Kansas City!

We were up with the sun and had said goodbye to our cool downtown home in Denver before 6:30am because we had a VERY LONG DRIVE through Kansas to Kansas City, Missouri to drive!  In case you were wondering what Kansas looks like out the car window, here you go!  Pretty exciting, huh?!

My friend Andrea used to live in Salinas, a small town right in the middle of Kansas, so she recommended a cute little restaurant in the downtown area that we could check out for lunch.  When we got there, it happened to be the “Statue Tour” day and the local dance studio was performing in the middle of the street to start off the tour.  I LOVE SMALL TOWN events… they’re just so small!  lol

There really wasn’t much to see in Kansas, although I did think this field of dandelions outside the rest stop was pretty cool. J

We made it to Kansas City, MO around 6:00pm and were floored with how awesome it was!  We were just planning to “stop through” this city and found ourselves wanting to stay!  It’s charming, the neighborhoods are historic and well maintained, the restaurants are fantastic, the architecture is cool, the people are young and hip , there are museums galore, and there’s grass and big huge trees all over the city!  We checked into our 3^rd AirBnB home in a neighborhood called “The Plaza” and were met by the sweet owner, a single, very active and spunky woman named Carol, in her 70s!

We lounged around in her den, getting to hear her incredible life story of love, loss, family, moving from upstate NY to here in the 70’s and making a life for herself in a town she HATED but now never wants to leave!  Getting to know people is what using www.AirBnB.com  is all about, and I love it!  She also recommended a couple restaurants that all of the locals love, so off we went to Jack Stack BBQ in The Plaza area of town.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that Kansas City is known as the City of Fountains and boasts hundreds of beautiful fountains!

After dinner, we drove around the area and headed back home just in time to find shelter from the lightning and thunder storm that rolled through the city! (By the way, we literally escaped a tornado by 2 hours earlier today.  It touched down right near the FWY we drove down.) 

The next morning (Sunday), we woke up, said goodbye to Carol and her beautiful home and checked out the WW1 museum (The only one in the country!).

Can you guess who’s idea this was?  Lol

While I’m not a war fanatic, I did like looking through the old posters…

And the old cars were really cool…

After touring the museum, we headed outside and up the steps to the WW1 memorial tower!

The tornadoes may be 100 miles away, but the wind was fierce today!!

But the view atop the tower was COMPLETELY worth my hair violetntly whipping me in the face… and girls you know how painful that can be sometimes! Lol

And this one’s just to prove we were up there! J

After the WW1 museum, Aaron dropped me off to explore The Plaza Area while he checked out the famous art museum in town. J

I may have opted for ice cream for lunch today. J

We had to leave Kansas City in the afternoon because the tornadoes were headed in that direction and we weren’t all that interested in getting swept away if they did in fact make it downtown!  But before we jumped on the FWY, we cruised around some of the historic neighborhoods near Carol’s house!   I’ve always loved looking at homes and I’m especially in love with the homes here – they’re so southern looking, with all the brick, stone, shutters, fireplaces, front porches, mature trees...!  Ahhhhh!  So, here’s my exclusive Kansas City house tour! J ENJOY 

We stopped into Trader Joe's for some sandwich supplies before leaving town, and have now made it to St Louis, with the tornadoes 200 miles behind us, whew!  We're checked into a nice lil Best Western that we found a coupon for in a rest stop magazine somewhere in Kansas!  SCORE!  Tomorrow we'll check out the St Louis Arch and then head over to Louisville, Kentucky... yeehaw!