Kansas

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Due to Halloween falling on a Saturday, Kansas turned out to be a longer stop for us than I had initially planned on but turned out to be perfect! I will admit, I had very low expectations for this state. I mean, how many times do you hear people say "Oh, I am so excited, we are taking a family vacation to Kansas!"??? I personally know one person that loves Kansas and she's originally from there so I have to think she's a little biased ;) Well let me tell you, there is actually a lot of fun to be had in this state, so much so that I would even return to it!

Our first stop was Wichita. We were all glad to arrive as the drive here was our longest day of driving so far. While I will tell you Wichita was not my favorite part of the state, the kids had a ball here! Our RV park was a kids paradise with endless activities, so much so that they rarely wanted to leave it! We did make one trip into downtown and spent the day at the neatest place...Cowtown. A real life old west town right on the river that has fully restored the original buildings of the Chisolm Trail and gives you a true taste of the old west. There are costumed people in the town giving a real life experience and even a working saloon where you can buy lunch! My guys LOVED the swing and bowling alley, and thought seeing how people actually lived 100 years ago was fascinating. Seriously, if y'all are ever in the area, I highly recommend this place!

Kansas City was our second stop in Kansas, or wait, is it Missouri?!?!? Seriously, I have never been so confused as to where I am as I was in Kansas City!!! Every time I got in the jeep I saw nothing but continual "Welcome to Kansas" and "Welcome to Missouri" signs. The kids gave up asking what state we were in as my answer was always "I have absolutely no idea!". For as confused as I was, I was positive about one thing...Kansas City is the neatest city! My dear friend Beth put out a call and had a bunch of her friends in the area give me ideas for this city...they did not disappoint! We had too much to do and sadly did not have the time to make it to everything. Fortunately we hit the highlights...we'll save the rest for another visit :) We managed to take a tour of the Federal Reserve, a tour of Hallmark (I was so excited for this!), visited the Hallmark boutique "Halls" (seriously, who knew Hallmark had their own, amazingly awesome clothing boutique?!?!), had lunch at the Crayola Cafe, played at Kaleidoscope (a completely free children's museum courtesy of Hallmark), saw the WW1 Memorial & Museum, hit the Lego store, found the tallest Barnes & Noble we have seen thus far, went on a fountain hunt for blue fountains (there are tons!), saw how loyal the town is with everything decorated in support of "KC Royals" (world series was going on while we were here!) and had a super fun dinner at Fritz's, a restaurant where a train delivered our food to the table!

The coolest part of Kansas City was the orchard we stayed in. The kids loved being here...so much to do and such a neat setting. We purposely picked this place for Halloween as they had a schedule of events all day for kids. We did arts & crafts, fished, played football, pumpkin chunked into the lake (BEST part of day!), carved creepy pumpkins, they had a costume parade, a hayride and at the end of the day...trick or treating! My crazies had the best week in Kansas and need a week somewhere calm to recover from the "high" they are on!