Steppesister
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
Post it already.
A Grand Tour of The Entire Midwest, But Mostly Wisconsin (UPDATE 11/12--BONUS Texas TR NOW COMPLETE)
- Thread starter Captain_Oblivious
- Start date
Steppesister
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
Oopsies. 
Captain_Oblivious
DIS Dad #257, Galactic Salad Dodger
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
Chapter 17: I Keep Forgetting I’m Not In Kansas!
In the morning, we crossed once more into Iowa.
Well, that’s enough of Iowa. On to Missouri!
We had about a 2.5-hour drive from the Omaha area down to Kansas City. We arrived around 11:00 a.m. When I was researching Kansas City, there seemed to be no shortage of activities that would interest our family. However, I usually try to find things to do that we couldn’t do back home. That usually rules out things like science museums, history museums, and zoos because we have several world-class options in the Philadelphia/Baltimore/Washington D.C. area that we can visit on a day trip from our home. We’ll make an exception, of course, if we know a certain museum is really special—as we’ll see when we get closer to Chicago.
In my research, one Kansas City attraction stood out to me: the nation’s only World War I Museum. We drove straight to the museum and took advantage of the free parking nearby. But we didn’t go in yet. We had another important attraction to visit first.
This time, we were smart enough to bring the stroller. We walked down some fairly sizable hills and around a city block to get to the Crown Center, a downtown shopping mall. Don’t worry! @pkondz has the random mall photos covered in his TR. We were focused on one spot. We were going to eat lunch in the food court!
Ok, maybe that doesn’t sound very exciting. What if I told you we were eating at Fritz’s?
Still nothing?
Did I mention that the food is delivered to your table via train?
As soon as I heard about that gimmick, I was scrambling to work the place into our vacation plan. Fritz’s has three locations, but this one proved to be the most convenient. And yes, it’s a much more expensive lunch than peanut-butter-and-jelly, but come on! There’s a train!
There was a line to get in, even before noon. I looked for the Fastpass+ entry, but couldn't find it. No single diner line, either.
Eventually, we were seated inside. In this restaurant, you’re guided to your table and a server takes care of your drink orders. When you’re ready to order your food, you use a phone at the table and call it into the kitchen. The phone is tied to a table number so the kitchen knows where to send the order. And your smallest kids can ignore everyone and just watch the model train displays around the restaurant.
After making your order, you pass the time by taking Stupid Hat Photos©.
Finally, the moment arrives. The system is pretty ingenious. The track is hung on the outside wall and circles the restaurant. The train rides along the track and has a tray suspended underneath it through a slot in the middle of the track. There’s a switch above every table that corresponds to your table number, and as the train approaches your table, the switch gets activated and a lever pops out that simply pushes the food off the train and onto another tray hanging above the booth. Then that tray is automatically lowered to your table. We were fascinated watching all of the orders being delivered.
The kids absolutely loved it.
Big kids, too.
The food itself was…fine. Nothing real special from a culinary standpoint. I do like the fact that they didn’t force me to choose between fries and onion rings. But we’d go back for the experience more than the menu. If you’ve never had food delivered to your table by train before, you have to try it at least once. It’s so cool!
We hoofed it back to the museum. Remember all those downhill slopes we walked to get to the restaurant? Well, now they were all uphill.
The National World War I Museum and Memorial is built into the side of a hill overlooking the city. The Liberty Memorial Tower is the obvious defining feature.
Well, that and the Hulk damage. Yes, Scotty still "happens", in case you were wondering. We need to stop exposing him to gamma rays.
I didn’t find the surrounding steps to be very stroller-friendly, so I took matters into my own hands.
We were finally inside the museum in the early afternoon. After a short introductory film, we crossed a glass bridge over a field of artificial poppies.
There are 9,000 poppies present, each representing 1,000 deaths for a total of 9 million who died in the war. World War I often gets glossed over in our history classes, mostly because there was no single factor that incited the war, and the cessation of fighting didn’t really end up solving anything—tensions remained between nations and eventually boiled over into World War II. We seem to spend more time on World War II in our classrooms, probably because it’s an easier conflict to explain.
