Well Hello, Kansas City!

If you missed posts last week, I'm telling you about the vacation we just took! Our ultimate destination was out in the southwest part of Kansas, where we met my new great-niece! But rather than driving forevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvver in one day to get there and forevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvver in a second day to get back home, we broke up the pilgrimage and saw some things along the way!

Our second stop on the way out was in Kansas City. I've been through it a million times. And I've "been there" a couple of times as a kid visiting family members, but none of those visits involved touring the city.

I was a bit nervous, because my lack of knowledge about anything Kansas City related meant I had no idea what parts of town were good and safe and which ones were highly questionable. I did my best to research well and hoped I didn't pick scary spots!

We left our Airbnb outside of Springfield, Illinois about mid-morning and spent the driving roughly five hours over to Kansas City, Missouri. This day was the only time on our entire trip that we ran into rain. No complaints, though, because we were in the car! This poor guy, though...

Bad day to ride your bike, I guess!

We stopped in a little town for lunch at a Chick-fil-A, and we stopped for gas now and then, and we stopped when we got stuck behind this:

Every time this happens to us (which is nearly every day of every road trip we take) I begin to envy the RVers. And you can see, I had one close at hand to envy!

We made the most of our wait time by working on Ryan's solo for church on Sunday:

Disclaimer that you have to make when you post pictures like this: the car is not in motion. Totally in park.

We still arrived in Kansas City in good time, and we check into our second Airbnb before heading into the Plaza, which is quite an interesting place. Kept us entertained all evening. (Also allowed us to get in all 10,000 steps - and a few bonus ones - which was a blessing since we'd been in the car all day!)

Our first stop was at Jack Stack BBQ. I learned in my vacation research that Kansas City is famous for its BBQ. I had no idea. I thought that was a southern thing. I picked this restaurant at random based on fabulous reviews, and as we began to tell people our vacation plans, we learned that several of our friends had been there and loved it. Win win!

We got there a little early for dinner (our bellies were still on Eastern time) and it's a good thing we did, because by the time we left, there was quite a pile of people waiting to get in!

We elected to split a platter, and we had plenty of food. It came with two sides, so we each got to pick one. Random fact: this place is not heavy on vegetable selections. LOL!! Still batting a thousand on healthy food options. My word, though. What really exceptional BBQ. We both loved it.

 He wasn't about to leave a single bite behind.

We needed to do some SERIOUS walking after that meal, so we found a little local coffee shop, got some coffee, and headed for the beautiful canal to take a long walk.

Other than being humid (excuse my hair in all upcoming photos), it was a perfect night for walking.

We also stumbled upon an art sculpture garden. We're not really huge into art (mostly because we rarely understand it) but this did catch our attention and reeled us in:

We also found a few other fun things, like this:

And this labyrinth. (We talked about this on the podcast last week.) It was made of glass and was really fun (and occasionally confusing) to walk through.

There were still some things we didn't understand:

Kansas City is apparently also known for its many fountains. I read somewhere that they have 48. We saw two. :)

We sat down by the second one to watch part of the sunset. Many families sat around doing the same, which was refreshing to see in a big city. :)

Before we walked back to the Airbnb, we walked by the place I'd picked out for dessert, but we were too full. Maybe next time.

Despite not getting to try the Waffle Bar, I just so happened to check to see if Kansas City had a Duck Donuts. We learned about those on our anniversary trip last December, and we've been missing them ever since. I knew there wouldn't be one there, since it's such an east coast thing.

Except one had just opened two weeks earlier, fifteen minutes from where we stayed.

SHUT.

UP.

So the next morning...

Oh yeah, baby.

We were busy taking pictures in line and this nice lady behind us asked if she could take ours together. Oh bless her. (She told us she was pregnant and her baby app said her baby was the size of a donut, so she came to get a donut for her photo opp. Wise. Very wise.)

I still hadn't given up hopes of being good with food decisions on this trip, but when you find a Duck Donuts, you decide it's worth it. You just do.

(If you missed the gushing about our original visit, we love these donuts because they are served warm and have frosting applied fresh before serving. They're cake donuts, which I usually don't like at all, but something about the warm cake with the warm, melty frosting sort of melts my soul into loving them.)

We grabbed a few pictures of our (ahem) half-dozen in process.

Happiness in a box.

But not for long.

Go ahead. Judge. I don't even care.

Ryan wanted a souvenir, which is TOTALLY not like him. He has been drinking out of this nearly every day since:

Thanks, Kansas City! We loved visiting you!!!!

Next up? MEETING THE BABY!!!!!!