Kansas City Family Reunion

We are in Kansas City, Missouri!  We are staying at a state park campground, which is nice, with large campsites and lots of room!  Our site looks at the woods, and we have seen several deer:

Kyle met us here and we went to a Royals ballgame!  It’s national hotdog day, so they were giving out jerseys that said mustard, ketchup and relish (apparently I was too low cuz you can’t see my yellow “Royals”):

They had lots of activities between innings, mostly centered around a hot dog theme- lots of fun!  The stadium is quite nice:

They have a Hall of Fame museum:

Two World Series trophies. And they had a World Series ring:

They had art around the stadium, including this logo made of beer cans:

he next day we went to the Negro League Baseball Museum, which was fascinating!  The museum told the stories of so many black baseball players, and the history of the league, including where the teams were from, where they played, the challenges they faced, including racism, and the stats of the stars of the league!  If you ever have the chance, come visit this museum!

After lunch we went to the airport to pick up Janelle- the Davis family is all together for the first time since January 2020- just before covid!  Now that we are all together we added the Missouri state sticker to our travel map- another state visited and camped in!

The next day we went to the WWI museum, another excellent museum you should visit! 

They have so many artifacts, including uniforms, weapons, equipment, posters, etc.  In a small hall that was the original museum, there were several displays based on topics about the lives of the soldiers, like entertainment, transportation, etc., and there were flags of all the allies:

I thought one of the coolest things was letters between a father and his son.  They were special because the dad was an illustrator, so he drew things on the envelopes- I bet the illustrations delayed his receiving his mail because everyone wanted to see them:

We went to the top of the memorial tower, where you can see so much of Kansas City! 

There are 4 carved Guardian Spirits around the tower: Honor, Courage, Patriotism and Sacrifice.  There are 2 sphinxes guarding the south entrance: Memory, looking east towards the battlefields of Europe, and Future facing west and away from war towards the unknown.  The tower is 217 feet tall and was built between 1923 and 1926.

After the WWI museum we went to the Hallmark museum, which told the history of Hallmark, greeting cards, wrapping paper, and the Hallmark ornaments. 

It was fun to walk through and look for ornaments we have!  There was also info about Crayola, which became a part of Hallmark. in 1984. Some interesting fun facts: Black was the first crayola color; Out of the top 10 most popular colors, 6 are shades of blue; Some colors like “Timber Wolf” and Macaroni and Cheese” were named by kids; The smell of a Crayola crayon is the 18th most recognized scent in the US; Over 223 billion crayolas have been manufactured to date. Towards the end they have a bow-making machine, and we got a free little bow after watching it being made- so fun!

Kyle had to head home to Iowa Saturday so he can go to work Sunday morning, so before he left we went to the Arabia Steamboat Museum- another WOW!  The Arabia sank in the Missouri River over 100 years ago, and a group made of a father and his 2 sons, plus a couple friends decided to look for it.  They did a lot of research and discovered the river had changed course over the 100+ years since the ship sank, and they found it in a Kansas corn field- about 45 feet down!  The museum houses all the artifacts that were on the ship- they didn’t sell anything- and boy, do they have artifacts! 

Like items are together, so you see the hundreds of pairs of shoes,

the locks and keys and building materials:

and china and glassware

– it is a sight to see!  They even have a part of the tree that sank the ship:

We were lucky to meet Matt, the son of one of the 2 sons, and he was so interesting and knowledgeable!  He was only 4 when they found the ship and excavated all the “treasure”, and he told about cleaning buttons.  The museum has a staff of 3 archeologists/anthropologists preserving the last 15% of the items, and they expect that to take another 5-10 years.  They have located 2 more ships they want to go after over the next several years- once they get some financing set up.  Meanwhile they will have to move the museum when their lease expires in 3 years, so they are hoping to create a National Steamboat Museum to house artifacts from all their ships plus any others.  I think they should call that new billionaire in Cali- what do you think?

After the museum we went for lunch- but it took us 3 tries before we found a place where there was somewhere to sit—the first 2 places were strictly TO GO!  After a delicious lunch we were sad to see Kyle hit the road towards Ames- it was sooooo good to see him! We love and miss you, Honey!!

Janelle is staying a couple more days, so we went to the Harry S Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.  We were here about 7 years ago, but it has really changed and is an excellent museum.  In fact, it was the first modern-day Presidential Library!

They have a lot of interesting information that we had never heard before- like the fact that while he was VP, President Roosevelt only met with him twice! And he didn’t know anything about the development of the atom bomb! He had to step up fast when Roosevelt died! This graphic really shows all of the tings that Truman accomplished:

And of course, the famous desk plaque:

While in Independence we went to the place that was the starting point for the Oregon Trail:

and the Santa Fe Trail:

The next day we went to the Pony Express museum in Saint Joseph, Missouri, which was the kickoff location for the Pony Express:

The museum was very interesting, and included info about how the Pony Express worked.

I was surprised that it operated for such a short period of time. Here is a map of the route:

And a depiction of the first rider leaving:

We visited the Patee House and Museum, which also has the building where Jesse James was killed. It is a 4-story former hotel (although only 3 floors were open with exhibits), and it has a ton of other items, including vehicles (train locomotives and rail cars, automobiles from a variety of eras, sleighs, fire trucks, etc.), clothes, radios, vignettes of various businesses, toys, a whole carousel, etc.

I don’t think I have ever seen a dinosaur on a carousel before! They also had a 1050 pound ball of twine, which used to be the largest in the world:

Janelle said it best- “if it happened in or went through Saint Joseph, it was probably in this museum!”

The following day Janelle flew home- it was so wonderful to have the family together! Thanks for flying out to spend time with us, Janelle! We love you and have missed you too! Her flight was at 8:00 AM, so we had to get her to the airport dark and early. We did get to see the sunrise:

And you were probably expecting a sunset- here you go: