Going to Kansas City, Kansas City here we come

(Leslie & Ella)

Well here we are still in Kansas; we liked it so much we decided to stay. Our next two days are going to be pretty much driving straight for long periods of time and it was such a beautiful day today that we decided to hang out here for a bit. It also was really helpful that our hosts here were very accommodating and the conversation was great. But before we go there (Kansas that is) we will update you a little more on our journeys here.

When we last left off we had spent our night with some good friends (Leslie and Tebogo) in St. Louis. On Saturday morning those friends had some classes to teach at a juvenile detention center(pretty dang cool if you ask me, they actually teach Capoeira, dance and geography every weekend at this center,) so we stayed at there house and got cleaned up while they taught. After there classes were over we decided to meet at this great little café in St. Louis called Cummel for Saturday brunch. If you arrive before noon on Saturdays they have a $5 brunch, all you can eat buffet, it was so good and they people at the café were so friendly and fun. It was an eccentric place with tables straight out of the 50’s and colors to excite anyone’s eyes. The tables didn’t match and the chairs were all from different sets, and they had a little stage at the front with a play table and chairs that Ella loved.

We left St. Louis behind that afternoon and started our drive to Kansas City. And then we ended our drive to Kansas City four uneventful hours later. We have been staying Shelley’s friend Abbey’s parents, Judy and R.C. Masonbrink, who have been wonderful. They had plans for Saturday night, so we went to Panera and posted our entry from yesterday. Today has been fun, with a late morning and a light breakfast, and then the three of us walked down to a nearby park, and met Abbey’s sister Leah, and talked with her for a while as Ella played on the playground. She started off scared of most of the equipment, but by the end she was climbing up the little climbing wall like a pro.

After the playground we went back to the Masonbrinks and fixed our car. Nothing was wrong, seriously, but the back brake light/turn signal was out. We actually got pulled over the night before because of it. Shelley was driving, but for some reason the officer wanted her ID and mine, which was odd. He let us go with no problems, though, so we didn’t make too big a deal about it. When the car was all better, we went off for some K.C. BBQ at a place called RJ’s and had some great food. Shelley got by on fried cauliflower and corn fritters, which she like a lot. Ella had some chicken and then fell asleep at the table while we all talked. We stuffed her into the car and then went on a driving tour of Kansas City, seeing some cool houses, like the Appleby mansion, George Brett’s mansion, and the huge houses of several other big names that escape me at the moment. We also went into a really cool modern art museum which had these neat visual installations. We arrived home safely and then spent the rest of the day talking, and hiding Woof-Woof (Ella’s favorite stuffed animal) for Ella to find.

We plan on taking it easy tomorrow morning, and then hitting up another BBQ joint for Nate and a cool vegetarian place for Shelley for lunch, and then driving out towards Colorado. We’ll probably end up staying in either Hays or Oakley Kansas.