Every year Courtney and I spend a few nights in a different state. Eventually we will hit all 50 states! It has been an awesome tradition that I would recommend to any new married couple. This year we planned a trip out to Arkansas to see the eclipse with my parents. They were leaving a day earlier than us and taking our kids so we decided to spend a couple nights in Kansas City on the way out as our “state” for this year.
Highways rest stops are fascinating to me. This one was a vibe, as the kids would say.
Our AirBNB was right in the city. It was cozy and walking distance from a great coffee shop so it was perfect.
The next morning we had breakfast at a great little place called Happy Gillis before heading to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. It is a free museum with some really beautiful and important pieces of art. We saw work by Monet, Van Gogh, Rothko, Warhol, and a great series of self-portraits from he 70’s by a photographer named Melissa Shook.
One of our favorite things we to do when we travel is try to find really good food, especially if it is important to the location. After asking a couple locals and doing some googling we ended up at Joe’s Kansas City Barbecue and oh man, it was worth it. I think it is the best barbecue I have ever had, though there was this one place in St. Louis…
After lunch we ended up at another great coffee spot downtown with rooftop seating that was really cool.
After coffee we made a pilgrimage deep behind enemy lines to the headquarters of the evil ones.
For dinner we found a cool little wine bar in the city (don’t worry, Courtney didn’t drink any) and then called it a night. Off to Arkansas the next morning.
Kansas City is cool! It kinda felt like a Midwest Denver. I think if living in a good city is really important, than it seems like a great place to raise a family. Being near mountains wilderness is really important to me so it wouldn’t be for us, but I could see why people are moving there for sure.
I will post the Arkansas portion of our trip in a separate post. See you then!