Missouri Trip - Days 4 - 9

Well. I haven't posted in a while. And I suppose you might want me to finish the blog about my trip (in other words, no one actually reads this regularly, but it's going to bug me forever if I don't finish it).
So.
Here we go!
P.S. Most of the pictures are going to be on the Shutterfly Page for the Missouri trip.

Day 4

(March 8)

A day in Kansas City.
This day was super cool. We went to the City Market, which in the spring, summer and fall is an outdoor farmer's market, but it wasn't open yet for that, but we were still able to go in and buy some cool spices. Pretty sure the guy we bought the spices from was either stoned or just really needed some sleep.

The next place we went was this AMAZING (I would say little, but it certainly was NOT little) local garden shop. 1 million times more awesome than the garden center at Lowes! It's called "Planters" and I fell in love. I may just move to Kansas City just to go shop there more often. Okay, probably not, but I might visit more often to see it.

Look at all of the tea pots! I love tea pots, p.s.

Next up:
The Chinese market.
Oh. My. Gosh. Brandon was in heaven. He loves places like this. So, Planters for me, Chinese Market for him!

We had gotten a late start that morning, so that's all we did out and about that day.

Day 5

(March 9)

Kansas City
Take 2
We were too late to go to the Steamboat Arabia the day before, so that was our first stop this morning. The Steamboat Arabia was a steamboat (go figure) that sunk in the Missouri River soon before the Civil War, and it sunk so fast that they weren't able to get all of their things off of it before it was completely submerged under water (no deaths, thankfully) and then as the river moved throughout the years, the boat wound up in the middle of some guy's current farm field.  It wasn't until the 80's that they had the technology to go out there and get it up because the water-table in the ground was so high and the boat kept on getting bogged down with water every time anyone tried to dig it up. So anyway, they finally were able to do something with it, and they put all of their finding in a museum in Kansas City called the:

It was actually really cool. There was so much stuff! It went down before it reached its first destination down the river, so it still had all of the cargo on it that it had when it set sail (which turned out to be a LOT).

Um, so Blogger tried to be "smart" and flipped this photo when it wasn't supposed to be, and heck if I know how to fix it... But those are a bunch of the buttons found on the boat. They also had a ton of knives, shoes, plates, medicines, etc. Pretty much anything that you could think of that someone was taking with them out onto the frontier, they found on this boat. They say it is the largest single pre-Civil War collection of artifacts like this. Brandon doesn't believe it, but that's what they said.

This was the original (maybe? perhaps it's a replica...don't think so, though...) wheel thing that I don't know the name of. I never studied steam boats. Water wheel?

Throwing pennies into the water (probably some nickles in there too)

Crazy, huh. They're STILL working on preserving and cleaning up things that they've gotten out of this thing.

After the Steamboat - LUNCH
at the Farmhouse. You know those amazing restaurants on TV that get spotlighted because they have such fresh and quality ingredients? (i.e. not Ruby Tuesday, Applebees, etc) THIS was one of those restaurants. We don't get many like that in Rockbridge County so it was good going to a place that here. I had a ham and cheese sandwich (sounds simple right?) but it had brie and some of the best ham I've ever had, ever. SO GOOD.

Let me reiterate. So Good.

Our next destination was Union Station. Yes, there's more than one (hey, I didn't know there was).

I'm not sure I've ever been in a train station before. And it's funny, I didn't go into the actual train part. We went to the model train exhibit.

This is just a tiny part of all of the trains. There would have been no way to get all of it in one shot. There were a few sets behind me in this picture, the one you see, and then even more on the other side of that wall. It was crazy. Brandon loved it the most, I think. Well, and Isabella.

So. You might judge me. But I took a picture of the women's bathroom. :-/

It. was. MASSIVE! You don't even know. This is like...1/7 of it. Some people may be thinking "oh, that's nothing to things I've seen" well bully for you, but this is the largest bathroom I've ever been in. And it was complete with a hispanic woman screaming into her cell phone which was amplified like crazy in this room.
It was awesome.
Oh, and apart from the screaming cleaning lady, I was the only person in it. Awesome use of space. Yes, yes, I'm sure it gets busier, or it used to when people took trains more.
:)

Bah! There's so much to talk about!!!

We then went across the street to the Crown Center (Crown - Hallmark - Kansas City is the hometown of Hallmark) so Izzy could play in an "under the sea" thing they had going on for kids.

This place even had a waterfall in it:

Why am I in no pictures??? I really need to share the camera.

Day 6

(March 10)

Churchy stuff
So, the Liberty/Independence, Missouri area is big in the Church history department. And we couldn't go out there without seeing some of it. I think it would be hard to see it all in one week, but we certainly got some of it in.
Stop 1: Independence, MO Visitor's center.

