St. Louis and Budweiser

After we left KC, we headed over to St. Louis....here is our first view of the arch from the car.....More Arch later....but first we went to Anheuser-Busch facility.  You know the original home of Budweiser. To take a tour.

They have a really great campus here, and the best part is all the old buildings well over 100 years old.

 The intricacy of the inside of the buildings was also amazing. 

While we enjoyed the tour, we felt the Ft. Collins, CO tour is much better and laid out in a more logical order. 

Random Sculptures

One of the fun things about traveling is that you get to see some Art Sculptures that are new to you and that you don't get to see often.  So here are just a few from KC, MO

Union Station and other fun

After the WWI Museum, we went over to Crown Center, walked around a little, had lunch and then headed over to Union Station.  I really loved this building, it was HUGE, but so elaborate...

  

We did go to the Titanic Exhibit.  I believe this travels around the country, so if you get a chance to see it, it is worth it.  When you go in they give you a boarding pass of someone who was on the Titanic.   You learn a little about them, whether they are married or not, they occupation, and what class they traveled in.  Throughout the tour, you learn about how people in each class lived on the boat, etc...then at the very end you learn whether "you" lived or died.  Very powerful...Unfortunately pictures are not allowed inside, so you have to take our word for it...or go see it yourself.

Also in Union Station, was a small free exhibit of model trains....

After spending the day roaming about, we decided to drive "all" the way back to Kansas to Kansas City Kansas and go to dinner at the Yard House.  I had a gift card from my birthday, so it seemed perfect. 

Kevin had a steak sandwich

I had the (Mac + Cheese) squared. 

Both were really good, though very big and we couldn't finish it all.  After dinner we walked around the shopping center there for a bit....and so I found a statue...

Lego Man

We also had a chance to visit the Crown Center.  They have a new Lego store/discovery center there, so this fine Lego man was visiting the mall.  And you know me...I take pictures with statues. 

WWI Museum

While in KC we wanted to see the WWI Museum.  This was truly one of the highlights of our trip.  I would recommend it to anyone. 

Since we got there a little early, we took some time to walk around the grounds, it was a very nice morning.  Here I had fallen off the cliff, and was holding on....

Kevin also almost fell off, but caught himself at the very last second...

 Looking over to Union Station (see later post), we did get to see the Titanic Exhibit. 

Here is Kevin at the bottom of the Liberty Memorial Tower. 

We did get to go to the top and here is a small panoramic view

And the view looking down the side...

Inside the museum was some interesting artifacts.  They also had some really good displays showing you what it was like in the trenches.

This area below, was really neat.  Where the shadow is was actually a very large screen where they showed a movie about how the US entered the war and the events leading up to that. 

Here I am waiting for the movie to begin...

One of the things that was interesting was the war posters.  Reminded us of the time we were in Chicago at the Art Institute and saw the War Posters there. 

Overall this was a very powerful display and we really enjoyed visiting the museum.  We would recommend it to anyone who found themselves in the area. 

When in KC....BBQ

 So when we arrived in Kansas City, we knew we had to have BBQ, the lady at the hotel recommended this place Jack Stack BBQ.  It was great!

First we had onion rings.....mainly because we saw others with them and they looked really good...and they were...

Ok, so we forgot to take pictures of the food when it arrived, because it looked so good, but I had ribs, and brisket...

Kevin had lamb ribs and burnt ends.....

What a great start to our first night out on vacation.....yum!

Vacation!!!

We finally got to go on a short vacation.  We took time off work (June 18- 21), and headed out on a road trip. 

First stop?  The welcome center in Kansas....(ok bathroom break)  :-)

As we were driving along I-70, we saw a sign for the OZ Museum.  Kevin looked it up, it had good reviews so we pulled off the interstate and took a slight detour to Wamego KS.

This was a really nice little town, very nice downtown area, some shops and cool buildings, and that day, just some old cars.

We enjoyed the Museum of everything OZ....

I love the Cowardly Lion......

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" ...... at least I don't often...(just kidding Kevin)

After the museum, we walked down the street and into the OZ Winery....we had some samples, and we bought some "Squished Witch" wine.  It was a fun detour on our way across Kansas. 

We ended our first day as we went across the Kansas Turnpike, and into Missouri, to stay in Kansas City.