The National WWI Museum and Memorial

 Kansas City, MO

The View from The Liberty Memorial Tower.  

The WWI Museum

Today I went to The National WW1 Museum and Memorial.  Gordon, Alan, and Augie were back in town and it was on their list of places to visit so I joined them.  I rode the KC Streetcar to Union Station and then hiked up the hill to the memorial.  When we bought our tickets we were told that we should start in the Liberty Memorial Tower so that's what we did.  The tower is 217 feet from it's base and 268 feet from the grass lawn below the elevated base the tower sits on.  That's still well below the Kansas Capitol Dome which is 306 feet high.  While we were up on the tower Gordon asked about the Kansas Capitol Dome and I said it was way scarier and that this tower that we were on fits inside the dome.  It gave the dome even more perspective.  It was a fairly short visit up top.  It was a small area and it was 85 degrees and in the sun.

Volunteers worked the elevator shuttling people up and down.

There were 45 easy steps after the elevator to the top.  It wasn't anything like the Tower steps in the Kansas Dome.

I am sure the downtown views would be amazing at night but the tower closes at 4:30.

After the tower, we wandered into a smaller part of the museum that had some Russian and Austrian War Relics from The Eastern Front.  It was off in a smaller building away from the museums main entrance.

We made our way to the main entrance of the museum and waited for the intro movie to start.  The main part of the museum is broken up into 2 parts.  Part 1 is before the US entered the war and Part 2 is the second half of the war during the US involvement. There were 2 movies at the beginning of each part to set the stage for what was going on at the time.

The entrance featured a glass bridge with poppies below it.  Poppies were common sight along the western front and have become a symbol of remembrance in many places.

I'm drawn to the art wherever we go so I liked these old posters.

It all started with an assassination, partly due to economical inequities going on at the time. 

This started a huge chain reaction with each nation jumping into the war for different reasons.

They had old photos that you could explore with this magnifying glass.

Will Rogers makes a solid point

Some foreshadowing here.

This was a big take away for me.  The US wasn't considered a world power before the war and Germany wasn't too concerned about our entry.  After The Great War the US vowed to avoid war on foreign soil and that vow stayed strong for about 22 years.  And then we forgot the vow and continued to fight wars around the world for various reasons.

The spoils of war go to the consumers at the Museum Store

The Cafe was closed

Get your Propaganda Cola!

Marketing keeping it classy.

The WWI museum was good for what it was.  It told the story of how it all played out and had some cool stuff to look at.  I suggest you save $20 and visit this timeline they have posted online.  It pretty much lays out everything for you while you drink coffee in your underwear.  

Dinner

After the museum we went to early dinner at a Chinese place that Gordon picked out.  We went to Peking Chinese Restaurant. It was good Fast Food Style Chinese Food with a fun server / probably owner.  We were only 1 of 3 groups when we got there but she still felt the need to rush us to order.  She let us know that they do not serve tap water because it is poison.  If we wanted water we would have to buy bottled water and all of the drinks are $1.50.  We discussed the dangers of drinking tea made from poison water but decided that the word poison was probably an overstatement because Donna and I have been drinking the water for almost a month.  We figured that the $1.50 per drink would ward off any ill effects the poison may cause.

The menu complete with hand edits.  

It was a fun day with Gordon.  He heads back to Orange County tomorrow and we will pick up with him again in January at Disney World.  We are both looking forward to that but not looking past the fun adventures that we still have between now and then.  We only have 5 days left in Kansas City and 2 of those will be cooking and packing.  We have a 2 week road trip between here and Baltimore.  We are looking forward to the camping we will do and I hope to add to our bird list.  There hasn't been much nature the past month but that is about to change.

That's it for today.  If you didn't read about The Money Museum yesterday you can check it out here.  We got to see what $40 million dollars looks like stacked up against the wall.