Need a vacation from my vacation

Last week I took off a couple of days to hang out with some South Dakota friends and show them around Kansas City. Jeremy and Melissa headed South on Wednesday night and arrived at our place about midnight. Along for the ride was Reagan, their daughter, and Chris who is a cousin from Chicago.

Our first adventure took us to Oceans of Fun for a full day of swimming and sliding. We kept as a group for most of the day except for when I had to jump out of line due to weight limitations. Most people would have said "The heck with it" and risked it... I think I am finally at an age where I care if I live or die. :-) And death by way of water park slide is not my way of departing.

We left the park later in the afternoon and headed for one of Kansas City's best BBQ joints, Author Bryants. We went to the original one off of Brooklyn street in downtown K.C. where we were treated to piles of tasty meat, endless BBQ sauce and greasy fries.

Day two found us at the Kansas City Zoo. We saw every single animal in the place and walked almost every inch of the property. I was surprised to find that each of the animal's environment was very natural and looking around the skyline it was near impossible to tell we were only 20 minutes from downtown.

Ready to take on the K.C. Zoo

Traci and Bill

I was thinking about my little sister Brenda when I took this

The feeding of the elephants

The dirty rhino

Baby zebra to the far right

The fries were good!

Thinking about Brenda again ;-)

Traci and Bill

Saturday morning Chris, Jeremy and I went to the WWI museum and spent a few hours learning about the war and venturing 217 ft. to the top of the tower. We met the girls down in River Market and jumped into one car for a trip to see the Royals take on the Tampa Bay Rays.

Liberty Memorial

The artwork is moving

The base of the tower

From the base looking up

A view towards downtown Kansas City, Missouri

Traci and Bill

It was a give away night and we arrived early enough to get our cool statue. As we watched batting practice and begged each player to toss us a ball, Reagan sat quietly and waited for one of the players to notice that a cute little girl didn't have a baseball in her possession. It didn't take long for one of the Players to offer her a ball and as he was about to toss her the baseball he notice that she was wearing the "devils wardrobe"... A Yankees t-shirt. Before tossing the ball, he made her promise to root for Tampa Bay when they played the Yankees. It was a perfect night for a game and the Royals kept up their streak. They gave up their lead and lost the game in the 8th.

Sunday was spent recovering at the Legends where everyone, but Chris and I, popped in and out of every shop looking for a bargain.

We said our goodbyes after the shopping was done and they headed home. We went home, took a nap and went bowling later that night. We had a great time visiting and getting to know our city a bit more.

Hope your vacations are as exhausting as ours!!

Bill and Traci