Month: August 2022

Bob is currently driving to Austin for a short visit and house sit, and I have just boarded a flight to Tucson via Dallas from Oklahoma City. I’ll be caring for the home and dog of a prior home owner that we’ve sat for. Either Bob or I or both will be blogging as our house sits begin and progress.

Some brief thoughts on Our Kansas City stay. While we didn’t have a pet, we loved the beautiful neighborhood and location. Selfishly, it was awesome for running with both quiet neighborhood streets and trails nearby. Unusually for us, we both preferred the neighborhoods to downtown proper, as the neighborhoods we saw, anyway, all had plenty of amenities within walking distance and were shaded. People are always asking what are favorites are as we travel around. This definitely ranks as one of my favorite neighborhoods.

Today, we had a walkabout around the Plaza District of Kansas City, which is near the Country Club Plaza, which we visited on Wednesday and the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum, which we visited last week.

We started at the Jacob L. Loose Park. It had a beautiful pond, nice fountain, rose garden, and a garden center, as well as a great walking path around the perimeter of the 75 acre park. The park was pretty active with a number of people enjoying the trails, large lawn, or walking around the ponds. Jacob Loose founded the Sunshine Biscuit Company, maker of Cheez-Its, among other crackers, cookies, and cereals.

On the way to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, we popped into the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library. It was not the main library, which is in downtown, but still allowed for a pleasant perusal.

We continued on to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. It was a smaller museum, but we enjoyed the space and many of the art pieces. It was free and had a nice-looking cafe and a cute museum shop. Out front, we saw a sculpture that looked like one we had seen at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. Checking the names of the sculptors, turns out it was the same artist, Louise Bourgeois.

Next, we walked to the Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden. The garden is free and provides a lovely space for a short stroll. It is not open for private events, maybe because the Kauffmans are buried here as well. It was lovely and is just a part of the green space and other gifts made by the Kauffmans to Kansas City.

Finally, we walked across the street to check out the Kauffman Foundation campus. Ewing Kauffman was the founder and first owner of the Kansas City Royals, who play in Kauffman Stadium.

Our eighth day in Kansas City was fairly active. After Beth’s run and another doctor visit for Bob (leg pain issues), we hit five different sites.

First up was Country Club Plaza. Developed in the 1920’s, it was marketed as the first shopping center for shoppers traveling by car. The buildings have a Spanish influence. It seems like it would be a fun area, but there was so much redevelopment it was hectic trying to drive, walk, and get into stores. Though, we did find a great KC Market, with locally-made products to buy a few items for future home owners.

Second up was Crown Center developed by Don Hall of Hallmark Greeting Cards (see #5). The Center was planned and developed starting in the 1960’s. It has a mall with your standard stores and also has nearby hotels and nearby attractions such as Legoland, Sea Life , and the Hallmark Visitor’s Center, as well as a fountain.

Third was the World War I museum. It is an impressive, imposing museum. We didn’t pay to go in ($18 apiece), as our homeowners found it overwhelming and we weren’t in a war mood. We did get a good view of the city, however, from the upper level of the monument.

Fourth was Union Station, 108 years old. We usually like hitting these stations as many cities have updated them. This one had a couple nice restaurants in it. Amtrak can still be boarded here. Also, right outside is a free light rail that will whisk you into downtown proper.

Number five was the Hallmark Card Visitor Center. We thought it would be fun to tour, since we’re familiar with the cards, and they started in Kansas City. Who knew? Plus, “We care enough to send the very best.”

It was an informative visit. They have a movie which provides a good overview of the start and growth of the company. Joyce Clyde (J.C.) Hall started the company from his room in the local YMCA. He started out by selling other people’s postcards before moving into creating their own cards. The Hall Brothers (he was joined by his older brothers) also created gift wrap. The company is still run by the family and now includes the Crayola Crayons company as well as two Hallmark channels on tv. The trickiest part of the tour was finding the Visitor’s Center. We heard another couple complaining about that on our way out.