Across the street is the temple for the Community of Christ church (formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and it looks kinda cool.

People talk about being able to "feel" a big difference between the two sides of the road, but I think everyone has their heart in the right place and it doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong, God loves all of his children, no matter what they believe. It isn't even a requirement to believe in God to have His love.
Anyway.

Izzy should have been a Pioneer!

I've always loved the way the insides of log cabins look.

I love this. I kinda wish the plexiglass case wasn't in the way because of the glare, but I think it's still cool. That's the Book of Mormon, in-case you can't read the title.

They are building a temple in the Kansas City area (Shoal Creek,Clay Co. to be specific), and they were just about to put up the second spire base when we were there. This will be the temple my parents will go to when it's done, as opposed to having to go to St. Louis, 4 hours away.

And for dinner:

Kansas City BBQ! That was one of the things that I was most looking forward too! And it was pretty good!
But I have to say...I prefer Memphis. Sorry. I suppose I'll have to go to Memphis and try their local BBQ to tell for sure, but based on what I've had from here and Smoke Bones in Roanoke, I prefer Memphis.

Day 7

(March 11)

Churchy stuff continued
Well, if we can't see it all in a week, we certainly can't see it all in a day. So, this day we went to:
Far West

Adam-Ondi-Ahman:

I love this

I love this too

Adam-Ondi-Ahman was my favorite of all the places we went to go see. It was just so peaceful. I stole a rock.

And Jamesport (not Church-related, it's an Amish community - population 505)

 Phew. Am I done yet?? Almost.

This is the one and only photo of the whole family together from that week (please do no go searching for a picture to prove me wrong, as I am pretty sure this is the case but I don't feel like searching through 1200 pictures to verify).

Bahahaha I look SO terrible!!!! But it was the only one of the several it took that didn't have Izzy or Beau pulling some crazy face. And it's fuzzy. *sigh* Did you know that a photo does not exist of these 6 human beings that is respectable? Next time we are all together I aim to change that fact. Professional photographer, here we come. It's cute of Isabella, though, no? And Mom and Dad.

Day 8

(March 12)

Going home.
Part 1.

Bye, Mom.

This was not in the original plan, but since I have a great husband who knew I was secretly crying because I didn't get a picture of the "Welcome to Missouri" sign, we passed St. Louis, turned around, went back to St. Louis to get the sign (it's only visible from one direction) then we hung out since we were already there.
But, uh, not before stopping at White Castle - 

May I just mention that I personally think it has some of the worst food...

It was the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. Can you tell?

Oh! And there was a big parade, so maybe -that's- why Superman was out that day...? I'm not sure why he was in St. Louis. I suppose he was just continuing on his stroll across America..although, he was supposed to be in-between Kansas and Colorado at the time (for full reference hilarity, please see the current story line of Superman by DC Comics).

Again with the Blogger "smart" technology!

The above picture is me with my feed in the Mississippi River :) Although, I suppose I'm on the wrong side to really be proud to have my feet in it.
Ok, real quick like -

Kentucky

 And finally:

Day 9

(March 13)

Going home.

Part 2

Whew!! Ok, it's not home yet, but we're actually getting there! We dropped Beau & Izzy off (on the complete other side of the state) and then headed back home.

Uh, I know you can't tell what it says. Just trust me. It says "Virginia Welcomes You"
Here, here's a sign from another trip. (Yes, I'm crazy)

One might ask why I didn't just put that one in the first place, but I would ignore such silly questions and move on with my blog. That has taken me 2 1/2 hours and cost me 1 1/2 hours of my sleep time. But I need to FINISH THIS SO I CAN MOVE ON WITH MY LIFE and so you can hear about my broken ankle in chronological order.

Okay.
You know what I forgot?
Deadpool.
We take him on every trip with us.

At least, we try to. And he was Brandon's faithful buddy. For more Deadpool pictures, see Brandon's Facebook Mobile Uploads. You may need to have a Facebook account...and you may have to be his friend. Not sure, I've never tried without my Facebook account. :) Oh, and you'll also have to weed through other random mobile uploads, so enter at your own risk.

Anyway.
We took him along with us (we = Brandon) and kept him in his pocket the whole time.
Well, he forgot to take him -out- of his pocket...and he wound up in the wash.
Deadpool was not happy.

What's funny is this is EXACTLY how I took him out of the bottom of the washing machine!!! Which is especially funny if you've ever read Deadpool comics (no, watching the Wolverine Origin movie doesn't count - because they did a terrible job with his character in that movie).

Alright. That's our trip!
Long hours in the car + a whole week with the whole family + experiencing new things + enduring the Missouri cold weather + more long hours in the car = a fun trip.
Yes, I skipped the unpleasant parts. :) Haha

THE END!!
Don't forget more pictures on Shutterfly.