I recently returned from our family vacation to Kansas City (visiting relatives and whatnot). One of the things that we did was visit the WWI Memorial & Museum. I went there not expecting much and to probably spend a couple hours then off to other things. I was wrong! Now, let me state that I am a big time history nut (I would have majored in History if there was a future in it) and I was really amazed at the vastness of the museum. We actually canceled the other items we had planned for the day to spend as much time as we could at the museum.

Some of the highlights for me:
- The amazing artwork in the Hall of Memories, including The Pantheon de la Guerre and all the hand drawn maps.
- The movie and life-size trench showing what trench warfare was like.
- The amazing collection of uniforms, weapons, supplies, insignias, and personal items
- The way the hall was split showing the war prior to the US entering and then the US section.

We probably spent six hours there and I know I did not see everything. We did go to the top of the tower and at least walked into each of the exhibit halls.

If this is something that you like to do, I'd say you should visit the museum if you are near KC. (Website:www.theworldwar.org

I do have some pics on my facebook site if you'd like to see them. They are not super high quality like some of the ones you guys have posted here, but decent.

I'm also a huge history buff and love stuff like that. If you have a flickr account or something you can pop the images on to, I'd love to see them.

I really need to make some specific feeds and share them here myself. I've got some revolutionary war graves I took pictures of in New Jersey that are really awesome.

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Let me see if my Flickr account is still active and I'll put some on there.

It is pretty cool. I remember there being a similar one in Louisiana and one near the Virginia Military Institute. For different eras of course, one is Civil War and the other is WWII/Korea.

You'd probably like the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground; its curator is a regular guest on the History Channel. Has mockups of soldiers from WWI to present day, and examples of their equipment. Lots of one of a kind items like underwater rocket rifles, etc..

Problem is, there's not much of anything else nearby. It's about an hour outside Baltimore.

This is kinda an aside, but you know what I wish museums would do, more virtual tours. The technology exists to do it really well, and I know museums need money to survive.

I honestly wouldn't mind paying like $5 or less for a 'pass' to virtually tour a museum for 10-30 days. And I wouldn't mind paying more for special exhibits that they run. I'd love to see them offer it free (but it may be slow loading depending on the number of people hitting it), and then premium means you pay so you don't have a slow connection.

I wouldn't even need that 3D virtual walk around tour shit, just really good pics of the items on display and the write ups to go with it, plus access to the voice tour would be enough.

That would really rock.

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In my younger, hatefilled days, we would drive up there at night and throw hotdogs at the "guys".