Czech Mate

 "Czech"mate: Another Kansas day trip has been successfully completed.

A trip last week took us to the Czech Capital of Kansas - Wilson - and to Lucas by way of Claflin. (Exploring Millers of Claflin furniture store is a whole other kind of trip, but that's another story.) 

You know the saying about kids' allowance burning a hole in their pocket? Randy has that kind of reaction when he hears about road trips. Ever since he heard about friends who took their grandsons to the Garden of Eden in Lucas in mid-July, he wanted to schedule a similar road trip. 

With a little cooler day in the forecast last Thursday, he convinced me.  

  

During the 1870s, a large migration of Bohemian and Moravian immigrants from Czechoslovakia settled in and around Wilson. Many Czech families still live in the area and carry on Czech traditions, including Czech food, art, dancing and music. The City of Wilson acknowledged its pride in its Czech heritage in 1967, when the State of Kansas declared Wilson the Czech Capital of Kansas. Czech eggs are traditionally painted or embellished eggs exchanged at holidays and celebrations. The painting of the egg is known as the art of kraslice in the Czech culture. 

The idea of creating the World’s Largest Czech Egg began in 2003. Hess Services Inc from Hays delivered the fiberglass egg in August of 2012. Volunteers sanded the egg in the summer of 2013, and the black base coat was painted by volunteers in the summer of 2014. The egg design was done by Christine Slechta, the Wilson School art  teacher, with students and volunteers doing the painting in the summer of 2015. The egg was dedicated in July 2016, 10 years ago. 

The design includes an eight-pointed star, which symbolizes birth and the belief that every person has their own star. The radiant sun means good fortune, and specific colors like red represent joy and health. 

The World’s Largest Hand-painted Czech Egg stands 20 feet high and 15 feet wide under a gazebo in the Ed and LaVange Shiroky Park in Wilson. There are smaller decorated eggs scattered around Wilson's downtown.  

I loved this sunflower egg. (We should have stopped and taken some other egg photos, but Randy's real destination was the Garden of Eden. Plus, it was getting warmer.)

And who knew there would be a "news peg" for this blog post? On Wednesday morning (08-11-26), I saw that Governor Laura Kelly had announced that the State of Kansas and the Czech Republic signed a Statement of Mutual Cooperation. The statement will allow for greater cooperation between Kansas and the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Industry and Trade related to trade, business development, technological research, and several other key areas. The governor's office said it will foster even stronger bilateral relations and create new avenues of cooperation among Czech and Kansan entrepreneurs, businesses, scientists, artists, universities, and other institutions. The Statement of Mutual Cooperation focuses on four key industries: aerospace; agriculture, animal health, and biotechnology; advanced manufacturing; and nanotechnologies.

And Wilson was mentioned in the press release: "The statement strengthens ties between the citizens of the Czech Republic and Kansas and supports Czech cultural heritage in the state. Kansas is home to several Czech businesses as well as the town of Wilson, the Czech Capital of Kansas and one of the largest Czech-American communities in the United States."

We ate lunch at Made From Scratch in Wilson. Both of us were planning to order bierocks, but they were sold out. I had a delicious Reuben sandwich on homemade rye bread with house-made sauerkraut. Randy finished his meal with rhubarb pie ala mode.

Then we were off to Lucas. Driving by Wilson Lake was a trip down memory lane for Randy, who used to take the kids there on camping trips. He pointed out the convenience store where he'd let the kids choose Oreos and other snack foods. When he was a teenager, there were also plenty of excursions to Wilson Lake with his family and neighbors. 

From the Lucas Chamber of Commerce web page

Lucas is known as the Grassroots Capital of Kansas. Grassroots art is defined as creative work made by self-taught individuals. Lucas has grassroots art from more than 20 artists. Lucas was named one of the 8 Wonders of Art by the Kansas Sampler Foundation. 

The movement in Lucas began way back in 1907, when Civil War Veteran Samuel Perry Dinsmoor began creating his cabin home and sculptures using concrete and native post rock at age 62. 

He constructed the home using limestone logs, some up to 21 feet long. Then, using 113 tons of cement, Dinsmoor built 40-foot tall "trees" to hold his larger-than-life figures for his sculpture garden. The sculptures reflect Dinsmoor's views about Populist politics, life and the Bible. 

Dinsmoor built a 40-foot tall limestone mausoleum for himself and his first wife. Visitors can actually "visit" Dimsmoor in his handmade glass-topped concrete coffin. Yes, it's bizarre. But then again, I supposed The Garden of Eden is bizarre, too.

The mausoleum is the pyramid-shaped building on the right.

Adjacent to the Garden of Eden is Roy and Clara Miller's rock park. 

It was created by the Millers originally "as an oasis for weary travelers" and was located on the west edge of town. The Millers traveled to 37 states, picking up interesting rocks, minerals, shells and artifacts. They incorporated their finds into a series of cone shaped towers. The park opened in 1921 with sculpture construction started in 1932. In 1969, the site was sold to settle the estate and sculptures moved to Hays. But in 2013, the sculptures came back to Lucas.

These aren't the only bizarre attractions in town. Because Lucas has more than 15,000 visitors a year exploring the grassroots art, the city needed public restrooms. So the Grassroots Art Center and other residents created a public restroom that's also an art attraction.

The building is shaped like a toilet tank, the benches in front represent the curved toilet seat and the entrance is like a raised toilet lid. The sidewalk spools out of a toilet paper sculpture.

Inside, almost every surface of  the bathrooms - except the toilet and the sinks themselves - are mosaic art. 

 

Inside the women's bathroom: 

 

 

And inside the men's bathroom:

Toilet Bowl Plaza was voted the 2018 International Toilet Tourism Award for Quirkiest. Imagine that!

We also went into other art galleries and the Roadside Sideshow Expo, which features "the World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things." (Now that's a mouthful!) 

If oddities and curiosities are appealing, a road trip to Lucas might fulfill some of your hankerings for the bizarre.