Fool's Errand
Day 1
1856 on Display
Day 2
Another Look at Oz
Day 3
Art Old and New
Day 4
Not Your Average Village
Day 5
Kinda Wet in NE and IA
Day 6
Repeats Plus
Day 7
Happy Birthday to Me
April 5, 2026 (day 7)
I wrapped up the trip and my 79th year on earth on the same day. I was
quite happy with both.
April 4, 2026 (day 6)
Not every place I went today was familiar. In fact, one place that was a
repeat looked quite different.
April 3, 2026 (day 5)
It was cloudy and sometimes rainy as I left Nebraska for Iowa, so I didn't
get many pictures. But I got a few.
April 2, 2026 (day 4)
I'm not in Kansas anymore. I'm in Nebraska, on US-6, visiting Harold
Warp's Pioneer Village.
April 1, 2026 (day 3)
Lucas, KS, is a really cool town. No foolin'.
March 31, 2026 (day 2)
Today's cool museum was the Wizard of Oz Museum in Wamego, KS.
March 30, 2026 (day 1)
Although the trip is anchored by April Fool's Day in Lucas, I'm almost as
excited about the museums I get to visit going and coming. First up was
the soon-to-be-closed Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City.
Prelude - January 1, 2026
In March of 2025, I heard artist Erica Nelson in an American Road Trip Talk
podcast talk about the upcoming
April Fools-A-Palooza in her home town of Lucas, KS.
It sounded interesting, and I think it became even more so as it slowly
registered that this was the first organized celebration of April Fool's
Day I'd ever heard of. I was fairly familiar with Erica, met her a couple
of times, and knew of Lucas because of her settling in there. Erica's
primary claim to fame is as the creator of
The World's
Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest
Things, and she has a permanent presence in Lucas which she prefers to
call an expo rather than museum.
I'd wanted to visit Lucas for some time and April Fools-A-Palooza was the extra incentive I needed to get serious about it. There was no way I could make it to the 2025 event but 2026 was different story. I've recently taken to making short trips on some of my birthdays, and having the next one trail April Fools-A-Palooza by just four days, sealed the deal. I haven't booked any motels yet, but I'm plotting the course and sorting the dates and plan to head toward the middle of Kansas near the end of March.