museums

If you’ve driven the long way across Kansas on I-70, there are two things that you’ve seen and wondered about.

First and foremost, Wheat Jesus on a billboard in Colby, Kansas. I have no insights, artistic, theological or sociological, on Wheat Jesus, or “Wheatus” as some folks know him.

There’s also the big beige dome on the south side of I-70 in Hays, Kansas. That’s the Sternberg Museum of Natural History. You really should take an hour or two to visit it. Well worth your time.

A Museum You Should Visit

Fossil Butte National Monument is about 20 miles from Kemmerer, Wyoming, and well worth a visit.

A museum and exhibit you should visit

Denver Museum of Nature and Science currently has an absolutely fascinating, traveling exhibit about Orcas.

A Museum You Should Visit

Less a museum and more a visit to a time and place in the distant past,

if you’re in the vicinity of Thermopolis WY you should make great efforts to get to Legend Rock Petroglyph Site.

If you’re ever near Rapid City, SD, you should visit the Reptile Gardens.

A Museum You Should Visit

Hot Springs, South Dakota has a unique museum, The Mammoth Site. If you’re anywhere near South Dakota’s Black Hills, The Mammoth Site is worth a stop.

A Museum You Should Visit

You should make the trip to Thermopolis, WY to visit the Wyoming Dinosaur Center This museum has the most mounted skeletons of Mesozoic vertebrates I’ve seen in a single institution, plus many more interesting fossils or casts.

Wyoming Dinosaur Center has some great Paleozoic material. There’s a placoderm and ostracoderm exhibit, covering important taxa that you don’t see exhibited often. The Center has two Dunkleosteus armored skulls, both different than the cast on display at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

A Museum You Should Visit

If you’re in or near Hutchinson, KS, you really should spend half a day at Strataca, previously known as the Kansas Underground Salt Museum.

You could combine this with a visit to the nearby Cosmosphere for a really weird experience.

A museum you should visit

If you’re in or near Hutchinson, KS, you should visit the Cosmosphere. Heck, if you’re in Wichita, you should visit the Cosmosphere. It’s that good.