National WWI Museum

NOTE:  This blog is part of the "1980 Buick LeSabre Road Trip - October 2011 Series".  Branelle and I flew up to Minnesota and drove back to Texas in her grandmothers 1980 LeSabre, a gift from her parents and Nana.  We took about a week getting back because, as I reminded Nel on a number of occasions, "sometimes it's about the journey, not the destination".

National WWI Museum

After visiting the Federal Reserve Bank in KC, we headed literally across the street to the National World War I Museum.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit that even though I have visited KC before, and the museum has been here in some form since 1926, I wasn't even aware it existed before we planned this trip.  The outside is quite spectacular.  It's technically called "National WWI Museum at Liberty Memorial", with the memorial being the 217-foot Liberty Tower that rises above KC.  The place opens at 10am, but we were done at the Fed by about 9:30 so we walked around the outside to kill some time (and took the opportunity to take some pics of the still fantastic running Buick in front of the memorial).

The mighty LeSabre in front of the museum.

"In honor of those who served in the World War in defense of liberty and our country"

The actual museum is entered through what seem like bunker doors underground.  We were extremely surprised by how big and nice the inside of the structure is.  Entry through the bunker doors gets you into a corridor where you can buy tickets for the museum itself.  We did so, and then hit the "Over There Café" since Nel hadn't had any coffee yet this morning.

Breakfast at the "Over There Cafe".

To walk into the museum, you first cross the Paul Sunderland Bridge - basically a massive glass floor that spans a field of 9,000 poppies.  Each poppy represents 1000 combatant deaths during WWI - if you're doing the math, that's over 9 million.  Why poppies?  The battlefields of Europe during the war became desolate wastelands with virtually no vegetation, but every spring the poppies would rise out of the muck to dot the landscape with little reddish orange flowers.  This occurrence was immortalized by a Canadian lieutenant colonel named John McCrae in a poem entitled "In Flanders Fields".  This poem has been memorized by schoolchildren in Europe for decades.

A poor effort at photographing the poppies under the glass bridge.

After entering the actual museum, you watch a 12-minute film which does a pretty good job of offering insight into the events that led to the war.  Considering the lack of film footage from the early 1900's, it's very well done.  The next halls cover artifacts and history of the war from 1914-1917, prior to America entering.  They have an amazing collection of artillery, uniforms, etc., and some interactive sections including mock ups of a trench you can walk through. 

The artifacts are amazing.  We were pretty much alone in the place since it was early on a weekday morning and I was climbing all over everything - sitting in tanks and artillery - before I noticed the museums rather subtle way of posting "Do Not Touch" - oops.

 

When you leave the last hall of this section of the museum, you enter the Horizon Theater.  They show a 15-minute program about Americas decision to enter the war.  It's a very cool theater with some impressive artifacts (even a plane) that are part of the show.  When you finish the program, you enter the section of the museum that covers 1917-1919, the years of American involvement until the end of the war.  There's a giant crater with actual debris from a building destroyed by artillery and a lot more to see and do.  We pretty much had the place to ourselves but we didn't do everything.

When we had finished with the museum, we headed up to the roof to take a ride up in the tower.  There's a guy who takes you up in an elevator and then you walk the rest of the way to the top via a very narrow stairwell.  It's not for the claustrophobic or acrophobic, but the view from the top is great.  There's nothing else to do up there but look at KC and take a few pictures, so we headed back down after a few minutes.

Probably the best view of Kansas City there is.

The stairwell atop the tower isn't long, but not for the faint of heart either.

 

The National WWI Museum is a surprisingly nice and well down place.  It does a fantastic job of telling a part of our nation's history that I fear most of my generation is just too young to know anything about.  I learned a lot, and I kind of thought I knew more than most about WWI already.  Nel agreed that it was a wonderful history lesson and should be visited by anyone in the KC area.  My only complaint is that while they do a very good job of educating in a chronological manner, they don't really finish the story.  They really need a third film covering the events that ultimately led to the end of the war and what happened immediately after.