We're Not In Kansas Anymore....

Tim and I had planned a Fall Vacation to Wyoming and Montana to see Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. Little did we realize that everything can pretty much shut down this early due to snow. Plus - I was pretty busy with orders, and couldn't get away for the full 8 days so we shortened the trip to a couple of days of dinking around in Kansas. First stop was in Abilene where we shopped every available antique store in town - and there are tons of them.
Next stop was Paxico for more antiquing and dinking....and drinking....we both love Elderberry wine and they make the best there.

Tim bought this weather vane for the chicken house:

Next town was Wamego - the Wizard of Oz capital of the world. They have a museum, Oz Winery, yellow brick roads etc... This year is the 70th anniversary of the movie, so it was digitally colorized and re-released. Oz Fest is taking place today and tomorrow in Wamego, and the guests of honor are three of the six surviving original munchkins. Amazingly, they were staying at the same hotel as us. While I was taking a shower, Tim went to get some coffee, struck up a conversation with them and sat and had coffee with them! We listened to their radio interview later that morning as we were driving back North. These lovely little people are all in their 90's and doing great. My favorite quote from their interview was when asked what made the movie so popular for so long. Carl answered "there's no cussing, no bad talk of any kind, and no bikinis". Unfortunately we didn't get any photos, so this morning I took a picture of a praying mantis in the yard....sort of Oz Like.

"There's No Place Like Home!"