When I say we didn’t do much on this trip, I’m not joking. We woke up Monday morning, got up and headed downstairs for breakfast. Heck I didn’t even take my camera, but this is what I ate :). What’s really funny is this is a photo in the elevator and I kept looking at this telling hubby, that looks soooooo good!
Being St. Patty’s Day I shot Tbug a text and asked her if she was wearing green. She asked if I was and I shot her back a picture showing her I was. She was wearing camo.
One thing about our trip to Kansas City is we planned on doing absolutely nothing. We had very few plans, a couple of dinner reservations but that was it. We did want to go to the KC Farmer’s Market but we did that on Saturday after we saw the weather forecast and the potential chance of snow. It was hilarious because every news station up there predicted anywhere from a light dusting to 4 inches. None of them actually agreed on anything. I did like our forecast better than home’s forecast though!!
We got up that morning and I looked out the window, it was snowing but nothing bad. Nothing to make us stay in, yet we were also okay with staying in because we had no plans!! (more…)
There will be Major picture overload, oddly enough, so please just excuse me while I break this up into multiple posts because otherwise, I’d really bombard you with photos. BTW, just a random about me, I like to call them P-hotos.. don’t know why even though I know it’s pronounced like fotos :).
So last week was the wonderful Spring Break. I’d like to say I feel relaxed but I woke up like a zombie this morning and didn’t want to get out of bed. I never heard hubby’s alarm go off even though I know I talked to him and then when mine went off I thought it was his. Yup, I was all shades of confused this lovely Monday morning!
Since we have this kiddo brewing away, I told hubby earlier this year that I wanted to try and get away even just for a couple of days as one last trip before baby comes. I’m quite nervous about how this will change our life, although he’s taking it all with a grain of salt. He’s cool like that and I’m the stresser of the family! We decided that since I got spring break, we’d just go then and chose to go to Kansas City. 2 hours away from home, lots to do but relaxing time too! Score!
I had a bit of a rough start getting to that relaxing point though… Since we were going to be gone for a couple of days I asked my parents if they’d be willing to watch our pooches for us. My mom said yes (and apparently didn’t tell my dad, another story for another day!) so when I got home from school on Thursday afternoon I loaded the pooches up in the pick-up and took them over to my parent’s house.
Since I’ve gone back to school I’ve quit carrying my purse (just throw what I need in my bag). I have my CC, money, driver’s license, etc all in a small wallet so it doesn’t take up much room in my bag. So I knew I took that with me to my parent’s house but when I got back that night I majorly flipped out because I couldn’t find it ANYWHERE. I searched the truck, my car, our house, and called hubby in a panic attack. I was about to jump back into the truck and go back to my parent’s house to see if oddly enough I lost it there when I opened the truck door and it was in the seat. I must have been sitting on it while I was digging through the truck. Major freak out session!
Okay moving on 🙂 I had a class on Friday and a doctor’s appointment and hubby had to work so we obviously got a late start heading out, but luckily it’s only about 2 1/2 hours to where our hotel was so we had lots of GORGEOUS daylight!!
Sunday morning when we were driving around headed to Buy Buy Baby hubby pointed out that we passed a The Cheesecake Factory. I asked if he’d ever eaten at one and he said nope. We decided that’s where we needed to eat dinner.
When we walked in, his first remark was, so this is where Penny worked? (Think Big Bang Theory :)). We got there early enough that there actually wasn’t a wait. I’ve only eaten at one maybe 2 or 3 times but there has always been a wait, not this day though!!!
Who doesn’t love a good, juicy, greasy hamburger? Well I guess there are some out there, but that would not be me. Sunday hubby and I slummed around for a while and finally decided to get up and get dressed. We had seen a baby store near by our hotel and we decided that we’d go check it out. On our way to Buy Buy Baby we passed a Five Guys burger. We’d been debating what to have for lunch and decided heck yeah, let’s do it.
Now Sunday morning up in Kansas City, it decided to snow. The roads were mostly clear, there was just a small layer on the car but still there weren’t many people out on the roads. I say this because I’ve never been to a Five Guys where it has been so empty. I partially wonder if it was because it was Sunday, partially because it was snowing and partially because it was around 11:45 when we got there… It didn’t matter though, it didn’t stop us.
