Spring break 2017 the kids and I took a couple of day trips from Kansas City. Among them was a 3.5 hour drive to Hutchison, KS that took us 6 hours. As a geocacher I rarely ever take the direct route to a place and there are often a ton of stops. Despite seemingly being in the middle of nowhere Hutchison is the home to two worthwhile points of interests, the Cosmosphere and the STRATACA Salt Mine.
We planned to be there for two days, one for each site. Day one we started out at the Cosmosphere and to my surprise we entered to find a SR-71 blackbird waiting in the lobby just like at the Strategic Air Command Museum in Ashland, NE. Hutchison has a population under 40k but has a world class space museum that grew out of an old exhibit from the 1962 Kansas State fair. It houses both Russian and American space race pieces and components from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs among many others.
We spent hours exploring, reading and imagining. Despite being there shortly after open we closed the place down. Then we found a room at the local Ramada in and enjoyed the pool that evening. The following day we planned to visit the salt mine but Alexander had an upset stomach and a light fever so we stopped at CVS for Tylenol and headed home instead. Three years later I was able to return to the Salt Mine with Ana and Bridget. It's as cool as I had hoped.
3/19/2021