Hutchinson is an all-day adventure

Go “down under” and “blast off” in Hutchinson, where a day trip from Johnson County definitely will be an all-day adventure. The city’s Kansas Underground Salt Museum and the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center are two of the Eight Wonders of Kansas.

The Kansas Underground Salt Museum opened two years ago at a cost of nearly $13 million. Part of the facility is a vast storage area used by all 50 states, 23 countries and by Hollywood movie studios for storing props and films, including “The Wizard of Oz.”

Visitors travel 650 feet down into the salt mine and are taken on a tour via an electric-driven tram. At a constant 68 degrees, the facility feels like an underground garage.

The salt in this mine is used for road salt and for making homemade ice cream. Chicago buys the most road salt from this mine and the state of Iowa is second.

The Underground Vaults and Storage Co. began in the 1940s after a group of American soldiers saw a similar storage facility in Nazi Germany. Visitors are not allowed in the vault area, but a sample of things that are stored there are on display, including Superman’s cape and the Batman costume worn by George Clooney.

The most unique item stored in the mine is the world’s oldest known organism: the 2-9-3 virgibacillus bacteria estimated to be 100 million years older than the dinosaurs. It is still alive because bacteria have the ability to transcend into a type of semi-permanent hibernation. Scientists found the bacteria in a pocket of salt water trapped in a 250-million-year-old salt crystal. When exposed to a new salt solution and fresh nutrients, the ancient bacteria reanimated.

Scientists estimate the salt mines formed more than 275 million years ago and below Hutchinson is the richest vein of salt in the country.

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and from 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays. Reservations are recommended. Tickets range from $9.50 to $14.35. Children under age 4 are not permitted in the Salt Museum because of safety regulations.

The best deal is buying joint tickets for the Salt Museum and the Cosmosphere. These range from $18 to $24.

Before going to the Cosmosphere, continue north on Airport Road and turn right at 11th Street to the Airport Steak House. Menu items are available, but do the buffet. The fried chicken and meatloaf are delicious. You can get $2 off if you use the coupon on the stub of your Salt Museum ticket.

After lunch, drive west on 11th Street to Plum Street and the Cosmosphere. The main entrance was constructed around an SR-71A Blackbird spy plane.

The Cosmosphere is the world’s leading space artifact restoration and replication facility.

The German Gallery chronicles how Hitler’s Germany laid the groundwork for space travel and includes the world’s only complete set of Germany’s Vengeance weapons, a V-1 (buzz bomb) and America’s V-2 rocket.

The Cold War Gallery’s artifacts and replicas detail the early drama of the space race between America and the Soviet Union. The gallery includes flight-ready backups of the USSR’s Sputnik I and America’s Explorer satellites.

In the Mollett Early Spaceflight Gallery, exhibits include the flown Gemini X spacecraft, the flown Russian Vostok spacecraft, and the 109-foot flight-ready backup Titan rocket.

Of special interest is the Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft, piloted by Virgil “Gus” Grissom on a successful 15-minute flight on July 21, 1961. It was America’s second manned space flight and the first space capsule with a window and an emergency hatch. As a recovery helicopter hovered over the capsule, the hatch door blew open and the capsule began to fill with water. Grissom was saved, but the helicopter had to sever its retrieval line and the capsule sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where it remained until recovery on July 20, 1999. It was sent to the Cosmosphere for restoration.

The Apollo Gallery includes a moon rock from Apollo II’s mission and the actual Apollo 13 command module Odyssey, which experienced an explosion 56 hours into its flight on the way to the moon. NASA engineers worked to solve critical survival and navigational problems to bring the crippled spacecraft safely home.

On the way home, take the northern route and stop for supper in Salina. Martinelli’s, 158 S. Santa Fe in downtown Salina, offers great spaghetti and meat balls, excellent salad, and scrumptious veal parmesan.

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