Kansas City 2016-Day 2

Altho sleep was a bit scarce for me, everyone else seemed to catch some shut-eye. Cora and Lily were up at the crack of dawn and that's putting it mildly. By 7:30am all the kids were stirring and ready to get up and start the day.

We ate breakfast at the house...orange cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs. Everyone loved the rolls, the scrambled eggs didn't get much attention. They had to be forced onto everyone. ;) The rolls are a treat that we bring out on special occasions and everyone seriously loves them.

The house looks pretty good from the inside, right?!?

Also major blurry photo...but that's all I got.

After we cleaned up breakfast and fiddled around the house for a while, we got out of our jammies and headed out for an early lunch. It was time to sample a bit of BBQ. We chose Joe's BBQ because it was so highly rated...not to mention that it was in an actual running gas station. Who doesn't want to eat at a gas station?!? We knew we were in for some good food when we saw the line to order. There were a ton of people here and if I lived in Kansas City, I would have a hard time not frequenting this place. Luckily I don't...because the bill was over $60 for lunch. Yikes. Apparently good BBQ costs mucho dinero. BUT the food was ah-mazing! The kids loved it too...in fact, hardly anyone uttered a word during lunch because everyone was so busy enjoying their meal.

Once our bellies were so full we could hardly move, (seriously folks, we had to roll out of this place) we headed to the Steamboat Arabia Museum. This was my personal favorite of the whole weekend. I love history and my imagination can make stories come to life. If you ever ask me how the visit was here, be prepared for a lot of information, because once I get started, I can't stop myself. It's just too interesting!!  It was a guided tour and then we got to look around at all the artifacts that they had pulled up from the wreckage. It was amazing to see how well preserved everything was. It also tied into our trip to Omaha from the year before when we went to the Pioneer Museum because there was a large portion of items that were from the Pioneers that were moving west aboard the steamship. 

The Steamboat Arabia sunk in 1856 and was pulled up from what is an old path of the Missouri River. It was 40 feet underground safely tucked away in cold, dark mud...just waiting for someone to come to dig her out. 

Here are a few interesting facts:

• They dug a hole the size of a football field long and 40 feet deep.
• 20 pumps were brought in to pump out the water that kept filling up the hole. It pumped out 20,000 gallons of water per minute.
• The farmer who owned the field where the Steamboat was found, allowed them to dig it up in the middle of winter so he could have it back come spring when he needed to plant his crop.
• Once they excavated everything they needed, just leaving the shell of the steamboat, the pumps were turned off and the hole filled up overnight.
• The whole excavation project cost 1.4 million dollars and was recouped from ticket sales to the museum.
• A majority of the treasure was on it's way to restock the mercantiles along the Missouri River. People needed things to build their new homes or stock their pantries and such since they couldn't take all of their belongings with them when they traveled West. It was like looking back in time at what a Walmart or Menard's would have been like circa 1850. All of that merchandise never made it to the store to be sold, so it was brand new.
• I talked with the preservationist, who at the time was sealing nails, and was told that there was still 65 tons of treasure that is currently frozen and needs to be properly preserved yet.

Once we were done, we walked down about a block to an Asian grocery store. It is the largest one I've ever been in...it even had a fresh fish market right inside. If only I had lots of extra room in the van to take home some great groceries!

We all hopped in the van and headed to Glace. It's an awesome, over-priced ice cream shop so you know it was delicious. Everyone got to pick out a scoop of their choice.

From there we went to LegoLand Discovery Center. I have to say that this place was such a diamond in the ruff. I wasn't expecting a lot...and truthfully only included into our itinerary because of Ben's deep affection for the plastic things that make you yelp in pain when you unknowingly step on them in bare feet. I digress. We went to LegoLand and had an absolute blast! They had 4D movies, complete with snow and a book who got sick and threw up on you. Don't worry, that part was just water spraying at you. Hehe) They had a few rides that everyone liked going on. The littles had to have a parent ride with them so Jason and I went around...and around....and around...and around...and around....wait, I want off this ride. Our favorite part was the Ninja Training Center complete with laser beams that you had to crawl under, hop over, and try desperately not to hit. We closed the place down...and had they not closed at 7pm, we would have stayed longer. This placed made #2 on my list of favorite places we visited.

We were so hungry that we went straight back to the house and had curried chicken salad that I had already prepared. There's nothing like food you literally pull right out of the fridge and start eating when one is absolutely famished. Everyone was so quiet after supper. All the kids slept really good that night! It went down in the record books and a fantastic day.