Kansas

Known for its wheat and its sunflowers, unfortunately during the winter these pride and joys of Kansas are not exactly in full swing. During the Winter, Kansas could quite possibly be the boring-est place on Earth. Driving through this state is quite literally like being sucked into a black hole. It just keeps going and going with no end in sight. Thankfully though Kansas does offer some quirky little road side attractions. Ya know, to pass the time.

The road side attraction we decided we could not live without seeing was: The World’s Largest Ball of Twine. I am not going to lie to you, it is really large. It is border line impressive if you can get past the fact of the pain and torture it takes to arrive at this beast. The highway that takes you here is hundreds of miles of: NOTHING. Literally. No gas stations, no towns, no cellphone service, no other cars. We quickly decided this was the state we would die in. The worst part is, no one would even know! Anyways back to the World’s Largest Ball of Twine….

We arrived at this national treasure around midnight, and to our surprise there was no crowd! I do not know where the late night Kansas twine lovers were hiding out, but it was ghost town when we swung through Cawker City.

After witnessing such a glorious creation, the rest of the night seemed very bleak. We continued to drive through this Mars land, for a few more hours, days, or maybe it was years. The true passing of time is intangible in the land of Kansas. When Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home,” she wasn’t meaning the positive sentimental way we all imagined. I truly believe this was her cry for help. The ONLY life we passed through this entttttire state, was a sheriff parked along side the road in some ghost town. This man climbed over the passengers seat when we saw us coming and waved very enthusiastically for a 2am human being. My only thought is that he was so excited to see another life form. I was honestly surprised he didn’t chase after us just to chat! Needless to say, we finally made it through the majority of Kansas and stopped for the night.

In the morning we found ourselves in the far eastern city of Leavenworth. Here is home to the top thing to do in the entire state of Kansas: The C.W. Parker Carousel Museum.

This museum really is quite a hidden treasure. It is ran by the sweetest staff ever, and the museum is made possible by the sweet people of Leavenworth county. The museum is full of neat collectibles from the first carousels ever created.

You start the tour with a movie which explains the creation of this carnival machines, the time and effort that goes into each horse, and the history of how carousels came to be in America.

The amount of carousel items they have and have collected from C.W. Parker and other artists is incredible. There are lots of pictures and keep sakes from the original circuses and carnivals. Up stairs are a lot of saved pieces and stories.

At the end of your tour (included in your ticket) is a fully functioning Carousel. Everyone has a ticket good for one ride. It is really meaningful to the town and to American history to be able to ride one of the first entertainment machines popular in America.

The carousel runs much smoother that I would have imagined for a machine of its age. But the most impressive part of the whole operation is the music of the machine.

The circus tunes are created from a giant music box with real drums attached through the sides. The spinning of the machine operates the music box and even mechanically beats the drum in rhythm.

The museum is a neat little hole in the wall and really embodies Leavenworth. Local volunteers come in on their free time and work to restore and repaint many of these old carousel horses. You can see the passion and time that goes into each of these creations.

From the museum, we headed into Kansas City. As much hate as I have been giving Kansas, Kansas City is dead set determine to change America’s mind of what Kansas can be. This unique city is actually shared with Missouri. As far as I know it is the only city in America that is shared between both states.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure half the time if we were actually in Kansas or Missouri, so I will just write about the city as a whole in this post. Our first stop in Kansas City was Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que. For the full effect we went to the original location which is actually located inside a gas station. I got the beef tips and Daniel ordered the BBQ Sandwhich. Not home style BBQ, but still pretty delicious!

Since it was a Friday, we decided to head downtown to the art festival called First Fridays. Every first Friday of the month, lots of local artists have a big collective show. You can walk from store to store and art is set up everywhere you look. We admired a lot of local painting, sculptures, and hand crafted trinkets.

After an art filled night, we decided to get some rest. In the morning we hit the gym and got a much needed shower in. Feeling refreshed we decided to hit the town!

We wanted to check out some of the art museums so we spent most of the day exploring The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Nelson-Atkins is more focused on large scale sculptures but both museums are worth a visit, if you have an interest in art of all kinds.

Daniel enjoyed reenacting a lot of the outdoor pieces, while I just froze my butt off. Thankfully we had made tea and carried that through our adventures, or I may have lost some fingers.

From there we headed downtown to do some window shopping and admired the many murals that are painted all throughout the city.

There were a lot of really beautiful brick buildings and decorated alley ways. Normally alley ways creep me out, but Kansas City has created a much more inviting passage way.

It was fun walking through the various districts such as the Power and Light District, the Library District, and the Garment District. It is interesting how the city is broken into blocks reflecting what was originally manufactured in these areas.

From there we headed to the historic City Market. This market place is like a giant indoor farmers market. There are many people selling local goods and a few permanent stores sprinkled about.

Due to being later in the day, many of the artisans were closing up shop for the day. But it was still fun walking through the various shopping centers and getting a feel for the products sold throughout. The best part was being out of the cold.

We managed to catch a pretty sunset right before leaving the City Market. The whimsical sky was really a waterpainted masterpiece. From there we got our nerd on and headed to the Library.

Kansas City has a really fun library were the decorated the outside with larger than life books. These books are stacked to make the library seem like the building itself is a giant bookshelf. The titles of the books were voted on by local citizens of Kansas City, so I liked that community participation in this unique place.

From there we headed to a sports bar to watch our beloved Timbers Soccer Team compete in the MLS Cup. We aren’t going to talk about the results, but it was a nice evening. All in all, Kansas City definitely changed our minds of Kansas as a whole. Even with some fun places, we were anxious to leave the Sunflower State behind and head towards Nebraska. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

God Bless,

McKayla