Our first stop was Kansas City, Missouri. We stayed at the Oak Grove, MO KOA. Oak Grove is about 20 miles to the east of Kansas City.
Lesson learned: We pulled into our site, unhitched the fifth-wheel, leveled it, put down the stabilizers, and hooked up the water. THEN we when tried to hook up the electricity we realized the cable was too short to reach the electric pole by about 5'!! Ugh! We unhooked the water, pulled up the stabilizers, re-hitched the RV to the truck and moved up a bit. Before we unhitched again we made sure all hookups would reach! Hopefully, we'll never make that mistake again!
Hello to Mike and Connie, our neighbors at the KOA. They plan to one day be full-timers. We hope we meet up again!
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| Look at the size of that rig! |
Kansas City is home to the NFL Chiefs and the MLB Royals. Their stadiums are next door to each other.
Downtown Kansas City is great for walking or biking. We took a trolley tour of the city on our first day to get to know the area. KC is known as the City of Fountains--they have lots of them!
We spent some time in Union Station, a renovated Goth Revival train station built in 1940. Amtrak still runs a few passenger trains that stop there. It is also home to some shops and restaurants and Science City Exhibit, Irish Museum, and the Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity. The ceiling in the Grand Hall is 95' high and there are 3 chandeliers weighing 3,500 lbs each. Walking around the station you can imagine what it was like in it's heyday.
Across the street from Union Station is The National WWI Museum and Memorial. If you ever get the chance to visit it, you should. It's very interesting, even if you're not a history buff. There are timelines of the battles and other significant events along with soldiers' personal items, artillery pieces, gas masks, and even a replica of a trench.
We also went to the top of the 217 ft tall Liberty Memorial Tower for wonderful views of Kansas City.
Next up on our tour of Kansas City was the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. We learned everything we ever wanted to know about banking and money (and more!). We got to see the workers wrapping bills and adding the packets of money to HUGE stacks of money in plexiglass cubes. It was amazing how much money there was! Then automated forklifts would move the cubes to the vault. At one point it looked as if two of the forklifts were going to crash but they sorted out their mini traffic jam. Unfortunately no photos were allowed in the money packing area. In the children's area we got to make our own money. Every visitor to the museum gets a bag of money valued at approximately $165. Unfortunately the money is shredded into tiny little bits.
We also made money at the Federal Reserve. John did a good job with his money. I, however, did not understand the instructions! Oh well...
We also paid a visit to the Hallmark Visitors Center where they have displays of Keepsake ornaments, artwork and cards. If you go earlier in the day than we did, you can see artists creating cards and machines cutting out and printing greeting cards. They even have a bow making machine. When you push the button you can see the machine make a tiny 2" red bow out of 1/4" ribbon. Your bow is one of your souvenirs. You other souvenir is a bundle of 4 Hallmark postcards because more than 100 years ago the founder of Hallmark, JC Hall began by buying postcards for .01 and reselling them for .02.
We enjoyed our visit to Kansas City. The temperature was cooler than in San Antonio--highs in the mid- to upper-80s. On August 27 we left Missouri for Amana, Iowa looking for even cooler temps!
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