Dave and Jenn’s Adventures

After checking out of our hotel and before embarking on the 6-hour drive from Kansas City back to Champaign, we went for a little stroll in the Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden, which is run by Kansas City’s botanical garden organization, Powell Gardens.

This is a charming, peaceful spot in which to enjoy a sunny morning for an hour or so. The various plants are well-labeled, so it’s educational. There are several different gardens, including an indoor winter garden, so there are a number of different “spaces” to enjoy. The highlight, aside from the very beautiful flowers and plants, is the sculpture/fountain of three girls dancing on the water.

Apparently the garden is part of a larger Kauffman Legacy Park. Brush Creek also runs just past the garden, with a lovely walking path alongside it, creating opportunities for a longer stroll in addition to the garden.

We enjoyed it!

We bought tickets via StubHub that included a parking pass, which was SWEET. We pulled up into the stadium, showed the attendant our pass, and he gave us a blue hang-tag and said, “The guy up there will direct you.” We pulled right up near the stadium and were directed to a parking lot mere feet from the gate. So this is what celebrities feel like! *wink*

We arrived quite early (4:30 pm) to see the stadium before the game and also to meet up with friends. The evening was a tribute to the Negro Leagues, so there were all kinds of festivities – free Kansas City Monarchs caps, several Negro League players signing autographs, fundraiser concessions to benefit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (which is in KC), as well as unrelated fun things like live music and face painting.

In Kauffman Stadium there are waterfalls and fountains along the outfield wall, so we watched those for a while. There is also “The Outfield Experience”, which features all kinds of fun stuff for kids to do – baseball-related things like base running as well as a carousel and five-hole putt-putt course. Once our friends got there, we hung around in this area for quite a while, because it was a good way to keep their 3- and 5-year-old boys busy.

For dinner, Dave got one of the fundraiser hot dogs, which was unfortunately not very satisfying. I got pulled pork and baked beans, which was pretty yummy (though of course not as good as the pulled pork at Camden Yards).

Our seats were great – in the lower level up the first baseline. The game was a little odd, because the players were wearing Negro League tribute uniforms, so it really didn’t feel like we were watching the Royals and the Orioles. The game featured more action than the one we recently went to in Cincinnati, but it was still remarkably quick. It started a little after 6 pm, and was over well before 8:30 pm – perhaps the quickest American League game we’ve ever been to. My Orioles were in the lead for a couple of innings, but blew it in the 8th, losing 4-3. The Royals fans were really excited, though. I gotta give it to them – they’re nice fans, and supportive of their team, even though they are typically terrible. A lot like Orioles fans.

At least during the hot dog derby – which actually featured live runners in hot dog costumes, not just cartoons – my chosen hot dog (relish) was the one that won. *smile*

After a quick lunch at Subway, we made our way across town to the Boulevard Brewing Co., arriving at 2 pm just as the next tour was supposed to start. (This seems to be a pattern for us.) Although the tour was very full, the guy let us join it, once Dave told him we were from Illinois.

Boulevard is the largest craft brewery in the Midwest, the second-largest brewery in Missouri (after Budweiser), and – as the tour guide was pleased to say – the largest American-owned brewery in the state. We were introduced to Boulevard not long after we moved to Champaign – their distributor was at our local liquor store doing tastings and PR.

We have done a lot of brewery tours, and this one was among the best we’ve seen. The tour guide had personality and the right voice for talking over 40+ people. There were short videos at about four different spots along the tour – a great way to explain things (like the brewing process) in a more visual way than the tour guide can do, and also to show things that you wouldn’t otherwise get to see. Brewery tours typically are less interesting on a weekend, because they’re not running the machines. (In ten years of doing brewery tours, Dave and I have never seen a bottling line actually running.) The videos helped a lot, and they were really high-quality.

The first part of the tour takes the group through the brewery’s original system, from when Boulevard started in 1989. Then it transitions into the new facility in the adjacent building, which opened in 2007 and features top-of-the line brewing technology as well as industry-leading efficient equipment and architecture. It was pretty impressive.

Like all respectable brewery tours, it ended in a tasting room. They had given us four tokens each (actually bottle caps) to be redeemed for 4-oz tastings. Since I don’t drink beer, Dave got to taste 7 different brews – he kept the last token as a souvenir.

While in Kansas City, we made a point to do more than just go to a baseball game. One of the more significant things to visit in the area is the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum in Independence, MO, which is just east of the city.