We’re now having an early 59th birthday celebration for Bob since we won’t be together on his birthday. We’ll likely have a second celebration when we get back together in Denver after his birthday.

The big event for the day was a visit to the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. It was a 25-minute drive from the house. We really liked the museum, and it gave the impression of being new, even though it was initially established in 1957. Truman conceived of the idea after he left office, as he had no secret service, no pension, and no job. Times have changed.

The information is presented in video, static displays, and interactive exhibits, but mostly we were impressed with the man. We are not presidential scholars, so we learned or relearned that he was selected to be the Vice Presidential candidate for Franklin Roosevelt’s last election. They won and 82 days later Truman assumed the presidency after Roosevelt’s sudden death from a cerebral hemorrhage.

He then had the unenviable, and seemingly impossible, tasks of trying to end WWII (and the decision to use the bomb, which he hadn’t even known was being developed). The ending of the war brought its own challenges with what to do with Germany, rebuilding Europe, dealing with an increasingly hostile Russia, and then the Korean War as well. Oh, and an attempted assassination and the need to move out of the White House because it needed lots of structural work.

WTF!? God love him. You can question his decisions, but I am just thankful a man of his caliber was on duty through all of that.

Did a little bit in Missouri today and a little bit in Kansas. It started out this morning on my run, as about 6 or 7 blocks west of where we are staying is the state line. As when I’m not running on trails, I’m running up and down streets, I was in and out of Missouri and into Kansas a few times. I realize this is not a big deal to the locals, but it was a bit of amusement for me. And every time I ran back into Missouri, I thought — I’m not in Kansas anymore.

We also took a real excursion further into Kansas to check out the University of Kansas in Lawrence, about a 45 minute drive from here. It was a lovely 77 degrees under cloudy skies, while we walked around campus. We definitely found some pros and cons with the campus, and it didn’t help that the visit started off on a down note.

I’ll start with our pans, cons, whatever you want to call them. First, we parked at the campus Visitor Center to pick up a map and perhaps get some insights on what to checkout. We were met with no reaction from the group of 3 “workers” who were having a lovely chat amongst themselves. The student was helping someone over the phone and finally turned her attention to Bob (I had wandered over to the brochure wall to try to find a resource.) after she was finished with her data entry on the computer. Bob got a map and was told to follow the walking map in the Visitor’s Guide across the room — the resource wall I had found. Just a simple acknowledgment of our presence would have been appreciated. I mean, it’s Bob Peck after all.

The “walking map” cannot have been designed by anyone intending to use it. The map itself was super tiny, then you had to look up the building initials on other pages of the magazine to understand where you were, and there was no start/finish point. We used the larger, one-page map that Bob had picked up to guide us on our walkabout.

The campus itself was fine, a number of older, not so interesting architecturally buildings, but some more attractive ones as well. We loved that much of the campus is up on a hill (Mount Oread), which allows for great views of the area. There is also a campanile with a carillon that plays on the hour and provides concerts on Sundays at 5. There were plenty of versions of the Jayhawks mascot to look at, and a sad little story about why the KU fans yell “Rock Chalk” at sporting events.

We did two touristy things today, and both were very enjoyable. First, we took off from “home” about 11:30 to see the Kansas City Museum, which opened at noon. On the drive there we went through a neighborhood close to ours that was called Country Club. It was filled with even bigger and prettier homes than our lovely area.

The Kansas City Museum is located on the rise above the Missouri River in the Historic District. The Museum was the former residence of Robert Alexander Long and his wife, Ella. Mr. Long made his millions in the timber/wood business before having this home built, along with a horse farm in a nearby community, and then a planned community in Washington after having to move the business there for access to more trees. The first floor of the museum/house was information on the Long family. The second and third floors had information on the history of Kansas City — well presented, attractive, and informative. It is free to tour!

The second stop today was the Arabia Steamboat Museum, which is located in the City River Market area. The museum tells the story of the sinking and later rediscovery of the Arabia and houses the remains of the steamboat and all the items it was carrying when it hit an uprooted tree in the water and sank in 1856.