In any case, the museum is terrific and well worth the visit. The displays and films do a good job of breaking down the various reasons many of the nations entered into the conflict as well as displaying lots of artifacts and weapons from the time period.
There’s an example of an infantry trench and an explanation of trench warfare, which is every bit as miserable as you might imagine.
One room had these cool interactive tables with computer screens that taught about various aircraft, weapons, and historical figures in the war.
We finished up around 4:00 p.m. or so, very glad we’d decided to visit. The museum admission includes a ride up the elevator to the top of the Liberty Memorial, so we set off to do that. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm had popped up while we were inside and they’d closed the tower due to lightning in the area. So I took a photo of the city from the base of the tower instead.
Since we didn’t get to go in the tower, we called an audible and drove across the street to the Money Museum. This is a tiny museum located within the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Admission is free, and you know how we feel about things that are free.
There’s not much to this place, but the exhibits they do have are pretty cool. There was a wall showing coins from just about every decade going back to the birth of the nation in the late 1700’s.
Another wall showed exactly what $40 million worth of hundred-dollar bills would look like stacked against the wall. In a few more years, this will also represent the amount of money it will take for me and my family to visit Disney World for a week.
There was a window into the actual Federal Reserve. No photos were allowed, but you could see automated robots transporting stacks of cash for storage, and others to be taken out of circulation.
Just before you leave, there’s a table set up where the government offers every visitor bags of cash to grab on their way out, and now I’m dying inside, because there are so many great punchlines set up here that I can’t use because of the “no politics” rule. But you can imagine them, and they’re all hilarious, right?
Those are bags of shredded bills that have been taken out of circulation. They estimate there’s approximately $120 in each bag on the table. Drew was suitably impressed.
We were impressed with Kansas City. Both of these museums were worth the time, the train restaurant was a big hit, and there appeared to be several other attractions (other museums, an aquarium, a Lego Discovery Center) that I’m sure would have been a lot of fun if we’d had a few days to visit. Having said that, we still hadn’t taken care of the #1 reason to visit Kansas City.
No, I mean besides watching an Andy Reid press conference. I’m talking about barbecue.
The city is famous for its BBQ, and we felt like eating anything else for dinner would be a sin. The bigger question was, which place do we try? So many BBQ joints claim to be the best in KC. How do you choose?
A fellow DIS Dad had the answer. I’d planned a meet-up with Aaron (ajritz on the boards, although he doesn’t really come around anymore), and he was gracious enough to invite our family to his house for dinner. I told him we were interested in KC barbecue, but weren’t sure which place to try. His response?
“How about we have an Iron Chef-style dinner, where I pick up dishes from a few of the BBQ joints and we taste them all to decide which is best?”
Naturally, the only suitable response to this question is, “Please adopt me I’m in the car and on my way.” So that settled it.
We crossed another state off our list.
We met up with Aaron and his family at his house. He had made the rounds and I helped him unload all of the goodies out of his car. The total haul included:
· Pork and brisket from Gates BBQ
· Brisket and Ribs from Jack Stack BBQ
· Brisket and chicken from Joe’s KC BBQ
· Burnt ends and ribs from Burnt End BBQ
And all of the accompanying side dishes. It was enough barbecue to make a grown man weep with joy.
I wept.
Everything was terrific. We felt that Kansas City BBQ deserved its stellar reputation. Sarah loved the ribs from Jack Stack. Julie and I both felt like the beef brisket from Joe’s KC BBQ was the standout of the whole meal. As for a side dish, the baked beans from Jack Stack were out of this world. Apparently they put the beans in the smoker along with the meat, and whatever pieces of meat or fat or whatever fall into the beans just get served right along with them. That makes for the best beans ever. You should try them, especially because beans are good for your heart.
We really enjoyed our evening with Aaron and his family—they were wonderful, friendly, generous and welcoming hosts. Along with their pet triceratops.