We got to the museum around 10 am and spent about three hours there. It was pretty empty when we got there, but it was starting to get busy by early afternoon.

It’s a nice little museum. The exhibits are done in a fairly contemporary style. A lot of older museums have a dated style, while some newer museums are overwhelmingly interactive. This one strikes a good balance. It was a good reflection of the personality of this understated, “regular midwestern guy” who happened to have been president.

It was a lot of information. There were so many significant things that happened while Truman was president: the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the beginning of the Cold War, the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, the rise of the American middle class and consumer lifestyle. It was fascinating to spend a few hours focusing on the beginnings of what we typically think of when we picture 20th century American society.

The first floor of the museum is a series of rooms that feature Truman’s presidency. There is also a peaceful courtyard which contains an eternal flame, the graves of Truman and his family (wife, daughter, and son-in-law). Off the courtyard is a little room with a view into Truman’s office, where he worked from the time the library was built until he died.

The second floor has a newer (seemingly), more kid-friendly and more interactive exhibit, that focuses more on Truman’s life. There was also a temporary exhibit called “Memories of Korea”, which wasn’t as well-done. It had some interesting information about the Korean War, but it felt very disjointed, without much of a narrative.

Recommended if you’re ever in the Kansas City area!

Continuing our baseball-driven Midwest tour, we drove today from Champaign to Kansas City, across Illinois and Missouri via Springfield IL and Hannibal MO.

The first half of the trip was smooth, with nice weather, light traffic, and not too much road work. About an hour west of Hannibal, though, the sky started to get really dark; then the water started coming out of the sky. The rain got so bad that I could barely see to drive, so I slowed way down just to keep myself on the road. I wasn’t really driving that slowly – maybe 55 mph – but got passed by a pickup and then a semi, on a bridge of all places. That was ridiculous and didn’t feel very safe, so we pulled off at the next little road and waited for about five minutes. Both the rain and the traffic let up a little, so it felt much safer to be on the highway.

The rain continued off and on for another hour or so, but never quite as bad as it was for those few minutes. Fortunately it seemed we skirted to the north of the worst of the thunderstorms – there were a lot of intense lightning strikes just to the south of US-36 as we drove. I wondered what would happen if our vehicle were to be struck by a lightning bolt. Fortunately we didn’t have to find out.

After we got onto I-35, heading south into Kansas City, it took us quite a bit longer to get into the city than it otherwise would have, because of lane closings due to construction. We were ready to be out of the car by the time we got to our hotel.

We hung out in the hotel for bit to decompress. Then we headed out to have authentic Kansas City barbecue at Gates and Sons BBQ, as recommended by a friend who is a KC native. It was quite the cultural experience, and the ribs were tasty.

After dinner we drove to downtown Kansas City, and found ourselves in the Power & Light District, which features a whole bunch of cool restaurants and bars in a tiny few-block area. We walked around a bit first, just to see what else was around, which is when I became infatuated with the Kansas City Power & Light Building.

The major goal of the evening was to find a sports bar where we could watch the Royals vs. Orioles game, to prepare ourselves for tomorrow evening’s live experience. We ended up in Johnny’s Tavern, which was the perfect choice, because all of the walls were lined with TVs showing various baseball games and other sporting events. Dave even got to watch the Yankees for a while. Unfortunately our teams were not victorious. The Orioles were poised to win, but then the Royals had a walk-off 3-run homer in the bottom of the 9th. At least the rest of the folks in the bar were psyched about it. *smile*

A major goal of our only full summer living in the Midwest is to catch games at a bunch of the Midwestern ballparks. Today we went to Cincinnati to see the Colorado Rockies play the Reds in the Great American Ball Park. We had great seats – four rows up in left field. It’s a well-designed ballpark – seemingly not a bad seat in the house – though a bit generic (other than the fascinating riverboat feature in the outfield).

It was brutally hot – every fan in the stadium was just wilting. The kid in front of us kept complaining to his dad about how hot it was, and the dad’s creative response was, “Hey – shut up.”

The game wasn’t particularly exciting – which was actually a good thing, because a lack of runs makes a game go faster.

About halfway through the game, we got up to escape the sun, and took a walk in the shade of the concourse. Unfortunately that was when the Rockies decided to score – we missed the only run of the game. We strolled over to the area behind center field to the misters, only to find that they weren’t misty enough to really cool things off. We found ourselves standing in a spot only slightly more humid than the rest of the air, and decided it wasn’t worth it.

