Sonya and Kizmet tackle Kansas City

Sonya’s Blog - Day 14 - July 6th - Walking around Kansas City with Kizmet

Kizzy and I walked around Kansas City Metro area while Blake and the kids went to the Legoland Discovery Centre and Sea Land. We didn’t want to leave Kizmet behind again today and I was fine with missing those activities:)

We parked by the WWI Museum and Memorial as the parking is free there and it was a quick jaunt down to Crown Centre which was where the Legoland and Sea Land were. Kizzy and I then walked back up to the Museum as there were parks behind there and I needed to put my water bottle back in the truck and a magazine on Missouri as I didn’t feel like carrying them around. I thought parks would be the best place to roam with the Kizzymutt. We first came upon a statue that honours women pioneers. The man who commissioned the piece had the artist destroy the mould when it was completed as he did not want another like it so that it would be unique. It depicts a Father and Son leading a horse with the wife/mother on the horse being led into the unknown.

Picture of Kizmet in front of the Statue:

Look how hot Kizmet it, her tongue is so far out of her mouth!

It was already smokin hot by this time and the humidity was intense. We went down to Penn Valley Drive and I noticed there was a ravine area with a path at the bottom that lead to a small pond. So we ventured down there to check it out as I thought it would be cooler and Kizzy could drink from the stream or pond and save her water in her water bottle (I have a water rover for her with the attached bowl, so good). Well we got down there and it was even muggier and she couldn’t drink from the stream or pond as it had sewage in it or contaminants or something, there were all these signs. Then as we got closer to the pond there was so much goose poop it was hard to walk on the path. We saw another cool statue on the top of the next hill, but when we went around to get up there the path did not go up there from that side, disappointing.

Kizmet in front of the pond, you can see the statue on top of the hill behind her:

So we hiked back through the ravine area to the other side to see if we could get there, but by that time we were so hot and both out of water. We decided to head back to where Blake and the kids were, well Kizmet would have been happy to lie in the shade and have a nap. Off we walked and could not find one store or roadside vendor during our travels. We did find another fountain, Kansas City is known as the City of Fountains, that was a tribute to firefighters:

It was cool. There was a guy there with 3 dogs, unleashed, and he dipped them or threw them in the pond and then lifted them out. Kizmet and I didn’t try that, pretty sure it would be frowned upon.

As we continued on our way we passed the Federal Reserve Building, which is just across from the WWI Museum. We wanted to go there as the tours are free and you get a free bag on money when you are done, the money is shredded, but all the same. We ran out of time for that adventure. At the corner of their lot is this Cornerstone:

It is from the original St. Mary’s Chapel and the bell is from the tower. It stood on that sight until 1989 and they wanted to leave the marker because of the amount of work the chapel and hospital did for the Kansas City community while they were there.

Kizmet was done by this time and she kept lying down in the shade of the trees, on a tree lined street! She needed a lot of encouragement to keep going. We only had a few blocks to go so I wanted to keep her going so we could sit in the shade by the fountain there. We made it and got a table right next to the fountain, which kept spraying us as the wind had picked up by this point. I guess there is a storm blowing in.

Definitely a storm blowing in, within 2 hours there were very dark clouds and high winds. We had just finished eating and looking around and Natasha wanted to check out the Country Club Plaza area. On the way there I got an alert on my phone warning of possible flash flooding in the area. It started to rain a little while we were driving to this Plaza district which is all done up in a Spanish theme as the guy who did the area loved Seville in Spain. We continued on our way as we were only a block or two away. The most famous pond in Kansas City was near there and Isaac wanted a picture as he couldn’t get one from the bus yesterday. Here it is:

We only managed to get a couple of blocks done and the rain started chucking it down, then the Tornado sirens went off, those are lovely sounds. We raced back to the truck and started driving away. There was a ton of water on the road and a lot of standing water, we were pretty happy to be so high up in our huge truck. I was trying to find out info on my phone about the interstates, we couldn’t decide to stay put or try driving out of the metro area. Then I saw the tornado warning for the Overland Park area, which is near downtown Kansas City and we decided to risk the freeway as it looked like the centre of the storm was over the Metro area. It was touch and go for awhile and there was a lot of water on the road and a lot of standing water. Before we were halfway back all the tornado warnings were lifted, but all the severe thunderstorm warnings are in effect all night. We went slow and managed to make it back to the RV where it was hardly raining at all. We got all settled in and then the rain started up in our area. We are watching a couple of episodes of Corner Gas and then Isaac is early to bed while we tidy up and get ready to leave tomorrow. We are off to St. Louis tomorrow, we can take the historic route 66 for part of it and it only adds 20 minutes to our drive so we will probably do that. It is a much shorter drive tomorrow, only 3 hours and 40 minutes.

Hopefully we don’t get washed away tonight!

Sonya