Photo credit: Abel Mares atchisonameliaearhartfoundation.org/2016/08/15/cleared-for-departure/

(KAIR)--Despite a delay in travel plans, the airplane, identical to the one flown by Amelia Earhart, is making its way to Atchison, the city that Earhart once called home.

According to a press release, the 1935 Lockheed Electra L-10E, named Muriel, was set to depart from Gillespie Field Airport, in El Cajon, California, Monday evening.

The plane is being transported as a super wide load by Wichita-based trucking company Landstar, Inc. The truck and trailer will be accompanied by highway patrol, and other escort cars, as Muriel is transported through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, prior to her arrival in Atchison.

Atchison resident Karen Seaberg serves as the Director of the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation. She tells MSC News Muriel was supposed to make the journey last week, but was delayed due, in part, to road construction along the travel route. “If there's road construction, they just stop cold, and they have to wait until everything's gone, and then they can go.”

Muriel was owned, maintained and restored by aviatrix Grace McGuire for 34-years.

The foundation adopted the airplane from McGuire, and plans to eventually house it in an Amelia Earhart themed museum, with a fundraising campaign launched to make that a reality. “We will need to raise money, and we're obviously going to go after grants...it's going to take a lot of money to really make it a museum,” Seaberg says.

Until the museum is constructed, Muriel will be kept safe at Atchison's Amelia Earhart Airport, the likely site of the future museum.

To follow Muriel's journey through the states and find out how you can help make Muriel’s Museum a reality, go to the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation on Facebook at www.facebook.com/murielsjourney or sign up for updates on their website www.atchisonameliaearhartfoundation.org