Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum - Atchison, KS

On sunny but extremely windy Saturday, I took off for Atchison, Kansas. No major highway or interstate goes there so around the halfway mark I turn off onto a two lane road that follows the railroad tracks. For twenty miles there's nothing but farmland, trains and the occasional other car.

The museum is easy to find, Atchison is very small and very proud of it's heritage so it isn't hard to miss the signs that lead the way. It is a beautiful stately house that has been maintained for many years by the Ninety-Nines, an international group of female licensed pilots. Amelia Earhart was their first elected president.

It is a stately house filled with homages to Amelia's life - from a bathing suit she wore when she was four-years-old to a model of her plane to multiple portraits of her throughout her life. The parlors and formal dining room downstairs are finished to the full former majesty while the upstairs bedrooms have a cozy comfortable feeling, complete with quilts and clothing laid out as if to be worn the next day.

The museum shows Amelia Earhart mostly as a woman but also for the amazing pilot she was. The first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger, the first woman to make a solo flight around the United States, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, not to mention her numerous speed and altitude records.

In addition to her courageous acts as a pilot, the museum also records her works as a writer and fashion designer. She was an accomplished poet and published multiple books. She also designed clothes for her fellow female pilots she eventually developed into a fashion line for "the woman who lives actively."

Atchison may be out of the way, but it was worth the trip to see the museum. But I have another stop to make - the Haunted Waggener House - before I go home.

Click here to see more photos!

Total Trip Time: 3 hours
Total Distance Traveled: 138 miles
Soundtrack: "The Ascension" Otep