Before leaving Oklahoma City, we made a stop at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Not only is this a fine museum with many cowboy and Indian exhibits and artifacts, but it also hosts an annual western art contest, so there is much fine art on display. Much was for sale at over $60,000, but we didn't see anything that would hang in the RV! The centerpiece of the lobby is the famous 'End of the Trail' statue by James Earle Fraser. This represents 'The End of the Trail' for the lifestyle of the American Indian. The white man took over their land, slaughtering many, and forcing them onto reservations. The statue depicts the final feeling of defeat. The 'barbed wire' room had about 50 of these pull-out displays of about 1300 different types of barbed wire. Over 8000 more are stored in the basement. Apparently this is a popular collectible. Who knew?? We only had two hours here, and was enough, barely. We could have stayed longer, but they were closing. So we left there and headed for Kansas. Kansas is known as 'America's Breadbasket' because of all the wheat grown here. It didn't take long to get into it. We overnighted at the Walmart in Wellington, Ks, then went on up to Wichita. We had thought about trying to tour the Cessna Aircraft plant there, but couldn't find anything about it, so we settled for touring the Coleman RV Air Conditioner plant instead. These are the rooftop units that go mostly on RV's. My company buys thousands each year. They make over 250,000. Their plant is un-ostentatious, in an industrial area. Copper tubing bent and ready to install. When copper prices are high, some of this may disappear. Several stamping machines stamp out and form sheet metal parts from large rolls of sheet steel. See one just to the left of the yellow thing. One of two assembly lines. Almost finished units come from the pressure test on the right, come around to the left where a lady attached a freon hose. A computerized dose is applied according to the size/capacity of the unit as determined by a bar code on the unit. A hydraulic clamp crimps the copper fill tube, and the fill fitting is removed. Pretty slick!! Finally the two-piece shrouds (covers) are snapped together, ready to be installed on the finished product. Our visit here was interesting and informative. This was in the morning, so we had time to head north to Abilene and visit another attraction. Stay tuned.
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Who are We?Chuck and Mary Lou have been traveling Trip Reports
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