Road trip; and unique architecture!

Now that we are quarantined, I am so glad we had the road trip we did.  We returned to Kansas the beginning of March, before all this craziness.  We left Winterset, Iowa where we had seen the covered bridges and the birthplace of John Wayne.

  Moving perhaps, or adding a basement?

A Kansas City Chiefs fan in Iowa!

 Can we stop?!

After touring the factory - and enjoying the chocolates,

perhaps we could spend the night here?

 um, or here at this B&B?

Well, no, Allen needed to work the next day so on we went.  We saw several barns that had various colored roofs with matching roofs among the farm buildings.  Blue, green, even a pink one.

A solar farm

Not sure about this...

Beautiful court house!

This bank is so small they had to abbreviate "National"

We saw a sign in this town about a famous fountain so we stopped to look.

I enjoyed the buildings in this town around the courthouse

Buck Snort Restaurant?

We could use this now to keep us clean from Covid19!

The way they do terracing is interesting - different than Kansas

1899 North Polk school

Is this a house?  Pretty big, fancy porch for one.

When we were crossing into Nebraska on 136, you could see the damage from the flooding of the Missouri river.  So very sad.  We followed 73 down to Lawrence, KS. (we took 75 when we went up to Wisconsin)

small building

and a wagon from years past.

I would have never known what a runza is except we have a few families in our church in Kansas from Nebraska and they call bierrocks "runzas" here.  

Our German/Russian Mennonite ancestors brought the bierrocks recipe to America.  I guess Runzas are also from the Volga Russian Mennonite background. They really are the same, but I looked it up and they say runzas are generally rectangular, whereas bierrocks are in round buns, but our Nebraska transplants make them in ciruclar buns. 

Kansas!

We have to stop at the historical markers!  So interesting!

A sod house!

When we got to Lawrence, we picked up Al's sister, Julie and went for a cruise around town.  Here was the townhouse we used to live in when our son was 1 year old.  Pine Tree Townhouses.  We lived on the corner one.

Downtown Lawrence - lots of memories!

We had a wonderful visit with Julie then went on a drive around the KU campus, showing Julie where we worked and went to school, before heading home.

Winterset, Iowa - birthplace of John Wayne

At the beginning of the month, before our "stay at home" during this Corona-19 virus, we made a trip to Wisconsin.  (I am SO GLAD we took this trip!!  Who knows how long until we can see our family again!)

On the way home, we took an off road to see the covered bridges of Madison County.   These were located around the town of Winterset.  A bonus for us going to Winterset was finding out this was where John Wayne was born!

 Winterset is just a cute little town!  The population is around 5,200.

 It was platted in 1849 and originally it was going to be called "Summerset".  However, there was a cold spell at that time so the city commissioners changed it to Winterset!

 I haven't seen a Ben Franklin for years!  I didn't even know they still existed!

I love these old buildings!!  As we came to the stopsign, I happened to notice the street sign.  Can you read it?  When we had pulled into town, we didn't know it was birthplace of John Wayne!!  We were just looking for covered bridges in the area.

 Of course, we HAD to stop and go through the museum!

We watched a short movie about John Wayne's life.  The seats in this theatre are originally from the Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

I didn't grow up watching John Wayne, although perhaps I saw a show or two.  I grew up with these kinds of ninja shows.  I don't think my mother knew how violent some of these shows were that included butchering of people and "honour" suicides.  She would have made us turn off the tv!!

We took a tour through the museum.

We used to have an awesome station wagon in the day!  John Wayne had nothing on us! 

Look at the beautiful "wood" paneled side!  Such a cool car!

And we could open up the back to have a picnic.

We could also lay down the back seats for beds during the drive.

Life-like wax figure

Behind the museum, on a corner lot was the house John Wayne was born in.

 His parents rented this house.  His father, Clyde Morrison was a pharmacist in town.  John Wayne described his father as "the kindest, most patient man I ever knew."  His mother worked in Des Moines as a telephone operator prior to marriage.  Of his mother, who was of Irish stock he said she was "a tiny, vivacious red-headed bundle of energy."

stained glass front door

The modest 4 room home has been restored to reflect its appearance in 1907, the year of John Wayne's birth.

You can see the bedroom where he was born, weighing in at 13 pounds.  He was named Marion Robert Morrison.

His mother was having trouble delivering him, so the midwife called for the doctor to come help.  In those days, it was not common to have a woman doctor. 

 John Wayne with his little brother.

The kitchen

We have a little butter churner like this one!

This docent was amazing and so informative!

I have a mixing bowl like that!  It belonged to Grandma Voran.

And a rolling pin like that too!

 Ronald Reagan has also visited this little house and museum.  If you plan to go (you should!) you might check out a bed and breakfast that our friend Amy Freud told me about.  Her aunt and uncle converted an old church into one!
http://www.heavenlyhabitat.net/