Kansas City

 

In August, I took my son Luke and my nephew Will on a vacation to Kansas City. I had always wanted to visit K.C., we had a short window of opportunity, and a wedding in Carthage, Illinois, which was two hours in the right direction. So off we went. It did not disappoint. All three of us loved it, and want to return.

We stayed on the 7th floor of an Airbnb apartment downtown. The building is pictured above. This was a good choice as there was a basketball court and game room in the basement, where the boys spent time in the evenings. 

The building was also on the tram line, which we used a lot and never had to wait very long for. The tram ran on about a two mile route through downtown. 

We also had some nice views from our apartment.

Kansas City is famous for its more than 200 registered fountains. Above and below are two of them that were close to our condo.

One of the first things we did was take a trolley tour to get an overview of the city. We had a fantastic, knowledgable tour guide, Trolly Tom, who unbelievably, considering my incessant photo taking, I didn't get a picture of. But he was great! You can see in the above photo that the boys are wearing their KC Royals hat, the souvenir they decided to get, in anticipation of the evening's game.

The TWA Moonliner on the roof of the old TWA headquarters.  It is a replica of the TWA Moonliner that was at Disneyland's Tomorrowland. Walt Disney's family moved to Kansas City when he was nine-years-old. He learned to draw animals from books checked out at the library. After World War I,  he worked at an advertising agency in K.C. In 1920, he started an animated film business with a partner and made Laugh-O-Gram's for local movie theaters. It was said there was a mouse in his desk that may have been the inspiration for the most famous mouse ever, Mickey Mouse. 

The trolley took us down by the river, where some of the buildings sport murals. 

There were many attractions that we didn't have time to see, like the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

The Kaufmann Center for the Performing Arts reminded us of the opera house in Sydney, Australia.

Kansas City, like most cities, has homeless people.

Hallmark is headquartered in Kansas City. Some day we will return to see the museum there.

A future trip will also include a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

The tour ended where it started at the Union Station.  Above is a plaque in memory of the four lawman who were killed in 1933 in the Kansas City Massacre. Bullet holes from the shootout remain in the walls of the Union Station.

The evening of our first full day in KC., we headed to "The K" AKA Kauffman Stadium to watch the Royals host the White Sox. Yes, the beautifully ubiquitous KC fountains were present at the ballpark too. More on those later. And who was Kaufman anyway?

As good guests and despite our Illinois home, we decided to root for the hometown team.

One of three home runs hit by the Royals. Very exciting!

You can see John's favorite diner in the distance.

The fountains wearing pink.

The Royals did it, beating the division-leading White Sox 4-3!

It was a great night at the ballpark!

This railroad car was parked in front of the Union Station as part of a visiting exhibition on Auschwitz. The exhibition was so moving that it required a post of its own.

Our home base in KC was the Union Station.

These views are from the World War I Museum. More on that later.

The Henry Wollman Bloch Fountain, in front of Union Station, one of the most beautiful fountains in K.C. It was given as a retirement gift for the founder of H & R Bloch.

Union Station opened in 1914. In 1917, during WWI, almost 80,000 trains passed through the station. During the years of WWII, an estimated million passengers passed through the station.

The station has beautiful, romantic halls with a luxurious amount of space.

We had to have a meal at Harvey's Restaurant in the Union Station. Its predecessor restaurants, located near rail stops from the Midwest to California, employed young women as waitresses, known as Harvey Girls and made famous by the Judy Garland movie.

We spent a good part of one day at the National World War I Museum.

Liberty Memorial Tower from which we had panoramic views of the city.

One of four guardian spirits keeping watch over the Memorial.

The highly decorated, mainly African American, Black Rattlers, fighting unit. 

My dad's father, Michael King, was in World War I (and World War II). He left the University of Notre Dame and enlisted. He fought in the  Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the largest and deadliest offensive in U.S. military history. 

Trench warfare.

Will and Luke getting ready to participate in the virtual reality experience, War Remains, at the museum. We were lucky to get tickets as the experience was largely sold out.

One of the last places we visited was Country Club Plaza, a large shopping area done in a Moorish Revival style. The inscription on the above fountain says, "A Morning Prayer" For the Children of Mercy Hospital. Say yours and toss a coin.

Kansas City Sister Cities International Bridge.

Lots of beautiful carvings. Here's the eagle representing the evangelist, John.

I didn't take many photos on this last day in part because it was so hot. I spent much of the time in a library, bookstore, and at the Shake Shack. It was the end of a wonderful trip. Kansas City, we'll be back!