KC – Wachs Across America

We had one of the smoothest moving day mornings of our trip as we packed everything up at Cahokia RV Parque. Without even trying we were on the road by 9:30 on our way to Kansas City. As we pulled out and said good bye to our campsite and began our last Thursday of this trip Brielle said, “bummer, we never did get to try those donuts.” Every time we drove into St Louis we passed this little donut shop called DJs Donuts. We have stopped for donuts on moving day twice before and both times were more like lunch time donuts: once in Panama City and another time in Philadelphia. So I figured we needed to have breakfast donuts for a change and I pulled Ava and the Beast into DJs to get some fuel for our bellies.

Steph has some relatives in Kansas City that we wanted to see on our way back home so we scheduled a couple days there. The RV park close to their house was full and it didn’t get great reviews so we ended up on the Missouri side of the river at a great county park called Blue Springs campground. The drive across Missouri was smooth and uneventful. We stopped once for a restroom break. We got checked in at the campground and found our spot without issue. We did not have water hookups so we needed to fill the fresh water tank. When we pulled up to the community water spigot closest to our site I realized that with our two hoses we could reach Ava once we had her set up due to the close proximity of the spigot. So, I backed into the site and we got set up. Its no surprise but backing into a spot on the drivers side is so much easier than a blind back in. We can usually nail it on one try and such was the case with this spot. Once settled in we ate a late lunch and I pounded out a coupe hours of work before going over to Uncle Rick and Aunt Brenda’s for dinner. They had quite a spread prepared for us to enjoy along with their company and plenty of elbow room at the table. Their daughter Emily was home from college and she had the girl she nannys over, Kora. Brielle loved hanging out with both Emily and Kora as they made some melted bead art doohickies.

On Friday Aunt Brenda took the day off work to go to the Arabia Steamship museum with us. My mom gave this museum high marks and Aunt Brenda agreed that it’s a KC must-see. We met at Union Station and took the newly opened free streetcar up to the museum. The Arabia carried goods up the Missouri river to supply towns up stream. But on one fateful journey it hit a tree snag and sunk. Over time as the river changed course the upper portion of the ship washed away while the cargo holds got buried under loads of mud which ended up under a farmer’s field. The mud preserved the items which a few guys spent an entire winter digging up. The museum has tons of the artifacts and they are still preserving things today. What is amazing beside how well preserved the items are is how many of each type of item there are. It makes for really great displays. There is not just one lock, or one saw, or one china bowl, or one jar of pickles….there were 100s of each!! And yes, they found preserved foods that were supposedly still good after all that time!! The other cool part about the museum is they usually have one of the men who did the dig there to tell stories and answer questions. The guy we talked to was really cool and still very excited to tell the stories that I’m sure he has told a gazillion times.

We spent the rest of the afternoon running a couple errands then working and doing some laundry at Aunt Brenda’s. The kids had fun playing with their dog Josie and playing bumper pool. We had another huge feast of a dinner followed by root beer floats and a guys vs girls game of Word on the Street which the guys barely squeaked out a win (we may have received some inadvertent help from the girl’s team). The kids really wanted to stay the night there at the house so we let them stay while Steph and I went back to stay at the rig.

Saturday was a lazy day at the house again watching movies, playing with the dog, doing crafts, I worked, and we ate like kings and queens. When we left that evening Aunt Brenda loaded us up with fruit salad and banana bread for breakfast the next morning as well as some chicken salad for our lunch on the road the next day. It is impossible to leave Aunt Brenda’s without feeling very well taken care of!

It was so great to be able to catch up with family while in Kansas City. Thank you Uncle Rick , Aunt Brenda and Emily for opening your home for us and your amazing hospitality!