the best museum in Kansas

[franksolich]

note: this topic was split off from another topic in the Military forum, so as to not off-topic that thread.

The Safari Museum is described as "the best museum in Kansas," which might or might not be hyperbole; but it is listed as such in guidebooks not related to the museum itself

Had a brain cramp, sorry, that should have been Hutchinson (Sp?) KS; I also found the frontier museum in Wichita to be really good, however there is also a Native American museum which is not worth a stop...seems to be more of a meeting room/clubhouse for the members of the NA nonprofit that runs it than a good museum, they have some nice stuff but just not very much of it.  There's also a large art museum in Wichita, however though I do art there wasn't that much I found memorable, it's a big one if that's your cup of tea, though; there's also a small but interesting aviation museum in the old airport terminal on the (Now-)backside of the airport, Wichita being a fairly significant town in aviation history.

I'm straying off-topic here, but it's not worth its own thread.

You guys--Tanker and Doc--are reasonably close to Chanute, Kansas.

Have either of you ever gone to the Safari Museum there?

In 1998 the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum was named by the History Channel Traveler website as one of the "Top-Ten Historic Sites for Valentine's Day" that "capture romance, American-style." In 2001 The Pitch (newspaper) named Chanute, Kansas, and the museum as "Best Romantic Day Trip."

Actually, the above's a little trivia; anyway, the museum is based upon the travels of Martin and Osa Johnson to the South Seas and Africa circa 1917-1937, although Martin had been with the writer Jack London,s 1907-1909 trip across the Pacific in a sailboat.  The couple were photographers, still and motion, and the wife wrote some books.  I believe they were the first to fly over Africa, south to north (or north to south, I dunno), and they got some really impressive pictures of Africa as it was back then.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Didn't know about that one, I will have to check it out this Summer or next, thanks!

[TVDOC]

Didn't know about that one, I will have to check it out this Summer or next, thanks!

Me too.....isn't there also an AFB in Chanute, KS?  I seem to remember something about that.

doc

[Eupher]

Me too.....isn't there also an AFB in Chanute, KS?  I seem to remember something about that.

doc

There used to be a Chanute AFB near Rantoul, Illinois - not KS.

[TVDOC]

There used to be a Chanute AFB near Rantoul, Illinois - not KS.

Damn....THAT's where I saw the name, driving up I-57 to Chicago.......

doc

[franksolich]

Didn't know about that one, I will have to check it out this Summer or next, thanks!

I saw it as a little kid, but not where it is now; I'd read I Married Adventure on the suggestion of an older brother who was then in college, and got into it.

Apparently it's much larger than it was back then.

http://www.safarimuseum.com/about_museum.htm

http://www.safarimuseum.com/collection_perm.htm

[franksolich]

I see that I Married Adventure is still in print, even though it was first published in 1940.

I have a 1940 edition, and the 1941 (first printing) of Four Years in Paradise; they had belonged to my father and apparently were purchased right when they first came out.

One wonders if the current edition has been, uh, bowdlerized somewhat, because the first edition used politically-incorrect language that wouldn't pass today.  Especially when dealing with the primitives. 

I've read the first one several times in my life; the second one only maybe perhaps twice.  The first one's about people, the second one's about nature, and people are more interesting than nature.

But neither Johnson was a scientist; they were first and foremost photographers, and whatever science they learned, they learned by accident.