Day 1 - Friday, June 12 - And We’re Off!!!
As I mentioned in the overview, Nanny, Grandpa, and the others had already left to visit Mt. Rushmore, Badlands, Devil’s Tower, etc. The plan was to meet up with them the following day in Cheyenne, WY and then caravan together the rest of the way to California. So we were on our own for the first leg of the trip...
This was perfect, because we decided to start our journey with a visit to Walt’s hometown, Marceline, MO. We’ve been there a few times before. It’s great for a day trip and certainly worth a visit on its own accord. If you are ever even remotely close to being in the area, you should plan a visit. For a Disney fan, it’s like making a pilgrimage.
We originally planned to drive to San Francisco in three days, which didn’t leave time for a stop in Marceline. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to stop. It just seemed appropriate since we’d be seeing so many other Walt Disney related sites on this trip. So, we decided to depart after lunch on Friday (instead of early Saturday morning.)
I took a half day off from work. I got home around Noon, we finished loading the car, and we were on the road by 12:30 PM. Not bad!!!
We drove north to Hannibal, waived to the giant Mark Twain statue, and then headed west on Route 36. It took a little less than three hours to get to Marceline. Sort of an uneventful drive, so I won’t bore you with the details...
I wrote a little bit about
Marceline in the pre trip report, and see my signature for a
TR from a couple years ago. In a nutshell, the Disney family moved from Chicago to Marceline in 1906 when Walt was four. They lived there for a few years, until 1910. However, as an adult, Walt said, “To tell the truth, more things of importance happened to me in Marceline than have happened to me since or are likely to in the future.” This is where his great love of trains started, and much of his time spent living on the farm served as inspiration for future movies and cartoons. Later in life, he came back to Marceline many times, and had even purchased his boyhood home with the plans to develop a rural experience around it. The idea behind this “Marceline Project” is really facinating. Unfortunately, it was in its infancy when Walt died and it was scrapped (along side his Mineral King ski resort project
http://www.yesterland.com/mineralking.html), so that they could focus on completing the Walt Disney World project. The land was sold back to Walt’s partner, who’s daughter (Kaye Malins) still lives in the home today. She’s the one who runs the Walt Disney Hometown museum, and has has opened up some of the original Disney farm property to the public. We’ve had a chance to meet her at the museum couple times, and she’s a real sweet heart. (Actually all the people who work at the museum have been very sweet.) Her story of growing up and interacting with Walt is pretty darn cool.
There are a few more sites of interest in Marceline, and I’m going to gloss over them here. If you are more interested, go to
the Walt Disney Family Museum website for more information.
And read this quick D23 article. It does a better job at summarizing Marceline than I can.
So, back to the trip report….
We arrived around 3:15 PM. The museum closes at 4:00, but that was OK because we’ve toured it twice in the last couple of years, so we didn’t feel like we needed a full tour this time. But I did want to hit the gift shop before they closed.
Noting that the museum is located in former Santa Fe train station. Pretty cool. We took a couple minutes for a few photos.
And then the first train came barreling by. Seems like one passes by every 10 or 15 minutes, pretty darn cool! (Buddy and I stopped by earlier this spring just to sit and watch the trains go by all afternoon.)
The kids were having fun exploring the garden outside, so Stephanie and I went inside to visit the gift shop. I knew that we’d have the chance to meet Bob Gurr later in this trip (more on him later) and I wanted to bring him a pin from Marceline and maybe a post card (and have it cancelled by the Walt Disney Post Office.)
I couldn’t resist getting a photo inside. Kaye took the photo for us. How cool is that!
A couple notes about that photo. The Disneyland flag above us is the only DLR flag authorized to fly outside of Disneyland. Walt donated it to the local school, when they renamed it to the “Walt Disney Elementary School”. Also behind us in the glass case, is the desk that Walt sat at as a child. You can still see his initials carved into it today.
So yeah, we stopped to talk to Kaye and the other ladies for a few minutes. We purchased the pin and post card, and then they wished us well on our journey. Asking us to tell their Californian counterparts hello when we arrived.
Note that the photo above shows the back side of the post card. Marceline has the only official Walt Disney Post Office in the country, and they have a special stamp that they use to cancel postage. We headed over to the post office next to get this post card (as well as a couple generic envelopes) cancelled as cheap souvenirs.
Someone could write a whole blog post on just the history surrounding the Post Office, but I’ll just leave you with a couple photos.
The kids played outside in Ripley Park while I went to get the stamps cancelled.
I came out to find the younger two spinning on the merry go round. (And you can just make out another train passing behind that black locomotive.)
Classic!!! I know that these things are dangerous and aren’t available in most newer playgrounds, but I totally remember playing on these things when I was a kid. Great memories!!!
And of course, a quick snap shot of the locomotive located in the park. Too cool!
All right, we don’t have a ton of time to spend in Marceline, so come on kids… let’s get moving to our next destination. (Of course, they didn’t want to leave.)
So they say... Main Street Marceline served as a lot of the inspiration for Main Street Disneyland. Of course, it’s not an exact replica or anything, but the main street “vibe” is totally there. There are a several cool sites on Marceline’s main street (including the Uptown Theater where Walt held the Midwest premiere of The Great Locomotive Chase), but again, I don’t have time for all those details. I did want to get a photo of our family on Main Street Marceline and then a similar photo from Main Street Disneyland for comparison. You’ll have to wait until later in the trip report to see how they compare to each other. Ahhh… the suspense.
Next up, we headed a mile or two south to the Walt Disney Municipal Park.
The main attraction here, is the site of the old Midget Autopia ride. You can Google it for more details, but basically Walt had it removed from Disneyland after a year or two because he didn’t like how parents couldn’t ride it along side their kids. Instead of trashing it, he donated it to the town of Marceline. I think this was the only Disneyland attraction to be repurposed outside of the park. It fell into disrepair a few years later, but you can see one of the original cars in the museum back in town. They have plans for a new version of the attraction. I really hope that they can make it happen.
The cars and the metal track are long gone, but the concrete foundation is still present. They turned it into a playground.
In the past, we’ve brought the kids big wheels and scooters to cruise around on the tracks. No room in the car for those this time around, but they still had fun running along the tracks… pretending they were driving imaginary cars.
After playing on the Autopia track for a while, they moved over to the other old school playground equipment.
In the meantime, Stephanie and I just soaked it all in. The weather was spectacular that day. A nice cool breeze. The wind pushing the leaves in all the trees. The rolling hills in the background. Everything was just so laid back. That combined with the small town vibe of the area, really set us off in a positive way. Things just felt “right”. I can see why Walt held such a fondness in his heart for Marceline. What a great way to start our vacation!
A couple more freight trains rolled by too. When it was time to load back into the car, we looked up to see Buddy and Pickle watching the trains together from the old Midget Autopia overpass. OK, this trip is really starting off on the right foot. (And I promise that the following photo was not staged.)