We had a good time anyway. After the game, we cooled off at Rock Bottom in downtown Cincinnati (is it inappropriate to call it “Cincy”? Do people from there hate the nickname like San Franciscans hate “Frisco”?), then went looking for a Skyline Chili in which to have dinner, as we had been instructed.

Amusingly, as none of the Skylines in downtown Cincy (see, there, I did it) were open on a Sunday evening, we ended up driving across the river to Kentucky to have dinner at a suburban Skyline Chili. At least we had our authentic Cincinnati chili experience.

On the way home, we decided to play chicken with our gas tank. We figured we had just enough gas to get us to Indianapolis, where we knew there was a truck stop selling gas for $2.59. The gas tank counted down to 0 miles left in the tank, when we were just 10 miles outside of Indy. So we had to stop and put in 1.61 gallons (at $2.84/gal) to get us to the cheap gas. But we didn’t get stranded on the side of the road, outta gas. So we’ll call that game of chicken a draw.

Dave’s parents came to visit us in Champaign, and we quickly ran out of things to show them here, especially since Dave’s mom can’t do a lot of walking (knee problems). So we spent today in Chicago, where we fortunately had a nice, sunny, not-too-hot-and-humid day.

We have just about perfected our parking strategy in Chicago. Since parking can be something like $4 for the first 20 minutes, and $26 for two to 12 hours, it seems to make the most sense to just park the car in the most convenient garage and leave it there for the day. Normally we would then just walk or take the El everywhere, but today we taxi’d everwhere.

We had lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern, made famous by Saturday Night Live, and also by the Cubs’ curse of the billy goat. It’s actually a good place to grab a quick bite to eat, despite being in the netherworld underneath the Magnificent Mile.

Then we went to the Willis Tower – more famously and formerly known as the Sears Tower, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the third tallest structure in the world. The wait to get up to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor was about an hour, but the way they have it designed, the wait is actually quite tolerable. Visitors stand in lines in various different waiting areas, which are all packed with factoids and exhibits. They even showed a 10 minute movie in the last area before we got on the elevator to go up to the main event. The view of course is spectacular, though today it was rather hazy and we couldn’t see four states as one can on a clear day. The most novel thing is an addition called “the ledge”, which are four windows that protrude out of the building so you can actually stare straight down to the street nearly 1700 feet below. I thought it was pretty cool, but the guy right in front of us sure looked like he was going to lose his lunch.

After that, we took a 90 minute architecture river cruise / tour, sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. The cruise starts just off Michigan Avenue and goes up the Chicago River, veering off to the North Branch, then the South Branch, then back down by the Navy Pier, then back again. The woman narrating the tour was a volunteer docent, and she really knew her stuff. Chicago is, of course, well-known for its excellent and varied architecture, so the tour was really a treat. Plus it was a beautiful day (though perhaps a bit sunny to be on the deck of a boat for that long without sunscreen), so it was a nice way to be out-and-about without walking.

We had dinner at a place called Bijan’s Bistro, where the food, the atmosphere, and the service were all top-notch, while still being casual enough that we didn’t feel out of place wearing shorts and T-shirts. If you’re in Chicago looking for something other than deep dish pizza, this is a good choice.

After dinner we retrieved our car and drove around the city a bit (no trip to Chicago is complete without at least a few minutes on Lakeshore Drive), then headed out to Oak Park for a spin around Frank Lloyd Wright’s old neighborhood (though Dave’s mom is mad at him, after having read a book about his mistress) and to pick up some Starbucks before heading home.

So, if you’re ever wondering if there’s a way to spend an entire day in Chicago with someone who can’t really walk around much, I can testify that it can be done enjoyably.

Confessions: I write too much. Dave doesn’t get his photos up right away. Sorry that it makes us bad bloggers. =)

Someday the posts will be edited and all the photos will be posted. In the meantime…

Hopefully these direct links to the blog posts and photos for each day will make our trip a little more accessible, if you’re interested in getting glimpses of particular aspects of the trip.

Last day of traveling! We were up around quarter to 8 am, had a pretty decent breakfast compliments of the Days Inn, and were on the road by 9:30 am.

Very shortly after we got on I-70, we crossed the Kansas River into Kansas City, MO, which is where the downtown part of the city actually is. As was often the case on this trip, driving through downtown was crazy (involving roads going every which way, at extremely slow speed limits, with signs pointing us to exit here, merge there, etc), so I didn’t see much of the city. Dave pointed out Kauffman Stadium, where the Royals play, after I had mostly passed it. Oh well – we’ll be back.