I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am that this week is Spring Break. This has been a stressful semester and I’m soooooo ready for this break. Sadly after this break it’s going to get worse so at least we get a break, right? Hubby and I decided that we needed to get away for a couple days before the baby comes the end of June and Spring Break seemed like the best time.
We actually found ourselves in Kansas City. 2 hours away, a nice little get away, plus, we like Kansas City.
One of the great things about going out of town is trying the food! Sure, we could pick a restaurant we’ve been to or one that we have around home, but what is the fun in that? Our hotel was actually in Overland Park, KS so hubby got on the Urban Spoon app and one of the places that pulled up was Houlihan’s. I got on line and found the one closest to our hotel (1.5 miles) and we knew where dinner would be!
Memorial Day Weekend is about honoring those who have served our country proudly. My grandpa was one of them! And if there is one thing I ever learned from him (which I learned way more than one thing!!) he always claimed food was better if you had to travel 45 miles from home or more :).
One of his favorite restaurants was Chicken Mary’s over in Kansas. It’s kind of become a tradition to load up, visit the graves of our beloved family members and then go to Chicken Mary’s.
When you get there, obviously they give you the menu, but the cool thing is it comes with the story of how the restaurant got started.
The whole trip was planned and based off going to dinner at a restaurant Saturday night. Kind of the rest was a fly by the seat of your pants trip…
Dinner Saturday night was set for 8:15pm so we decided to eat a late lunch. After running around town, I had remembered seeing a Cheeseburger in Paradise back close to our hotel (we stayed on the Kansas side of KC over by the Motor Speed way) so we asked our trusty GPS to get us directions and away we went.
Cheeseburger in Paradise apparently not to be confused with the Cheeseburgers in Paradise that we ate at in Hawaii.
Normally we don’t get appetizers, however this time, we decided to. I’m a huge fan of Fried Mozzarella Stix and Fried pickles, but we didn’t need two items. They said they were known for their Frickles, however we went with the Fried Mozzarella.
Saturday afternoon my hubby and I were tired of hanging around the house. It really was too hot to do much, so we jumped in the car and headed off toward West Mineral, KS toward Big Brutus.
About a year ago or so we had a really funny conversation about this one restaurant in this one town over in Kansas somewhere having to do with 400. Well after my hubby googled what info I could actually give him we found out it was Josie’s in Scammon, KS.
It just so happens that Scammon is 7 miles from West Mineral where Big Brutus is located. Perfect outing!!
When I was a little kid, my dad took me somewhere in Kansas to see Big Brutus. Turns out, Big Brutus is in West Mineral, KS.
So can you tell how big Big Brutus is??
Big Brutus is the nickname for this massive machine, a Bucyrus-Erie model 1850B electric shovel. It was the second largest of it’s type back in the 60’s and 70’s. It is 160 feet high (16 stories high) and weighs 11 million pounds. The bucket holds 90 cubic yards or 150 tons. Maximum speed is 0.22 MPH. It cost $6.5 million in 1962.
Now to give you a bit of an idea how large he/she it really is, do you see PC down by the tracks?? Yeah, it’s that huge
This is the bucket. Brutus wasn’t used in the coal mining but more to remove rubble from the area. The bucket was operated by the Operator and he could pick up a load in complete in 55 seconds.
Ok I’m sorry, but people defacing something like this to “leave their mark” is kind of sad.
This lead to another small room. No idea what it was for but there was a gap between the two doorways…
The elevator on the left was the only way in or out of the machine. The top right photo is trying (although not doing a good job) of showing how massive the inside of the machine was. The bottom right is sad. Come on people, don’t sue if you do something stupid… you cause it for the rest of us not to be able to experience cool things because people are afraid of being in horrible lawsuits! Remember Lawyers are the only ones who benefit from lawsuits! They get a pretty penny! Ok done ranting :).
They had maps on the wall and people placed Pins from their location.
Ok it was HOT on Saturday. Can you see that by my car temp pics? What was really funny is the fact that when we crossed the Kansas line the temp in my car rose a degree :). haha. So anyway Big Brutus closed at 6. As we were driving to dinner (we ate at Josie’s in Scammon KS), a storm blew up. I had plans of washing my car (seems to always rain when I do), but waited until after our adventure. Well it rained before I got my car washed. The lower left photo shows the storm blowing in. The dust was flying!
