Tuttle Creek State Park & Oz

 We are enjoying some more mellow time at Tuttle Creek State Park in Kansas.  Dave is getting his class going and has visited a “local satellite office” a couple of times to upload videos in stronger wifi.  Our site here is nicely wooded and has a view of the lake.  We have gone for a bike ride and lots of walks around the campground, which is quite large.

I know geese are messy and can be annoying, but the babies are cute.

Our day of fun was visiting the Oz Museum in Wamego, KS.  

There were Toto statues throughout town decorated in different ways.  Here are a couple of examples.

 

There was a literal yellow brick road in an alley that we went down.  There were pretty murals on the buildings.

The yellow brick road ended at the Friendship House, a restaurant and bakery that we had lunch at.  Very yummy meal and peach cobbler.  We also each got a cookie for later.  

There was a nice park across the street from the restaurant that had statues and a windmill.  The statues were from the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair.   The first represented science, the second represented art.  I have included a picture of the windmill and the sign describing it.  

The Oz Museum was very interesting.  They had displays, dioramas, and lots of info.  They had a film that answered frequently asked questions.  There was also alot of information about the writer of the book the movie was based on L. Frank Baum.  The movie is one of my all time favorites (we watched it again before we went to the museum and it still captivates me), but it was really interesting to learn about the author and how there are actually 14 books that Baum wrote about Oz and the characters.  

Here are some facts I found interesting: 

*11/3/1956 was the first time the Wizard of Oz was on TV, then 1959, then every year starting in 1960.  (How many of you remember watching it each year when it was on?  I sure do)

*They wanted to have 300 munchkins in the movie but were only able to find 124.  They ranged from age 14-60.  There were a few young girls in the movie playing munchkins.

*The special effects were particularly challenging since they had no computers or CGI, etc.  Here are a few interesting special effect facts.  

The monkeys were a combination of actors, actors who also played munchkins and rubber miniature monkeys.  The actors were the ones who picked up the characters on the road.  The rest were rubber monkeys.  There were hundreds of the rubber monkeys hanging from wires. 

Alot of the effects were movies on movies.  So they would film an effect and overlay it on the film.  

The tornado was 35 feet high, made out of chicken wire wrapped in muslin.

*Interesting story about the dog who played Toto.  The original owner took the dog to the trainer because he was not well behaved at all.  The trainer did their job well, but the owner didn’t pay, so he kept the dog and “Toto” was used in many movies.  Judy Garland wanted to buy Toto because she got so close with him during the film, but the trainer/owner wouldn’t sell.

*It took 6 months to film the movie.  All of the actors had broadway experience, except Judy Garland, but she had vaudeville experience.  

* A couple of mishaps, though there were more: The original actor to play the Tin Man, Buddy Epson, ended up in an iron lung from inhaling the aluminum dust they put on over the white clown makeup to make him silver.  When he was replaced, they used a paste instead of dust, but it still caused the second actor to have eye infections.  The witch ended up getting burned when the broom in munchkin land caught on fire.  

*The film when it was originally released did not make money because it was an expensive movie to make and the cost at the movies was so small (5-25 cents for kids, 30-50 cents for adults).  The movie filled the theaters, but it still didn’t add up to alot of money.  

*The author of the book drew from his experience when writing the book.  He had seen a scarecrow in a field when he was a kid and was scared of it.  He was a traveling salesman.  There were tornadoes where he grew up. The Chicago fair was also an influence.  

*The slippers in the book were silver, but they made them red in the movie because they had technicolor.  Silver would have looked too black/white for the colors once Dorothy is in Oz.  

These are a replica of the 50th anniversary ruby slippers that had 3,500 Swarovski crystal rhinestones. 

*There were 20,000 items donated to the Oz Museum by one family.  They rotate these donations.  Many other items have been donated too.  Every year there is an Oz Fest in Wamego.  

A couple of fun photo ops:

That was our big outing for that area.

Our last day at the state park was graduation day for Kansas State University.  It was interesting, we saw at least 3 parties at the campground celebrating graduates.  

Today we moved to Osage Hills State Park in Oklahoma.  

Til next time…