Kansas City, MO

Kansas City. Two cities with the same name straddling the state line of Kansas and Missouri. What is where? Hey, the details tripped up our dear president. Which, arguably, is not difficult to do. Ok, no, not arguably. It’s easy to trip up dear leader. But if it tripped you up too… don’t worry. I won’t lump you in with Donald. And yes, I am writing this as ‘Liz from the future.’ A future where we had visited Kansas City (both of them!) months before the Mr. Trump’s flub.

We settled into Blue Springs Lake Campground, which we found to be nearly empty most days. We appreciate a nearly empty campground. We found some decent road based running routes and enjoyed some long work days and some honest running days.

Kansas City doesn’t offer any campgrounds within what we consider a desirable city limit (give us something to walk to!), so we plopped down about 25 minutes outside of the Missouri city. We ventured into KC a few times – mostly in search of food, which is typical.

Our first trip into civilization, a post work weeknight jaunt, landed us at this weird ice cream place that served gigantic ice-cream-like creations and also a giant sweet bread loaf with confectionary ingredients sloshed on top. I was not sad about this.

We set aside a Saturday to traipse about Kansas City, MO proper. We started at the City Market, where we poked around various shops and stalls and finally settled on buying some weird shaped pasta imports and an elephant’s ear sized loaf of Moroccan bread. We then walked through the city, pretty aimlessly. We stumbled on the sporting downtown area pretty quickly. The NFL was in town with their epic RV, as the Chiefs were set to play in the next day’s Sunday night game. Some college teams were also apparently playing – in an ‘away’ setting, so the sporting area was pretty packed with fans wearing red. We were very interested in the NFL RV. It was pretty sick inside. And they gave us badges which we wore around town for the rest of the day. Two people asked me if I worked for the NFL. I wanted to say yes, but I can’t even pick a winning team to root for (ok, it’s actually my grandfather’s fault that I am a long suffering Giants fan).

We continued on our journey by foot through the city, eventually finding ourselves at Union Station and the Crown Center. We poked around each area, watched some people take wedding photos, and saw a tree that you shouldn’t climb on.

One of the things about walking to somewhere, is that you often have to walk back from the somewhere, to get to where you started, so you can get in your car, and go back to feed your cat. On our walk back to our cat feeding transport, we stumbled upon what I thought was a bookstore. I don’t pass by bookstores if I can help it. But, surprise! This was not only a bookstore… this was a bookstore BAR.

Best surprise ever!

We ordered drinks and read books and ate a snack. Then we bought the book, and finished our crawl back to the cat feeding mobile.

Except, Jake was feeling hungry. Which is not an atypical feeling for Jake. It’s pretty constant. He apparently had this idea that we should make a quick trip to a gas station barbecue place (I’m still getting used to this concept after 4+ years on the road) he had heard about.

Us and 200 other people apparently needed to get gas station barbecue. But, once we’re committed…

… the wait only took about 90 minutes. Which some people wisely filled by drinking beers. Until a tiny old lady came out and stole everyones beer – the grim reaper of beer. The food was worth it, though. Joe’s even has a veggie BBQ sandwich option. Which is not the typical ‘guess I’ll get a side plate of mac-n-cheese’ option. Not that the mac-n-cheese side plate option has ever made me sad. But this veggie BBQ option was like actually partaking in the barbecue. It was some sort of barbecued mushroom creation. I recommend.

Lucy is sweet. She may not have been pleased with her late food dealings after our day spent in Kansas City, but she always forgives us once she has wolfed down a few mouthfuls of delightfully crunchy cat chow.

We approved of Kansas City. And we’d come back – no doubt. We only spent one dedicated day of exploration – never enough to flesh out even a speck of what KC likely has to offer. When we come back, I’m headed directly back to afterword, the bookstore/bar first thing though.

County Park