After being rescheduled not once, not twice, but three times — we finally were able to use our Delta credit for Kansas City. I am sitting here on the plane writing this and I still don’t know which state I am currently in— Kansas or Missouri. The running joke of this trip was what state am I in? Grant thought it hilarious to call it Kansas or Misery, but there was nothing miserable about this trip.
Since Grant is still “newish” at his job (less than one year) he didn’t want to take time off for a quick trip since we do have more travel so the trip we ended up getting was a quick late-Friday to late-Sunday trip. With the time change of adding two hours we barely made it in on Friday, but we made it just under the wire with 30 minutes to spare. Finding decent food is always difficult late at night, but especially during COVID.
We did luck out and find a little bar/restaurant called Caddy Shack that offered fried food and pizza. We ordered a few things and got some drinks. The bill came and it was a nice round number of $30. Grant and I thought it strange since we calculated that we got over $30 worth of stuff, but we paid it. Jon Taffer from Bar Rescue would have been seething if he saw this, but we were super appreciative. Again— not sure what state to thank for the hospitality?
Our next stop was our hotel, which was the Holiday Inn courtesy of Roger Sissom. We were pretty stoked about this as Roger hooked us up with this hotel room for free. The hotel had just been completely redone and had extremely comfortable beds. Grant began to lay down and I quickly laid down the hammer that we didn’t have time for sleep. He got up and we walked down to the Power and Light District that was just down the block.
This area was right next to the T-Mobile Arena and home to Kansas City Live where there was lively selection of bars, restaurant and live music. There was a dance club with laser light going, but I couldn’t swing Grant to going. So we wandered around a bit more and we ended up finding an Insomnia Cookies. It’s a cookie store that is open extremely late— like 3 or 4 am for a late night sugar fix. I turned Grant onto this place when we went to Atlanta and he was thrilled to see it. He was even more overjoyed when it turned out they serve Blue Bell Ice Cream. This may sound like nothing special to some, but for those of us in California that cannot get this brand it was a real treat. We wandered around a bit more before turning in for the night.
The next morning, we got up and started checking off things that I wanted to see starting with the City Market. I was quite impressed with the size of this market compared to most states. Having more stalls open than most cities and the added benefit of permanent vendors made this one a very memorable market. However, you don’t go to Kansas City for their fruits and vegetables, but rather their meat.
When you looked up Kansas City and BBQ the restaurant that came up the most was Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que. A line out the door is always a good sign that the food is going to be good, but I am sad to report—dud. If this is your one chance to get quality Kansas City BBQ I would recommend looking elsewhere. Being originally for Texas, I have eaten some brisket and was extremely excited to try Kansas City’s burnt ends. The bark of the brisket that is often tough doused in sauce sounded amazing. Unfortunately, they just were just soggy ends of fat with only a minor char. Now the good news is that we did have the opportunity to make it up and we definitely have different referrals that are way better including Slaps and Jack Stack.
We made a few more stops including Country Club Plaza and then began our long descent down to Branson. It’s a bit of a drive so it was perfect that we had a virtual baby shower to attend. Grant’s brother and sister-in-law were having a shower to celebrate the birth of their first child. Shh...I can’t say what the gender is, but if your curious ask Grant as he nearly blabbed it to everyone - sorta. After I told him what he had done - something about mentioning a dress in the nursery - he laughed and said he was sure there was a family bet going as to how long he could keep it a secret. Even though he argues “technically” he didn’t reveal the gender. Regardless the shower went off without a hitch and it was fun seeing family that we haven’t talked with in a while. It also entertained us for an hour of the commute; a welcome distraction considering there is absolutely nothing between the two cities.
The commute was long, but it was well worth it to see all that Branson had. The main reason we went was because they had live shows. The problem though was those live shows were either country music themed or religious, or both. I asked Grant— what do you want to see? He looked at me stressed and said “Jesus” as if something was wrong. I asked again and he said more angrily, “Jesus! I already told you!” I said what’s wrong? He said — “nothing that’s the name of the play. He loves dad humor. Corny, yet aptly described the options. So we decided to find entertainment with some of the smaller attractions. We started with going to downtown Branson Landing, did the Branson Roller Coaster and then went strolling down their Main Street. Branson Landing was Grant’s favorite because it had, you guessed it, Blue Bell.
The stroll made us hungry so we had to of course go to the World’s Largest CiCis housed of course in Branson. Ok maybe that was a me requirement... We ate, ate some more, and then eventually ate so much that I began to feel sick. Let’s just say Branson quickly began to be one of the smelliest places we have ever been to. Needing an escape from the skunk that had infested our car we tried to figure out what to do. We ended up settling on going to Silver Dollar City, an amusement park area just north of the main area of Branson.
This park was spectacular. Probably the cleanest and best decorated/themed park I have ever been to. The fall decorations were up and the whole park was decorated in hundreds of jack-o-lanterns and larger than life pumpkin statues. The park usually has a flood of tourists, but with COVID the park was relatively empty. It was interesting that before each attraction the ride attendant would spray hand sanitizer onto our hands. Masks were required, but the six feet rule was out the door as people smushed together. After riding almost all their rides— we drove back to our hotel.
The next morning the warm sunny weather had turned cloudy and wet so we got up early to venture to caverns to escape the rain. The highway is littered with advertisements for caves and I finally caved—pun intended—and we went. It was nice, but having been to other places it really not the most memorable of caves. Grant said it best, “when you’ve gone spelunking through an underground river driving through one in a jeep is just okay.”
We hit the road again and made our way to Slaps BBQ in Kansas City, Kansas. Now this BBQ was good. Solid burnt ends, warm potato casserole, and cheese curds— we got a better taste in our mouths as to why Kansas City BBQ has a reputation of being one of the best. The good food all seemed to be on the Kansas side of KC even though the good ice cream was in Misery.
The last stop of the Kansas City trip found us meeting up with one of Grants relatives in Overland Park. I am not sure what the connection is but it’s likely a cousin sister’s son married twice removed type of situation, but family. We had a lovely conversation about life, family, and travel. Due to time constraints we didn’t have that much time, but Don did surprise us with Jack Stack BBQ. The brisket was quite delicious and definitely something we would be back for.
A quick layover in Salt Lake and then back to California. Being in a state with loosened restrictions has been great! With all the restrictions still in place back home I think Grant may have gotten his geography confused as to where misery really is; between Arizona and the Pacific Ocean.