June 2010 Family Vacation Day 2

Destination: Kansas City, MO and Salina, KS

Well as you can probably guess we planned to wake up early and get started with the day activities, but we were so exhausted from yesterday that we woke up late. The plan was to leave at 7am, but that is when we woke…LOL. But that was ok, because it only threw us off by an hour or two. And I must mention that today we accomplished a lot too. Kansas City wasn’t originally in our plans for this vacation. What changed it was a good friend of ours mentioned the Negro League Baseball Hall of Fame in Kansas City, MO. Ernest thought it would be a great idea to take the boys before heading into Salina, KS which isn’t far away. So that is where we went and ended up seeing more than expected.

The drive to Kansas City, KS had us right in the middle of heavy rain most of the way. We thought we were going to have skip going because it was raining so hard. Turns out that by the time we entered Kansas City all the rain disappeared and allowed us to see the Kansas City Chiefs Stadium. It was amazed us because it is right next to the Kansas City Royals stadium. So we put stopping back and taking pictures in our plans.

We actually got two museums in one. Never knew that the Jazz Museum and the NLBM were in the same place. You can see one for $8 or both for $10. We chose both. I was a little sad that I couldn’t take pictures of all the great things we saw. Although I have my cell phone camera I didn’t want to be disrespectful. Normally your suppose to turn in your cameras, but the lady said she didn’t want to deal with another person’s cell phone. Neither museum was very big, but it was nice to see the boys interested. Especially Ernest. We went to the Jazz Museum first because just at the ticket counter was a guy who started playing the sax and he thought that was just the coolest thing. And I must admit the man was very good. We walked in the Jazz Museum and the boys couldn’t stop smiling. Little Ernest listened to Ella Fitzgerald and seemed to really enjoy hearing her voice. Could you blame him? It is of course Ella… :-) Robert was a bit into Louis Armstrong.

The boys were really into the Negro League Baseball Hall of Fame Museum. I couldn’t get Ernest to slow down. He wanted to watch every video and was asking questions all over the place. I even read a part where they mentioned how they created stereotype cartoons and other things (like an album cover) making fun of black playing baseball. My child asked me why. I simply told him that back then it was their way to say the didn’t like black men playing and it was showing their disrespect. The museum was actually very enlightening. We read how the game stadiums were separated by black and whites. How getting hotel rooms were so bad that they had to stay in black boarding houses and sometime pitch tents outside the stadiums they were to play at the next day. We even saw lockers filled with Jerseys of some of the great players in the league. One had a tie in it and Ernest thought there was something wrong….LOL. We saw like 4 huge cases of signed baseballs and they had a small field with statues that they boys simply loved. The one thing that amazed me was to see Robert stand in front of the Third Base statue and pretend to be throwing a ball. It felt good to just see my boys happy with all that they were seeing . Only wish they were old enough to really understand it all when it comes to their history.

Once we finished with the museums our goal was to go to Arthur Bryant’s Bar-B-Q to see what they have. After getting a little lost because of all the construction work we discovered the restaurant is in a casino. At first we thought the GPS got things confused again, but it didn’t. We didn’t see anything but the casino and we really didn’t think that it would be in a casino. Well, either way we decided to go to another place called Gates & Sons Bar-B-Q. And we couldn’t get it in the car good enough without my two greedy boys yelling that they want some. Ernest got two slabs of ribs with and without sauce. They were actually very good. Better without sauce more, but the sauce wasn’t bad if you wanted hot sauce. Didn’t taste much like barbeque at all. Just really good hot sauce if that makes sense at all. But it was good either way and no one was disappointed at all.

Next stop was to go back and take picture of the stadiums. Again we almost got a little lost due to reconstruction and no one told Sprint’s GPS that the Kansas City Chiefs moved their stadium….LOL. But we found it and took several photos before heading off on a 2 hr 45 minute drive to Salina, KS to finally see my Dad.

We got to Salina, KS around 8:30pm. Actually again we got a little lost. We weren't far from my father's house when it started acting rea funny, so we had to call him. Once we got to the house everyone talked and caught up on old times. My aunt Gertrude was hear visiting from Denver. I saw my uncle Herman who I haven't seen in almost 18 years. Both my aunt and uncle didn't stay long because my aunt is leaving tomorrow and needs her rest for her trip back to Denver, CO. So we spent the rest of the evening talking, looking at pictures, and watching the boys play with my dad's dog.  Ernest didn't have much a problem with the dog, but Robert only got with in a foot of him before running away all evening. It was actually very hilarious.

All in all it was an excellent day. Seeing the museums and finally after all this time seeing my father and uncle. It felt really good. Now off to bed so that we can finally relax and wake up to a brand new day.