We took off for Kansas City this weekend*. I'm just going to quickly run through our stops so I can remember what we did when for future reference. I'll be back later with pictures and stories from our "quick trip"**.
Friday: Kids are up early. We finish packing up and hit the road. I was hoping to hit the road at 9ish. We didn't make it.
It is about 3 and a half hours from where we live to Kansas City. After our driving summer, I was expecting this to be a piece of cake. I was also expecting to make it without stopping because this is a shorter trip than we are used to.
We had to stop once.
When we got to Kansas City, we hit up the Science City attraction in the historic Union Station. Unfortunately, Ann Coulter was at union station that day as well so it was much more difficult to find the entrance and purchase tickets. We wandered around for at least 20 minutes trying to find the entrance while Amelia and William alternately said helpful things like, " Why did you pick the wrong elevator?" "Are we very lost?" "Why don't you just find a map?" "The entrance is right there - why can't you find it?" Frustrating. We all enjoyed the exhibit, although the big dinosaur section wasn't the big hit I was thinking it might be.
After Science City, we checked into our hotel and then went for some local pizza.
Back to at the hotel, we got ready to swim. I was careful to choose a hotel with a pool because it is a good way to burn some of the evening energy off before trying to make 5 people sleep in the same room who are not accustomed to that arrangement. We paraded ourselves down to the pool area....to find it was an outdoor pool. Whoops. Should have read more carefully. The temperature was just about 40 degrees, so no one wanted to even check the pool area out. Everyone was very disappointed. The big kids were finally persuaded it would be just as fun to swim in the bathtub with bubbles up in our room. I'm not actually sure it was more fun than a pool, but it did lessen the disappointment.
Saturday-
We purchased tickets to Legoland. A few of William's school friends have visited Legoland recently and he has been asking to go. They only let a certain number of people into Legoland at a time, so we booked an appointment ahead of time to make sure we could get in. Luckily, William was up at 6:15 and woke Amelia. Amelia woke Gemma shortly after, so we were up for the day. Our appointment was at 0 am, so we needed to leave by 9:30. William had us up so early, we had plenty of time. Which was good, because we didn't realize the Kansas City Marathon finish line was in the same block as Legoland. Our GPS kept telling us to turn and the streets were blocked off. People were everywhere and the traffic was pretty heavy. Parking was terrible and after close to 20 minutes of circling around we finally found a spot close to where we needed to be. Only, we couldn't figure out how to get to the door. It felt like a rerun of the precious day. At this point, I really wanted to rename this city "Unfriendly Stroller Place". There weren't any ramps, the staircases were long and everywhere we went had more and more stairs. We were frustrated. But, we finally found our destination....only to find our Legoland couldn't open yet because their staff couldn't find parking either in the Marathon mess. When the doors finally opened, the kids enjoyed the experience very much. We played and explored for a long time. Legoland was very well set up with lots of different stations and sections appealing to different age levels. It was mostly stroller friendly and had a few things Gemma could actually do. Very few places were problematic. I was worried about it being loud or filled with tiny pieces that it would be totally unsafe for Gemma.
We finished up at Legoland at lunchtime and walked across the street to a food court for lunch ($50+ for a lunch of hot dogs just doesn't do it for me). There were still tons of people roaming around wearing their running gear and I overhead am employee at one of the restaurants comment "In 6 years, I have never seen this many people here...wow!" Kind of by accident, we wandered into what appeared to be a train themed restaurant. It was a hit! It was called Fritz's and had train tracks running all over the ceiling. And the trains DELIVERED the food! Unbelievable! The trains all had little trays carrying food in a box that was dropped off onto at your table. The kids enjoyed it very much and were very entertained.
Back to the hotel for naps (Gemma, mom, dad) and a little downtime watching tv for the big kids.
For dinner we tried a new-to-us place called On the Border. It was pretty good, although we had to laugh because it was right next to our standard favorite, Chilis.
After dinner, we went over to a mall area and went to Michael's. William has been BEGGING for a rubber band bracelet. We picked up a Rainbow Loom and William was thrilled. Next we swung by the bookstore for a little browsing. can you beat that? A craft store and a bookstore in one night? That night while I put Gemma to bed, John helped Amelia and William make their first bracelets in the lobby. They were so happy.
Sunday:
We were supposed to get up early and hit 2 stops before heading home. Interestingly, up until this point, we had not ventured into Kansas. Despite being in KANSAS CITY, we hadn't yet been to Kansas. I spent about an hour furiously researching on Saturday night for something, anything that met the following criteria:
1. Open early on Sunday
2. Child appropriate (which eliminated all the casinos)
3. In Kansas
4. Wouldn't take us more that 30-40 minutes to reach from our current location.
I thought I had come up with a good option on Saturday. John and I discussed it. However, while on our way on Sunday, John revealed it was not actually in Kansas. (He swears he told me this before Sunday morning. I have no recollection of this part of the conversation). So, we drove to Kansas and turned around. John stopped to fill the car with gas when we realized we were across the street from a second location, the TRex Cafe (and adjoining gift shop +BuildA Bear). You can't be that close and not go to the TRex Cafe. So we did (more about this later).
Our last stop was a loving history site called Missouri Town 1855. It is basically a collection of building from 1850 or earlier with people reinacting the historical period. We love this- the kids are able to ask tons of questions and John and I can read/listen/photograph/learn. This was a nice collection of interesting buildings. It was unfortunate that there were only 2 people working. However we all enjoyed the experience.
*William was off of school on Wed, Thurs, Friday. I am always off on Fridays. When we got the school calendars, we (I) made a mental note about a few weekends I thought we be our travel weekends to go visit family or see something new.
**When originally planned, we were going to go to Chicago. We used to go to Chicago AT LEAST once a year to visit John's sister. We haven't been there since I was pregnant with William. Shameful. We love Chicago -museums and edible pizza! We aren't hard to please. However, for the last 2+ years we have been saying that we were going to plan a trip back to Chicago (and meaning it). So, with this short break, we planned on going to Chicago to check out the dinosaurs at the Field Museum and catching up with our Chicago branch. Sadly, when we talked with Joe and Cathy, we found out this is the weekend they had plans. We briefly considered still traveling to Chicago, but without the draw of family at the end of the drive, it felt too far for a short weekend. Kansas City has been on our to-see list for a short while AND we found a good hotel deal, so Kansas City away!
*
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