I have a terrible habit of judging places I have never been, and deciding that they are not worth visiting.  So when I was told I would be going on a last minute trip to Kansas City, I was not exactly doing back flips.

I am happy to say that I was totally wrong to judge KC without actually visiting.  This place is pretty awesome.

First, there is a big cow statue on the side of the road that greets me every morning on my way from my hotel to work.  And when I stopped to get a picture of the cow, a really nice lady pulled off to the side of the road asking if I was ok.  She said she just couldn’t drive by and not make sure everything was alright.  I felt kind of silly telling her I was just taking a picture of a fake cow, but wow, people in Kansas city are super nice!

On one of my free days I went to the City Market downtown.  You can’t tell from this picture, but the wind was insane!

The market has a pretty cool set-up.  There are booths and stands out front for local farmers and artisans to display their wares, and on the interior are lots of little shops.  I found one shop selling everything you could want from Jamaica, including Stud Tea…

I had read somewhere that the City Market had a gluten free bakery so I spent a good portion of the morning trying to hunt down a loaf of fresh gluten free bread.  No dice, but I did get my hands on a gluten free chocolate torte, and it was out of this world.

I also paid a visit to the Steamboat Arabia Museum.  The museum dedicated entirely to a steamboat that sank in 1856.  The cool thing about the Arabia, is that while everyone onboard survived, they did not have enough time to unload the cargo.  When it was excavated, there were thousands of artifacts from the 1850’s.

The exterior of the boat was too damaged to bring it all to the surface, so the excavators salvaged the front hull, the rest of the boat is still underground.

Excavation began in 1987, and there were so many items of value that workers are still restoring pieces to this day!

There are hundreds of pieces of beautiful china on display.

I am in love with the blue and green bottles!

As much as I love shoes, I don’t think I could handle these.  Very uncomfortable looking!

So one of the guys that uncovered the boat, opened a jar of pickles and tasted one.  He said it was still crispy and sweet!  I wonder how those cigars held up…

There were also 3.5 million beads on board.  The large beads were for women’s garments, and the tiny beads were used for trading with Native Americans.

This was by far one of the most interesting local museums I have ever been to.  If you are ever in Kansas City, I highly recommend paying it a visit!