It was unearthed in 1988 by a group of five friends who learned of the existence of sunken steamboats by one of their clients. The group conducted the excavation with their own funds and chose to create the museum rather than sell the items they recovered. The ship was dug up in a corn field about a 1/2 mile from the river, as the contours of the Missouri River have moved over the years.

A short video said the artifacts removed from the ship were the largest collection of pre-Civil War items in the world. It was amazing, as hopefully you can tell by the pictures. Also, in the museum is a working preservation lab. We talked to the preservationist, and she said there was still 20% of the discovery yet to be cleaned, sorted and cataloged, a job she estimated would take another 8-12 years!

All in all, an interesting an educational day in Kansas City (the City of Fountains).

Today was our fourth day in Kansas City. We are in an area called Brookside. The homes and big trees are gorgeous, the retail areas are great, and there is good walkability.

Our day was a different one, though Beth did get up and run. I had an appointment at an Urgent Care at 9:45am (didn’t get in until 10:45!). I’m having some pain in my left leg and wanted to have it checked out. St. Luke’s Medical’s website differentiated their services as Convenient Care where a patient would see a nurse or Urgent Care where I was to see a doctor. I got a nurse though I had scheduled at an Urgent Care place. I have had great nurses, but this guy looked very young and did not give me confidence in his diagnosis (sciatica and/or maybe femoral neuropathy). He gave me a prescription for a muscle relaxant and steroids. We’ll see how it goes.

I have an appointment in Austin with my doctor in a couple weeks, so if the pain doesn’t go away, I’m hoping he may be able to provide more assistance.

Beth walked to the local farmers market and then checked out the local YMCA. The farmer’s market is held every Saturday morning and is located right off of the Harry Wiggins Trolley Track Trail that we had walked yesterday.

This afternoon we explored a nearby retail area and stopped in a cool store that had big head sculptures out front and in a higher end grocery store/market that had very reasonable prices. We picked up a few items but had done a bigger stock up at Trader Joe’s the other day.

Not sure what the weather is where you are, but today is to be our hottest day here, a muggy 98.

After a lovely run and walk this morning, Bob and I headed off for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which we had seen online as a good free thing to do and which was recommended by our homeowners. To get there, we decided to walk along the 6.8 mile Harry Wiggins Trolley Track Trail. We can get on the trail at the end of our street. It was about a 1 hour walk to the art museum.

The Nelson-Atkins Art Museum was impressive. Crazy that it’s free, although you do pay for the special exhibitions. We didn’t pay and still saw some amazing art both inside and outside the museum.

The other floor that we really liked was the plaza level on the 2nd floor. It had a gorgeous entrance and restaurant and lots of European art, including Impressionism. And then, there was the outside art! Lovely, lovely museum.

Beth and I are back on house sitting duty after a great stay with family in Wisconsin and Iowa. In Wisconsin, we got to see Beth’s mom and her extended family as well as Quade family members and lots of other friends at Beth’s mom’s 80th birthday party. It was a great day with about 150 people in attendance. In Iowa, we got to see all of Bob’s siblings and parents, even with some unexpected health issues.

Yesterday, we arrived in Kansas City, Missouri to begin an 11-day sit which was supposed to be with a cute dog named Frisco. Unfortunately, last week, we received a text that he passed away. The owners still wanted us to watch the home while they are vacationing on the east coast, so here we are for our 107th sit.

After a walkthrough of the home care needs yesterday afternoon, the homeowners took us to a great local restaurant for a light dinner. Today, I drove them to the airport to catch their 7:30 flight, and Beth went for a run. We have spent the day getting settled, buying groceries, and making plans for tomorrow. I also had an eye appointment.

We have our sits scheduled out for the rest of the year, taking us to Austin, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; Denver, Colorado; Chicago, Illinois; Cambridge, England, and finishing the year in back in Austin.