Coming Up Next:
Q: As a reader asked, what is there to do in St. Louis besides baseball and the Arch?
A: I have no idea.
In the morning, we crossed once more into Iowa.
Well, that’s enough of Iowa. On to Missouri!
We had about a 2.5-hour drive from the Omaha area down to Kansas City. We arrived around 11:00 a.m. When I was researching Kansas City, there seemed to be no shortage of activities that would interest our family. However, I usually try to find things to do that we couldn’t do back home. That usually rules out things like science museums, history museums, and zoos because we have several world-class options in the Philadelphia/Baltimore/Washington D.C. area that we can visit on a day trip from our home. We’ll make an exception, of course, if we know a certain museum is really special—as we’ll see when we get closer to Chicago.
In my research, one Kansas City attraction stood out to me: the nation’s only World War I Museum. We drove straight to the museum and took advantage of the free parking nearby. But we didn’t go in yet. We had another important attraction to visit first.
This time, we were smart enough to bring the stroller. We walked down some fairly sizable hills and around a city block to get to the Crown Center, a downtown shopping mall. Don’t worry! @pkondz has the random mall photos covered in his TR. We were focused on one spot. We were going to eat lunch in the food court!
Ok, maybe that doesn’t sound very exciting. What if I told you we were eating at Fritz’s?
Still nothing?
Did I mention that the food is delivered to your table via train?
As soon as I heard about that gimmick, I was scrambling to work the place into our vacation plan. Fritz’s has three locations, but this one proved to be the most convenient. And yes, it’s a much more expensive lunch than peanut-butter-and-jelly, but come on! There’s a train!
There was a line to get in, even before noon. I looked for the Fastpass+ entry, but couldn't find it. No single diner line, either.
Eventually, we were seated inside. In this restaurant, you’re guided to your table and a server takes care of your drink orders. When you’re ready to order your food, you use a phone at the table and call it into the kitchen. The phone is tied to a table number so the kitchen knows where to send the order. And your smallest kids can ignore everyone and just watch the model train displays around the restaurant.
After making your order, you pass the time by taking Stupid Hat Photos©.
Finally, the moment arrives. The system is pretty ingenious. The track is hung on the outside wall and circles the restaurant. The train rides along the track and has a tray suspended underneath it through a slot in the middle of the track. There’s a switch above every table that corresponds to your table number, and as the train approaches your table, the switch gets activated and a lever pops out that simply pushes the food off the train and onto another tray hanging above the booth. Then that tray is automatically lowered to your table. We were fascinated watching all of the orders being delivered.
The kids absolutely loved it.
Big kids, too.
The food itself was…fine. Nothing real special from a culinary standpoint. I do like the fact that they didn’t force me to choose between fries and onion rings. But we’d go back for the experience more than the menu. If you’ve never had food delivered to your table by train before, you have to try it at least once. It’s so cool!
We hoofed it back to the museum. Remember all those downhill slopes we walked to get to the restaurant? Well, now they were all uphill.
The National World War I Museum and Memorial is built into the side of a hill overlooking the city. The Liberty Memorial Tower is the obvious defining feature.
Well, that and the Hulk damage. Yes, Scotty still "happens", in case you were wondering. We need to stop exposing him to gamma rays.
I didn’t find the surrounding steps to be very stroller-friendly, so I took matters into my own hands.
We were finally inside the museum in the early afternoon. After a short introductory film, we crossed a glass bridge over a field of artificial poppies.
There are 9,000 poppies present, each representing 1,000 deaths for a total of 9 million who died in the war. World War I often gets glossed over in our history classes, mostly because there was no single factor that incited the war, and the cessation of fighting didn’t really end up solving anything—tensions remained between nations and eventually boiled over into World War II. We seem to spend more time on World War II in our classrooms, probably because it’s an easier conflict to explain.
In any case, the museum is terrific and well worth the visit. The displays and films do a good job of breaking down the various reasons many of the nations entered into the conflict as well as displaying lots of artifacts and weapons from the time period.
