Kansas City, Missouri 2012 - Day 1

Hi, we're in Missouri.

“Kansas City?!  Why Kansas City?!”

That phrase is the customary response from each person who hears where Chad and I are taking our next vacation.  Before I begin the blog, I’ll explain WHY Kansas City.

Chad is a huge fan of session/studio drummer Steve Gadd.  Gadd is almost 70 years old, and that’s almost ancient in the music world, so I want Chad to see him play before he retires... or dies.  My favorite musicians always seem to die before I get the chance to see them live (thanks, Michael Jackson and Jimi).  Steve Gadd is touring with James Taylor this year, so I tried to find concert tickets for a really exciting city.  They were all sold out.  Guess which city was the only one with available tickets?  Yup, Kansas City.  And so—here we are.  That's why.

We flew out of SeaTac at 11:50 PM last night and arrived in Cleveland, OH early this morning to catch a connecting flight to Kansas City, which arrived at 9:41 AM.  Does that flight path make sense to you?  Look at a map.  Me neither, but it was fun for the two of us.

We got our rental car, a cute little red Toyota Corolla, and started driving to the first stop on our itinerary.  The first thing we noticed about Kansas City, is how beautifully kept it is; totally clean and tidy.  We stopped at the Harley Davidson Factory to look around.  For not being big motorcycle fans, it was pretty interesting, and we may go back Monday for a tour, when the bikes are actually in production.

After a night of traveling, we were ready for some food, and I picked a creperie/coffeehouse called Chez Elle.  We had a bit of trouble with our GPS and ended up driving into Kansas.  That was fun.  We hadn’t been there together since 1995, the day after Chad proposed to me.  Maybe we’ll go back this weekend.   On purpose.

The Citron and The Monsieur... Ali would love this place!

 Everything about Chez Elle was fantastic.  I chose a sweet crepe – The Citron, which is filled with lemon curd and fresh strawberries, and topped with whipped cream.  Chad chose a savory crepe – The Monsieur, which is filled with spicy chorizo, seasoned potatoes and topped with gravy scrambled eggs.  For drinks, he had a café au lait, I had a latte miel.  Both of them were delicious.  We sat outside in the 85 degree morning sun and a chatted with a couple of employees, who gave us all kinds of tips on where to go and what to do in this city.  This will go down as one of the best breakfasts we’ve ever had.  We may go back every day, because as you can see below, they have a huge selection.  Kansas City may be known for its barbeque, but it SHOULD be known for its crepes!

We may need to try every one of these

Our cozy little room

We drove to the Q Hotel and Spa, which is located in Westport, a super vibrant and funky neighborhood full of locally owned bars, shops and restaurants.  I love this hotel.  I fell madly in a love with it the moment we walked inside, and “Into The Mystic” was playing, which was the song we danced to at our wedding.  They have a nationally recognized 38 point eco-plan and are incredibly green.  I appreciate that, although the hotel seems to be completely furnished by Pier 1 and World Market—you know, it’s the trendy I’m-an-eco-friendly-earth-loving-hippy trend that is so popular right now, leaving me to wonder how “green” it really is, but I’ll take it.  

I don't know... sorry.

Chad and I fell right to sleep and took a 2 hour nap.  By 4:00 we were up and ready to explore.  We drove to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  There are over 30,000 items in the collection there, and we only saw a fraction of it, but we both agreed that this is one the best art museums we have visited.  I saw just a couple of  idiot-pieces that filled me with rage (see my post about The MoMA in NYC to understand), and there were so many interesting pieces.  The giant 18-foot shuttlecock sculptures were the best part of the visit.  I have no idea why.  They just were.  We even made out under one of them.  Sorry, innocent bystanders.

For lunch/dinner we drove over to Arthur Bryant’s looking for the best barbeque in town. This is one of the most famous barbeque joints around and has been on Brooklyn Ave. since the 50s.  We waited in quite a long line, reading all the newspaper and magazine clippings that date back to President Jimmy Carter’s visit in the 70s.  Our mouths were watering as we smelled the oak and hickory smoke, and watched the diners enjoy all kinds of bad-for-your-health-meaty-goodness.  The locals told us to try the burnt ends (and so did every review I’ve read about the place).  So burnt ends it was.  As well as sausage for me, and sliced pork for Chad.  They served it with Wonder Bread, and we got 2 ice cold beers to go with it.  It was exactly what we’d hoped it would be.  I'll be sorry later, but for now, I couldn't care less. 

Alberty Bryant's BBQ

Library District

 We walked off some of our dinner by visiting the Library District.   I know that sounds so un-fun on vacation, but I really wanted to see the public library that is designed to look like books on a shelf.  We didn’t get great pictures, because it was so hot and we just wanted to get back to the comfort of our air conditioned car.

We ventured over to Glace, an artisan ice cream shop that one of the locals (and Trip Advisor) told us to try.  We were instructed to sample the goat cheese cherry ice cream.  I had a bit of that, salted pretzel, and roasterie organic guatemalan coffee.  It was all delicious, and I’m not even a fan of goat cheese!  Chad sampled the salted pretzel, bananas foster, and peanut butter chocolate.  Now we were really bursting at the seams and needed to walk some more. 

We stopped by The Country Club Plaza which is an incredible outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment district.  It’s 15 blocks of absolutely beautiful architecture, upscale shops and lots of outdoor music performances, and I’m pretty sure I’d like to spend the rest of our nights walking around that place.

Our romantic gondola ride

Along the waterway, they offer gondola rides.  I wanted to take one in Vegas, but the line was too long, so I thought I’d have to wait until we go to Venice, but I’m pretty sure THAT’S never gonna happen, so Kansas City, Missouri it is!  For $50, Chad gave me a red rose (they handed it to me, and I handed it to Chad and forced him to surprise me with it), loaded us on a beautiful gondola, and we were whisked up and down what I can only assume is Kansas City’s version of the spillway that Danny races Leo in at the end of Grease.  They told us it’s a tributary of the Missouri River.  I prefer my version.  Aside from the floating beer bottles, oddly-high number of tennis balls, clumps of green smelly algae, and the incessant jokes, it was actually pretty darn romantic.  They played some Italian opera music and it was quite peaceful.  When Celine Dion started singing My Heart Will Go On, the irony was too much and it was back to Joketown, U.S.A.   
 
We are having a great time, but we miss our kids like crazy.  I wish they were here, so we could sing this to them, which has been stuck in my head all the live long day: 

"Well I might take a plane, I might take a train

But if I have to walk, I'm goin' just the same

I'm goin' to Kansas City... Kansas City, here I come."

- Fats Domino

- Chad and Rach