50 States of Wonder
10 Places to Trip Way Out in Kansas

In the heart of Dorothy's home state is a museum celebrating not just her famous 1939 film, but the story of Oz as a cultural phenomenon that began with L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The collection contains thousands of Oz-related artifacts and collectibles, as well as displays that bring scenes from the Judy Garland musical to life, such as a room painted like Dorothy's black-and-white farmhouse that transitions to a brightly lit room where you can take some steps down the yellow brick road. You wouldn't be blamed for thinking you'd stepped into a magical world. (Read more.)

Erika Nelson, creator of the World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things, travels the United States looking for “monsters of the road” (things like the world's largest ketchup bottle or ball of yarn). She then photographs them, and makes a World’s Smallest Version of said World’s Largest Thing. With a little passion and a lot of work, Nelson's created one of the country's greatest roadside attractions—because it's a collection of roadside attractions. (Read more.)

Scattered around the Lincoln County region of Kansas is a series of puzzling sights, all from the imagination of the sculptor Jim Dickerman, and every creation has a story woven within it. One can start a path to see many of them from the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas, where Dickerman is a featured artist. From there, his works, large and small, are scattered around the region, made from found objects such as old farm equipment, car parts, scrap metal, animal bones and feathers, driftwood, limestone, and antlers. (Read more.)

Just north of Kanopolis Lake is Kansas's smallest state park. It may be a mere five acres, but it is also home to some unique and very unexpected rock formations. The park was named, somewhat obviously, for its mushroom rocks, formations that occur when hard rock sits atop softer rock that erodes away over time, leaving the harder rock perched precariously on a soft rock "stem." Here, they seem to arise out of nowhere. The largest one is some 27 feet across. (Read more.)

A low rise near the Kansas-Colorado border is home to Mount Sunflower, the highest point in Kansas. Located at 4,039 feet above sea level, it is on a working cattle ranch owned by Ed and Cindy Harold, who made a sign and a tall sunflower out of railroad spikes to commemorate the spot. A tongue-in-cheek plaque was also placed at the shrine that states, "Nothing happened here in 1897." Due to the gradual rise of the land around, the shrine seems to rest on level ground or even below its surroundings. It is a favorite among those who make a hobby of visiting the record-setting spots (folks affectionately known as "highpointers"). (Read more.)

Randy Walker has been collecting the "odd" since he was 12 years old. His collection, which spans several decades and regions, now fills his home, which doubles as the Museum of Odd. Step inside and you’ll find shelves and tables packed with a bizarre blend of trinkets, including hundreds of sock monkeys, bottlecap people, aluminum cans turned into blossoming flowers, toothpick cabinets, and more. Walker also has a fair amount of esoteric celebrity memorabilia: Bob Barker's toothbrush, a rock Helen Keller touched, Elvis's underwear and DNA, the signature of Charles Manson, and a piece of elephant poop painted like Adolf Hitler (and dubbed "Adolf Shitler"). (Read more.)

Kansans, it seems, have dug themselves into a hole, and they couldn't be happier about it. Billed as the world's largest hand-dug well, "The Big Well" was begun in 1887 with farmers, cowboys, and others in crews of 10 to 15 working dawn to dusk with shovels, picks, a half-barrel, a pulley, and rope to dig the well. At 32 feet wide and 109 feet deep, it is indeed a very big well (though not technically the largest in the world). Today, a museum stands above it. (Read more.)

Angling up toward the sky as though they just burst from the ground, the antique trucks in Ron Lessman's Truckhenge are just the tip of the artistic iceberg on his eccentric farm. Lessman originally created Truckhenge in 2000 as a retort to the county officials who were trying to get him to clean up his land. In response to an order to "pick the trucks up," he elevated the aging vehicles by burying one end of each in the ground, attached to a heavy concrete base. Lessman then painted slogans across the rusting automobiles, such as "Rise Up" and "Freedum Isn't Lost." (Read more.)

Without a plaque or any other indicator, the hidden troll lies in wait, chained beneath an unassuming storm grate in Wichita. Known as "The Wichita Troll” for lack of a proper name, this gruesome sculpture is a well-kept local secret—most visitors walk right over it and never know it is there. But at night, a sickly green light illuminates the seven-foot-tall creature. The work was installed in 2007 by the local artist Connie Ernatt as part of an effort to revitalize the riverside area. (Read more.)

Once home to the most prolific LSD manufacturer in the United States, William Leonard Pickard, this unremarkable former Cold War–era Atlas E missile silo was originally installed by the Air Force in 1961. It was decommissioned in just four years and abandoned, until it was purchased by Gordon Todd Skinner, a young psychedelic drug enthusiast with a massive inheritance. He converted the mostly underground structure into a kind of hidden palace, complete with hot tubs. Working with Pickard, Skinner turned it into the world's largest source of LSD, until Pickard was arrested and 95 percent of the country's LSD supply just disappeared. (Read more.)