Midwest, Day 4, Kansas City

The Negro Leagues Museum had been on our itinerary, but as I was browsing Pinterest for other things to do in Kansas City this morning, the Jazz Museum popped up. Since it's in the same building as the Negro Leagues Museum, I had no choice, but to mention it.

I like different types of music, but not jazz. It just sounds like a hot mess to me. Being married to a music teacher though, I wasn't getting out of this.

We bought passes for both, but started with the Negro Leagues. That was interesting. We watched a short film about the history of the league, and actually there were teams in Pittsburgh which were quite famous. There was a ball field set up inside with statues of famous players. A collection of baseballs signed by players and owned by Getty Lee (lead singer of Sal's favorite band, Rush) was on display. Lots of good exhibits and we spent quite a bit of time here.

Then, it was time to move to the Jazz Museum, and I tried to get into it, but it wasn't really my cup of tea. There were listening stations, and exhibits about different famous jazz musicians. It was a nice museum, but I was ready to move on pretty quickly.

Next on the list was the Kansas City Federal Reserve's Money Museum. The museum is free, and they even hand each person a bag containing $165 upon leaving. The $165 is shredded, but nonetheless. . .

We were able to see employees sorting paper bills, and the stacks of money they were handling would make you cry. There were also some displays in the hallway filled with various factoids. For example, it costs 6.2 cents to make a note of any denomination. Also, currency paper is composed of 25% linen and 75% cotton. Before 1980, currency was destroyed by burning, Today, currency is shredded. The Kansas City office shreds over $4 million per day in unfit currency.

By the time we left the Money Museum, it was lunchtime. A local friend of mine recommended Three Little Pigs bbq in a mall close by so it was an obvious choice. It's located in a food court, and I tried the BBQ sundae. Which is a layers of pulled pork, baked beans, and cole slow in a mason jar. It was so much food, but so delicious. We even bought a bottle of sauce to take home.

No one else was as adventurous as me, but the everybody ate their meal. Even Seth had turkey on a bun, no sauce.

Another site Kansas City is known for is the National World War I Museum and Memorial. It holds the largest collection of WWI Memorabilia in the world. We bought tickets that gave us access to the full museum and spent hours walking around.

We had great views of Kansas City and the surrounding area from the open-air observation deck of the Liberty Memorial Tower. There's an elevator to take you most of the way, and then an additional 45 steps to the top.

We hit every area of the museum, including the field of poppies on the lower level. I felt overwhelmed by all of the information and details. We learned a lot, over the course of about 3 hours.

Our next stop was Kaw Point, just over the river in Kansas. This was a stop over site for Lewis and Clark where they spent two days repairing their canoes and preparing for the next phase of their journey. We walked down a pathway to the river for this photo-op. Then we had to hightail it back across the river to Missouri for the Royals game, but we needed dinner first.

We stopped at a little strip mall restaurant which serves breakfast all day. It was the only place to eat that we could find, so we lucked out that it was so yummy. Emmy drew Seth a slice of birthday cake on his kid's menu and the waitress asked if she could hang it on their wall with other children's artwork. He didn't like that idea, but we insisted. I mean, how cute.

To be continued. . .