The classic movie
The Wizard of Oz was released 70 years ago as of October 2009. The small town of Wamego, Kansas, about an hour west of Kansas City, held a weekend celebration that included
four of the surviving munchkins who were in the movie, costumed actors as the Oz characters, tours of the Oz museum with incredible amounts of movie and book memorabilia, and visits from the descendants of the author of
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L.
Frank Baum. Caroline was scared at first by that wicked old witch of the west, but then she got her own magic wand from Glinda, got to take her picture with the original lollipop kid, got a kiss from a Toto lookalike, enjoyed all the dolls in the
museum, and after all that and more, by the time our day there was over and it was time to head back home, she was saying as we were walking back to our van, "I had a great time!" We would definitely recommend visiting the Oz Museum for
anyone who loves the movie and is in that area, not far from Kansas State University in Manhattan or the President Eisenhower Museum in Abilene. By the time we pulled up in our driveway back in Arkansas, though, I'm pretty sure she also said, "There's no place like home!"
But it was definitely a memorable experience to celebrate a
legend and meet some of the people who actually made it so seven decades ago. It reminded Galen of the old Land of Oz theme park in Banner Elk, North
Carolina, from the 1970s, and maybe one day Caroline can share this story with her children too and keep passing down some personal association with that place over the rainbow.
The classic movie The Wizard of Oz was released 70 years ago as of October 2009. The small town of Wamego, Kansas, about an hour west of Kansas City, held a weekend celebration that included 
four of the surviving munchkins who were in the movie, costumed actors as the Oz characters, tours of the Oz museum with incredible amounts of movie and book memorabilia, and visits from the descendants of the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L.
Frank Baum. Caroline was scared at first by that wicked old witch of the west, but then she got her own magic wand from Glinda, got to take her picture with the original lollipop kid, got a kiss from a Toto lookalike, enjoyed all the dolls in the
museum, and after all that and more, by the time our day there was over and it was time to head back home, she was saying as we were walking back to our van, "I had a great time!" We would definitely recommend visiting the Oz Museum for
anyone who loves the movie and is in that area, not far from Kansas State University in Manhattan or the President Eisenhower Museum in Abilene. By the time we pulled up in our driveway back in Arkansas, though, I'm pretty sure she also said, "There's no place like home!" But it was definitely a memorable experience to celebrate a
legend and meet some of the people who actually made it so seven decades ago. It reminded Galen of the old Land of Oz theme park in Banner Elk, North
Carolina, from the 1970s, and maybe one day Caroline can share this story with her children too and keep passing down some personal association with that place over the rainbow.
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