LCCA Day 4

Today we visited Independence, Missouri. We started with a quick stop at the Truman home for photos and a little explanation of his time there. I have a photograph at home of Mr. Truman in his later years sitting on this porch in a rocking chair, and I've promised Anders that I'll send him a copy of it. Anders seemed to be quite interested in being in places where an actual U.S. President had once been.

Before going on to the Truman Library, we did a quick drive-by of several areas in the vicinity of the home and the library. One was the Vaile Mansion. Between St. Joseph, Kansas City, and Independence, we have seen numerous beautiful old mansions. Having been major stopping points during the migration of our citizens to the west, fortunes were made and elaborate homes were built.

I had not been to the Truman Library for probably 30 years, but I remembered enjoying my first visit here. Mr. Truman is one of the Presidents I find most interesting. Maybe a little of that interest derives from the fact that he became President nearly one year after I was born, and I do recall him as President right up to my 9th year. Since then, I've read quite a bit about him, though I want to read David McCullough's Truman yet this year.

After some basic introduction, we visited Mr. Truman's and Bess Truman's graves  which are in the courtyard of the library.

Anders liked seeing the mockup of the Truman's oval office.

I had to help Anders understand this famous sign. There were numerous children-oriented displays in the library, and he later had a chance to make one of these for himself from paper (one of the numerous souvenirs he will be taking home).

Another of the children's features was under this poster.

Anders read the poster and immediately grabbed one of the papers to write his letter.

Here is what the letter said:

Dear President Harry S. Truman, 
You have done good at beeing Presadint.
Anders

Next, we stopped to see the oldest remaining train depot in Missouri. This Chicago and Alton Railway station from Independence has been fully restored.

I couldn't resist photographing this wood engine model, not unlike the one I made recently, as some of you may recall from my April 1 blog posting.

We then traveled next door to see the National Frontier Trails Museum. I didn't take any photos there for some reason, but you can see more about it here. After that, we went just up the hill for lunch and to tour the Bingham-Waggoner Estate, about which you can learn more here. This huge mansion, which sits on nearly 20 acres in Independence has been restored. Nearly everything in it, furniture and all, belonged to the Waggoner family, which last owned the home. So it is in essentially the same condition as when they were last there.

Two of the things Anders and I enjoyed seeing most were this incredible music box, which we got to hear,

and this 1893 Zimmer's Base Ball board game. Only ten of these are known still to exist.

On the way back to the hotel we were driven through Subtropolis. No stops were made, so I didn't get any pictures, but this is without doubt one of the strangest commercial spaces I've ever seen. You can read about it here and see a couple of pictures as well. It is a man-made 1,100 acre cave in the limestone cliffs, where businesses have storage and other facilities. There was quite a bit of traffic on the many roads inside this cave--very strange to see.

This afternoon, Anders and I spent quite a bit of time viewing model train layouts at the hotel and visiting with other folks at the convention. Tomorrow we will tour a couple more sites (Negro Leagues Museum and Jazz Museum) and get a behind-the-scenes tour of the Royals' baseball stadium (dugouts, dressing rooms, scoreboard, etc.). After that, we'll drive back to Minneapolis.