We had the car packed on Friday night, so all we had to do on Saturday morning was to get the cooler in the car and head out. We got on the road around 9:00am, which was a bit later than planned.
Kansas City is a straight shot down I-35, through Iowa and into Missouri. We stopped a few hours in and got lunch at a nice rest area in Iowa [ 1 ]. A few hours south of there (in the middle of nowhere) we stopped for gas. Fortunately, we missed most of the serious flooding, because we were far enough west of the Mississippi. However, we saw farmers' fields flooded everywhere, and the Des Moines area was also pretty wet.
Around 4:00pm, we stopped at the rest area just north of KC and called Ken's friend Randy. Randy invited us to stop by, so we drove the 20 minutes to his house, and basically sat around chatting and drinking beer into the evening. We had some really good 10-year-old Gouda cheese that Randy had recently brought back from Amsterdam. It had the texture of a Parmesan.
Eventually we decided to get dinner. Randy and Kris took us to a little hole-in-the-wall in downtown KC called Grinder's. We sat out back on a picnic table, and drank some more beer. Ken and Randy had the specialty (Philly Cheese Steaks with cheese whiz) and a huge side of fries and tater tots. Kris and Julie had pizza.
After dinner, we went back to get our car from the house, and headed to our hotel in Independence.
Sunday was kind of a day off. We slept in at the hotel, then headed across the street to Denny's for breakfast. It's a good thing we weren't in a rush, because it took us most of 45 minutes to get our food. Afterwards, we ran to Walgreens to get a few things and then sat at the hotel and read for a little while before heading back to Randy's about 1:00pm.
Once at Randy's, we headed out onto the lake on his pontoon boat for the afternoon. The boat's name is The Bitch. It has a custom anchor which says this, torch-cut out of steel and coated with sprayed-on bedliner material. Seriously! It's the coolest anchor on the lake.
Anyway, we stayed out on the lake all afternoon, just swimming and hanging out on the boat. There were seven of us total — the two of us, Randy, Kris, their son Casey, and their daughter and her husband.
The whole time we were out there, a pork shoulder had been smoking on Randy's deck. (In fact, it had been smoking since midnite.) By the time we took it out, it had been in there almost 18 hours [ 1 ]. So, for dinner, we had some great barbeque, and some even-better corn bread, and even some coffee-flavored beer. Randy's other daughter and some of her friends came over for dinner, so it was kind of a big party on the deck.
Then, after dinner, we sat around and talked some more, until it got too dark to see, and we headed home.
On Monday, we decided to stay in Independence for the day. First, we visited the Truman Library and Museum (President Truman was from Independence). We expected this museum to be mostly Truman propaganda, but it turned out to be a well-balanced analysis of Truman's life and presidency.
We spent all morning in the upper half of the museum [ 1, 2, 3 ] before getting lunch [ 1 ], and heading back into look at the special exhibits in the basement. The major special exhibit was called The Constitution and the Civil War, and was very interesting.
After leaving the library, we drove by Truman's house, which is operated by the National Park Service Then, we walked around the beautiful old neighborhood and looked at the houses, and got a view of the library from the neighborhood [ 1, 2, 3 ].
After that, we drove around Independence a little, and headed for the National Frontier Trails Museum. This is not a huge museum, but it was definitely worth our time [ 1, 2, 3 ].
For dinner, we took a few mis-steps (our first choice from our book was out of business), and eventually headed to get barbeque at Arthur Bryant's. Our book warned that there wasn't much atmosphere, and they weren't kidding. Cafeteria was more like it. Food was good, though.
After dinner, we drove into downtown KC to walk around for a while [ 1, 2, 3 ]. Eventually, we headed back to the hotel and later got custard at the shop just across the parking lot, Sheridan's. It was really good.
Tuesday, we headed toward Springfield. We took the long route so we could stop at a few places along the way. First stop was the Missouri Confederate Rest Home Memorial. Confederate soldiers, unlike Union soldiers, did not get Federal pensions. Missouri established a rest home for these soldiers, and eventually turned it into a memorial. We walked around here for a while, looking at the old buildings and reading the signs [ 1, 2, 3 ]. It had rained pretty hard overnight, and drizzled a little in the morning.
Next, we headed to the Battle of Lexington Historic Site. This battle was one of the first in the Civil War, and was a major Union defeat. After looking through the museum, we followed a (poor) map around the battlefield [ 1, 2 ].
One of the things that surprised us when visiting all of these battlefields was how divided the people of Missouri were during the Civil War. Not many battles were actually fought in Missouri, but it was the site of guerrilla action during the entire war.
Then, we set off for Springfield. The idea was to stop for a picnic lunch somewhere along the way. However, when it reached 3:00pm and we hadn't had lunch, Ken insisted on a stop at a Sonic drive-thru. Eh, it was food. After lunch, we stopped in Clinton, Missouri and walked around the downtown a little [ 1, 2 ] before continuing on to Springfield.
After getting settled in at the hotel, we went to get dinner at a little Italian restaurant called Digiacinto's, which was fantastic. We relaxed, had a little Chianti, stuck around for dessert, and generally enjoyed ourselves.
After dinner, we decided that we couldn't pass up a visit to Bass Pro Shops, the Springfield attraction. Julie visited with the ducks [ 1, 2 ] and bought some sandals. Actually, it was kind of a nice way to end the evening.
Wednesday morning, we headed to the Springfield Art Museum, where they were having a watercolor exhibition. The whole place was under construction, and they were putting in new power poles [ 1, 2 ].
From there, we headed outside of town to the Wilson's Creek Battlefield. We looked through the visitor center [ 1 ], and then ate a picnic lunch. After eating lunch, we drove the historic loop, and got out to walk at most every stop [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]. It was obvious how high the creek's water had been recently [ 1 ]. During the afternoon, it really began to get hot, inching up into the 90s.
After leaving the battlefield proper, we also spent about an hour at the associated Civil War museum. It's not that big, but it's jam-packed with material, almost too much to absorb in the time we had.
Once we left the battlefield, we went back to the hotel and cleaned up, and then tried a little Thai place we had seen while driving through an old neighborhood the night before. The restaurant was in a huge old Victorian house, and there were just a few people there. Due to a baseball game or something, Ken spent quite a while looking for street parking, and ended up walking close to 10 minutes back to the restaurant. The food was worth it, though.