There’s an example of an infantry trench and an explanation of trench warfare, which is every bit as miserable as you might imagine.
One room had these cool interactive tables with computer screens that taught about various aircraft, weapons, and historical figures in the war.
We finished up around 4:00 p.m. or so, very glad we’d decided to visit. The museum admission includes a ride up the elevator to the top of the Liberty Memorial, so we set off to do that. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm had popped up while we were inside and they’d closed the tower due to lightning in the area. So I took a photo of the city from the base of the tower instead.
Since we didn’t get to go in the tower, we called an audible and drove across the street to the Money Museum. This is a tiny museum located within the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Admission is free, and you know how we feel about things that are free.
There’s not much to this place, but the exhibits they do have are pretty cool. There was a wall showing coins from just about every decade going back to the birth of the nation in the late 1700’s.
Another wall showed exactly what $40 million worth of hundred-dollar bills would look like stacked against the wall. In a few more years, this will also represent the amount of money it will take for me and my family to visit Disney World for a week.
There was a window into the actual Federal Reserve. No photos were allowed, but you could see automated robots transporting stacks of cash for storage, and others to be taken out of circulation.
Just before you leave, there’s a table set up where the government offers every visitor bags of cash to grab on their way out, and now I’m dying inside, because there are so many great punchlines set up here that I can’t use because of the “no politics” rule. But you can imagine them, and they’re all hilarious, right?
Those are bags of shredded bills that have been taken out of circulation. They estimate there’s approximately $120 in each bag on the table. Drew was suitably impressed.
We were impressed with Kansas City. Both of these museums were worth the time, the train restaurant was a big hit, and there appeared to be several other attractions (other museums, an aquarium, a Lego Discovery Center) that I’m sure would have been a lot of fun if we’d had a few days to visit. Having said that, we still hadn’t taken care of the #1 reason to visit Kansas City.
No, I mean besides watching an Andy Reid press conference. I’m talking about barbecue.
The city is famous for its BBQ, and we felt like eating anything else for dinner would be a sin. The bigger question was, which place do we try? So many BBQ joints claim to be the best in KC. How do you choose?
A fellow DIS Dad had the answer. I’d planned a meet-up with Aaron (ajritz on the boards, although he doesn’t really come around anymore), and he was gracious enough to invite our family to his house for dinner. I told him we were interested in KC barbecue, but weren’t sure which place to try. His response?
“How about we have an Iron Chef-style dinner, where I pick up dishes from a few of the BBQ joints and we taste them all to decide which is best?”
Naturally, the only suitable response to this question is, “
We crossed another state off our list.
We met up with Aaron and his family at his house. He had made the rounds and I helped him unload all of the goodies out of his car. The total haul included:
· Pork and brisket from Gates BBQ
· Brisket and Ribs from Jack Stack BBQ
· Brisket and chicken from Joe’s KC BBQ
· Burnt ends and ribs from Burnt End BBQ
And all of the accompanying side dishes. It was enough barbecue to make a grown man weep with joy.
I wept.
Everything was terrific. We felt that Kansas City BBQ deserved its stellar reputation. Sarah loved the ribs from Jack Stack. Julie and I both felt like the beef brisket from Joe’s KC BBQ was the standout of the whole meal. As for a side dish, the baked beans from Jack Stack were out of this world. Apparently they put the beans in the smoker along with the meat, and whatever pieces of meat or fat or whatever fall into the beans just get served right along with them. That makes for the best beans ever. You should try them, especially because beans are good for your heart.
We really enjoyed our evening with Aaron and his family—they were wonderful, friendly, generous and welcoming hosts. Along with their pet triceratops.
Coming Up Next:
Q: As a reader asked, what is there to do in St. Louis besides baseball and the Arch?
A: I have no idea.
Last edited:
Captain_Oblivious
DIS Dad #257, Galactic Salad Dodger
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
pkondz
Brace yourself for immediate disintegration
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2007
Thanks!
pkondz
Brace yourself for immediate disintegration
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2007
Oopsies.
