to wemigo, ks. Be sure to make a stop if you are in the area Thanks for watching, see you next time.