Around 11:30 am, we left the interstate behind and turned off on to Route 63. We thought it would be a slow, tiny road, but it turned out to be a decent highway. This took us north, bringing us to the small town of Moberly about 30 minutes later. Here we turned off onto Route 24, which really was a tiny, slow road.

We arrived in Hannibal, MO just after 1 pm. We didn’t have a lot of time to spend here, because we really just wanted to get home at this point, but we plan to return at some point. It is most well-known for being the birthplace of Mark Twain, but it is also just generally charming and has a lot of fun historical stuff to explore.

We sent a text message to our friend Jeremy (who also hails from Hannibal) to get his recommendations on where we should eat lunch. We ended up at LulaBelle’s, one of the places he suggested. A former brothel, it is now a restaurant and B&B. We had some yummy catfish sandwiches and were back on the road by 2 pm.

Hannibal, being on the Mississippi River, is also on the edge of Missouri. We picked up I-72 here and crossed the river into Illinois, our new home state. We were promptly greeted by seeing several state troopers on either side of the freeway, and decided that it would be prudent not to continue going 80 mph as we had for so much of the trip. We arrived in Champaign, safe and sound (and without any speeding tickets) around 5 pm.

We got to our new house to find a beat up black Suburban parked in the driveway, with the driver’s side door wide open and the keys in the ignition. We thought this was terrifically sketchy. Our landlady, Vian, had left the backdoor open for us with the keys inside, so we cautiously entered the house to make sure everything was okay inside. There was nothing out of the ordinary there. Dave called Vian to ask if she knew anything about this truck. She laughed and said that the “rustbucket” (as she called it) was her husband’s. We breathed a sigh of relief and made sure to greet him when he came back for the truck.

Welcome home, right?

We left Maryland four weeks ago today. What a journey it has been so far! Tomorrow we will be home in Champaign and then the new adventure begins.

This morning we were up at 8 am, and went upstairs around 9 am for the “breakfast” part of our B&B stay. It was DELICIOUS. The breakfast of the day was vanilla hazelnut pancakes (with the crunchy hazelnuts inside), apple sausage, eggs, fruit, and of course any beverage we wanted (juice, milk, tea, coffee). The space was perfect for serving a nice quiet breakfast. We were the only ones in the inside dining area, though there was a group outside on the patio, where the weather was perfectly sunny and warming up to the low 70s. What a beautiful day!

However, we could not spend the rest of our day lounging at the Gregory Inn. We left the hotel around 10:30 am, and drove around downtown Denver a bit just to get a feel for it. We took some photos of the State House and the surrounding area. As we headed out of town, I spotted another stimulus project sign. We stopped at Starbucks in Aurora off I-7, and were officially on the road around 11:15 am.

As we drove through Eastern Colorado, it was as though the mountains had never existed. The land was pure high prairie – flat grazing land, corn, etc, though still at around 5,000 feet in elevation.

We crossed into Kansas around 1:30 pm and – as expected – the terrain didn’t change. The time did change a while later – for whatever reason, the time zone line is somewhat east of the CO-KS border, so we went from 2:20 pm (Mountain) to 3:30 pm (Central) a number of miles into the state of Kansas.

Other than a few unexpected oil rigs here and there – who knew Kansas was an oil producer? Not I – pretty much all we saw for several hours was corn fields and grazing lands. Around quarter to 6 pm, the land suddenly became rather hilly, and we passed a large windmill farm. The windmills were dotted all over the hills, and at one point the interstate was actually higher than the nearest windmill, allowing for an unusual view of the turbines rotating past our car.

At approximately Mile 342, I spotted a sign explaining that this stretch of I-70 was the first 8 miles of the Interstate Highway System to be completed. Interesting bit of trivia.

We drove through Topeka, and about ten minutes later we arrived at the toll road at 8 pm. Having managed to avoid toll roads through almost our entire trip (the Golden Gate Bridge was the exception), it took us a few minutes to figure out what the deal was. We managed to come up with exact change – $2.15 – when the toll road ended about 35 miles later.

We arrived at the Kansas City Speedway Days Inn around 8:30 pm, our destination for the evening. We got settled into our room, and found a brochure recommending local restaurants. We ended up eating dinner at a nearby townie bar called Sunset Bar & Grill, where I got a grilled chicken salad and Dave got a chicken marinara sandwich. It was the right amount of food for such a late evening. Such a shame that we missed out on one of Kansas City’s claims to fame, Kansas City BBQ – my favorite kind of barbecue.