Talk about totally ruining the top of the page moment!
Wow.
(Notice how I graciously waited?)
Captain_Oblivious
DIS Dad #257, Galactic Salad Dodger
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
Talk about totally ruining the top of the page moment!
Wow.
(Notice how I graciously waited?)
I did! A million bonus points for you. And if you could subtract some from @Steppesister , that would really help me out!
Steppesister
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
I feel really badly. Honest.
But if you make me lose my prize, I shall....
Hmm....
I shall...
NM.
I can't think of anything.
Would you like me to spam your thread until we hit 20.
(Not that I can count or anything....
)
But if you make me lose my prize, I shall....
Hmm....
I shall...
NM.
I can't think of anything.
Would you like me to spam your thread until we hit 20.
(Not that I can count or anything....
)
Steppesister
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
And go ahead, all y'all. Make me feel like a sh1thead even more. That's awesome.
Steppesister
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
I mean, I would have so you could have had that glorious, all-important top of the page space. But seeing as though you already posted it...I suppose I should just go read it.
I hope I can see it past my tears....
I hope I can see it past my tears....
Captain_Oblivious
DIS Dad #257, Galactic Salad Dodger
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
I feel really badly. Honest.
But if you make me lose my prize, I shall....
Hmm....
I shall...
NM.
I can't think of anything.
Would you like me to spam your thread until we hit 20.
(Not that I can count or anything....
Ruined! The entire TR is ruined! I'm deleting the whole thread.
Is your vision blurry? I might look better in the photos in that case.
Steppesister
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
I'll take option #6.
Only now?
That was last night after my Lemon Drop. You should have posted last night.
(Since you weren't going to be on the top of the page anyways.
)
Last edited:
Steppesister
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
I did! A million bonus points for you. And if you could subtract some from @Steppesister , that would really help me out!
<Gets out scoresheet from own Contest. Takes a 2nd look-see>
irene_dsc
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2007
A) You guys are evil. All of you.
B) Food delivered by train looks like way too much fun. Too bad there isn't a Pokemon Regional there this year. (There used to be, but not this year). But we never have time for real meals, anyhow.
C) I can't remember what else I was going to say.
B) Food delivered by train looks like way too much fun. Too bad there isn't a Pokemon Regional there this year. (There used to be, but not this year). But we never have time for real meals, anyhow.
C) I can't remember what else I was going to say.
Steppesister
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
I love you, Irene!
Terra Nova guy
DIS Dad #811 Newfoundland, Canada
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2014
I’m not sure I ever realized that Kansas City is not in fact in Kansas, but rather in Missouri. I'm sure I knew it at some point but then forgot it. I guess my US mid-west geography is not the best. I kind of know both the edges of the map, the stuff in the middle is a bit of a blur.
There’s no way you could pass it up. It’s just too cool. There’s something about a train (big or small) in a restaurant that’s fascinating. I can’t remember if you’ve ever been to Universal Orlando, but in the Dr. Seuss land they have a restaurant called Circus McGurkus and the trolley train ride goes around the top. My youngest was obsessed with the place, both wanting to ride the train through it (probably did it 6 or 7 times in one day) and wanting to eat there all the time. (Tip: the food is barely passable, so if you ever end up there, avoid a second visit. Although I didn’t find anything in Universal to be that great)
Well at least you found a way to work off the fries and onion rings.
Hey, they have to pay for Star Wars land somehow.
Absolutely, I imagine them to be real knee slappers. Some of the best jokes you've never written.
A table full of BBQ meats. It's what I imagine heaven to be like.
I love whatever in my beans.
Absolutely. You know what they say - “beans, beans, good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you absorb magnesium and potassium”. I can’t think of any other saying that rolls off the tongue so well.
Allison Joy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2015
I LIVE in Missouri and didn't know this was there! I'll have to cross the state some time to see it.
