Our first night, we stopped in Wichita, Kansas. I had no idea what to expect in Wichita, and while it was fairly "sleepy" while we were there, it was really cute and fun in the Old Town area. We ate an amazing meal at a foodie restaurant called Public, where we dined on garlic and rosemary home fries, and for dessert (I) ate an absolutely delicious Apple Crumble, which was perfect for the frigid temperatures outside. All in all, it was a funky, great little town.
One thing about Wichita was that it had some great walls to take pictures in front of. This was the side of a hair salon called Planet Hair; just too cool.
It was FREEZING that morning, and Dresden was a trooper!
I was excited about the opportunity to see a few old friends while we were there, HRH Queen Elizabeth I and her crazy old dad, Henry VIII. This was some sort of museum. How random and awesome to have those guys in their window?
The next day we got up and enjoyed breakfast at a local place, and got on the road to Kansas City. We really didn't see Kansas City "proper", because the T-Rex restaurant was on the outskirts at an outlet mall. We were wondering what to expect when we walked into the restaurant, since they are similar to the Rainforest Cafe and Dresden has been known to be terrified of the noisy robotic animals from time to time, but I thought surely he'd just be right in his element with all the dinosaurs.
Mom fail. He took one look at the gigantic T-Rex dipping it's head down and roaring when you first open the doors, and screamed "I wanna go back to the car!!!" and started crying.
It really was a daunting robotic T-Rex...
Something made him calm down at some point, maybe when he couldn't see the T-Rex anymore, but he was still too scared to go around and look at any of the dinosaurs, much less take pictures with them. So....yeah...I guess we will be returning to Kansas City in about 7 or 8 more years. Still, of course, after the fact he said he had fun, and I'm sure he'd now act like big animatronic dinosaurs weren't any big deal, if you were to ask him about it.
This kid was vibrating at this frequency pretty much our whole trip. The blurriness sets a perfect tone for future pictures as well ;-)
25 Weeks with Baby Girl! December 16, 2012
Dresden did just fine outside of the restaurant, of course.
Showing off his new Miragaia (relative of the stegosaurus)
Another belly pic; us Texans can't resist pictures with a cowboy!
After Kansas City, we headed to Hannibal, Missouri, our stop for the night, and Mr. Mark Twain's boyhood hometown. I suppose you can't really call Wichita a "sleepy" town once you've been to Hannibal, because Hannibal was just the quintessential "small town" town. We woke up in the morning and decided to see some of the Mark Twain related sites, and ended up at the Mark Twain Family Restaurant for breakfast. We couldn't help but notice here, how closely Dresden's hair resembled that of Twain himself - ha!
In front of the Mark Twain Dinette/Family Restaurant
The Mark Twain hair and his cocoa
After breakfast we stopped by for a visit to the Mark Twain museum, which was actually kind of fun for Dresden and pretty interesting. They had a room full of interactive stuff for kids, and a real steamboat wheel and whistle on the second floor. The whole time we were there, I was reminded of reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn when I was younger; never did I imagine I'd have a mischievous Tom Sawyer of my own one day!
In front of the statue of Tom and Huck. I couldn't help but imagine how much trouble he would have gotten into with these two were he a character in their books, hehe.
The sleepy town of Hannibal...
From Hannibal, we went the rest of the way to Chicago, and were lucky enough to see snow falling and sticking to the ground along the way. It was a long three days, but I think totally worth it, and the best way we could have traveled at this point. The baby kept me company with lots of kicks and flips as I sat in the car, and of course Dresden entertained us with all his stories, songs and questions. For a three-year-old, he did, dare I say, amazing with three full days in a car.
Stay tuned for the rest of our adventure, starting with the three days we spent downtown in the heart of the city, visiting pretty much every museum Chicago has to offer!
Love,
Cassie
No comments:
Post a Comment