Meatloaf, City Tour, and Slaps

Wed, Aug 23 – Thurs, Aug 24

(These are the Nauvoo deer.)

Long, somewhat boring drive to Kansas City - interstates almost all the way. Lots more corn and soybeans. Not much else. The Elks Lodge here, however, is the polar opposite of the one in Indianapolis. Facility less than 20 years old, with rental space for weddings & such. Large, active membership, dinner served twice a week, bar open every evening, etc. That said, I wasn’t at all impressed with “Mabel’s famous” meatloaf tonight. Greg & I eat well on our own, but he wanted to socialize so we joined the dinner line. Whoever Mabel is, she makes her meatloaf with a heavy tomato sauce. Then the servers slathered brown gravy over both meatloaf and (boxed?) mashed potatoes. Canned corn rounded out the plate. And we paid for this. (Don’t even ask me about the peach cobbler.) 

Friendly folks, though, and the lodge is very involved in the community. The parking lot is also huge, so I got a couple thousand steps in later. Oh, one other good thing. The property is bordered by a huge field and some light woods. While we were still eating on the patio, a deer and her fawn entertained us for 20 minutes or so. (We also watched several deer scamper through the campground in Nauvoo.)

portion of Union Station ceiling
(that's a chandelier underneath)

THURSDAY began with the Trolley Tour pick-up at Union Station (more on that term later). Beautiful building – built in 1914, closed in 1985, and restored and re-opened as a series of museums and other public attractions in 1999. In 2002 Amtrak began operating here and this is now the second busiest train station in the state. I managed to avoid Rocky Mt Chocolate Factory, but I was quite fascinated by a small display devoted to the shoeshine business, which apparently could be quite lucrative.

Tools of the Trade

Our trolley guide was good, but it wasn’t long before I was on information overload. There are close to 20 distinct districts within the city, and we went through at least half of them. I’ll just share pics of a few landmarks.

Visit here to find out why Hallmark
has a "shoebox" line of cards. 😃

 Country Club Plaza (high-end shopping
and 80 miles of lights at Christmas time)

Nelson-Atkins Art Museum

Apparently just about any viewable 
event triggers watch parties here - great for the local economy.
(Do we have these in Seattle too?)

Kelly's Westport Inn - believed to
 be one of the 2 oldest KC bldgs.

Today's Westport "neighborhood" was actually
the first site of what would later become KC.

Squeals Like A Pig  😃

For lunch, we crossed the river to have lunch at Slaps in Kansas City, KANSAS. Only 3 years old, this place is already rated one of the city's best. We would agree. (Greg has had burnt ends at the last 2 BBQ spots, and they've been good... but he still considers that Mac 'n Cheese w/ Burnt Ends that he had back in Massachusetts as one of the best dishes ever.)

BlogThoughts... Pendergast’s name will come up again tomorrow, in a very different setting, so I want to record descriptive excerpts from two sources.

from Wikipedia: “Pendergast was an American political boss who controlled Kansas City from 1925-1939. Though only briefly holding elected office as an alderman himself, in his capacity as Chairman of the Jackson County Democratic Party, Pendergast was able to use his large network of family and friends to help elect politicians (through voter fraud in some cases) and hand out government contracts and patronage jobs. He became wealthy in the process, although his addiction to gambling, especially horse racing, later led to a large accumulation of personal debts. In 1939, he was convicted of income tax evasion and served 15 months in a Federal prison.”

from biographers Larsen & Hulston: “Pendergast may bear comparison to various big-city bosses, but his open alliance with hardened criminals, his cynical subversion of the democratic process, his monarchistic style of living, his increasingly insatiable gambling habit, his grasping for a business empire, and his promotion of Kansas City as a wide-open town with every kind of vice imaginable, combined with his professed compassion for the poor and very real role as city builder, made him bigger than life, difficult to characterize.”

RandomJottings… 1. Seattle has a Union Station. So does NY, DC, St L, KC and over a hundred other US cities. Turns out the name simply refers to a station used by more than one railway company.   2. Outside the art museum we saw another stainless-steel tree. A moment’s research confirmed it was sculpted by the same artist as the one in St. Louis.  3. Hallmark doesn’t just have a bldg. that toots its own horn. The company has also invested billions in projects benefiting the citizens of KC. One site describes the Hall family as a “powerhouse in local philanthropy.”  4. From the street, the KC Public Library garage looks like a giant-sized bookshelf. Our tour didn’t include it, and I forgot to ask Greg to drive past, but it’s so cool I have to include this pic from the Internet.

Awesome! (Thanks to homeschooler Gillian for the photo.)