And I think I'll have to eat here when I make that cross state trek.This time, we were smart enough to bring the stroller. We walked down some fairly sizable hills and around a city block to get to the Crown Center, a downtown shopping mall. Don’t worry! @pkondz has the random mall photos covered in his TR. We were focused on one spot. We were going to eat lunch in the food court!
Ok, maybe that doesn’t sound very exciting. What if I told you we were eating at Fritz’s?
Still nothing?
Did I mention that the food is delivered to your table via train?
As soon as I heard about that gimmick, I was scrambling to work the place into our vacation plan. Fritz’s has three locations, but this one proved to be the most convenient. And yes, it’s a much more expensive lunch than peanut-butter-and-jelly, but come on! There’s a train!
There was a line to get in, even before noon. I looked for the Fastpass+ entry, but couldn't find it. No single diner line, either.
Eventually, we were seated inside. In this restaurant, you’re guided to your table and a server takes care of your drink orders. When you’re ready to order your food, you use a phone at the table and call it into the kitchen. The phone is tied to a table number so the kitchen knows where to send the order. And your smallest kids can ignore everyone and just watch the model train displays around the restaurant.
After making your order, you pass the time by taking Stupid Hat Photos©.
Finally, the moment arrives. The system is pretty ingenious. The track is hung on the outside wall and circles the restaurant. The train rides along the track and has a tray suspended underneath it through a slot in the middle of the track. There’s a switch above every table that corresponds to your table number, and as the train approaches your table, the switch gets activated and a lever pops out that simply pushes the food off the train and onto another tray hanging above the booth. Then that tray is automatically lowered to your table. We were fascinated watching all of the orders being delivered.
The kids absolutely loved it.
Big kids, too.
The food itself was…fine. Nothing real special from a culinary standpoint. I do like the fact that they didn’t force me to choose between fries and onion rings. But we’d go back for the experience more than the menu. If you’ve never had food delivered to your table by train before, you have to try it at least once. It’s so cool!
We were finally inside the museum in the early afternoon. After a short introductory film, we crossed a glass bridge over a field of artificial poppies.
There are 9,000 poppies present, each representing 1,000 deaths for a total of 9 million who died in the war. World War I often gets glossed over in our history classes, mostly because there was no single factor that incited the war, and the cessation of fighting didn’t really end up solving anything—tensions remained between nations and eventually boiled over into World War II. We seem to spend more time on World War II in our classrooms, probably because it’s an easier conflict to explain.
Wow. That's a sobering statistic
Hey, watch it, there. Us St. Louisians rather like our city, thank you very much!
You're not mistaken. It's both. There's a Kansas City, KS and a Kansas City, MO. Twin cities, kind of sort of. The Royals and Chiefs are both on the Missouri side.
cj9200
DIS Dad #412
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2006
Life got in the way and I am finally back and just in the nick of time. Binge reading over multiple days, bottles of bourbon consumed, more than an few chuckles, laugh snorts, and shaking my head. Have to go take a shower now and shave. Maybe then the flies will then leave. Great trip and as always l in awe that no one was irreparably maimed.
franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
I see what you're doing!
Oopsies.
D'oh! foiled again!
The Harley Davidson Plant?
That's what we did there.OK that sounds pretty cool.
I wonder if this will be one of those things that they remember as adults, "we had our food delivered by a train!"
If we ever get back there I will remember it.
OK, I'll put that one on the list as well.
All I remember is that the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand started it. WW1 was the first one with gas warfare and aircraft.
We did the one in DC and it was fascinating.
Huh. No, I can't imagine.
He sure looks like it.
That sounds awesome! When we were in Kansas City we went to Arthur Bryant's. I got the burnt ends.
I did! A million bonus points for you. And if you could subtract some from @Steppesister , that would really help me out!
It would help me too!
But I had not part in it! 
You beat me to this response.
Haha! Yes, that is the infamous St. Louis question! I moved to St Louis after high school, so no interesting answer there but my husband grew up here and went to Northwest. Our kids are in the Rockwood school district.Woohoo! St. Louisians (And Cardinal fans) unite. I'm tempted to ask you the classic St. Louis question.
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