Vacation Recap Day 3 (Monday)
Everybody slept in until about 8:30 on day 3. This was important after the previous day’s minimal napping capped with a total three-child meltdown over dinner. Day 3 was to be more laid-back, featuring a simple trip to the zoo and maybe some take-out for supper.
A trip to the Kansas City Zoo was a shot in the dark. We knew nothing about it other than a) it’s a zoo, and b) children generally like zoos. We did know that Omaha has a world-class zoo a few hours away that was likely to sap much of the region’s zoo mojo (zoojo?). Why bother seeing rainforest animals roam in pens littered with local vegetation at your local zoo when you can drive a couple hours to see a grand indoor rainforest stuffed with native flora and fauna in a mechanically controlled environment plus a café overlooking it all?
The Kansas City Zoo wasn’t as nice as Omaha’s, but it was still good. It may have lagged behind Omaha in every possible area, but the animals were healthy and varied. They even tried hard to recreate an African nature reserve with signs in native languages and vast distances between animals to represent to enormity of the continent. It would have been more realistic without the cottonwoods everywhere, but it had its moments.
The best part about the zoo, and the area where it surpassed Omaha’s, was its preschool-age attractions. It had a series of structures designed to appeal to the youngest kids right inside the entrance so little ones could enjoy them without having to trek across the park. They had a zoo-themed playground where kids could learn about animals, jump around like animals, and climb a giant tree. They also had a two-story tall tube-slide, which I thought was a lot cooler before Abbie emerged from it backwards and screaming. They had a normal set of playground equipment nearby that you might find outside any well-funded preschool, which seemed a little out of place, but Abbie enjoyed it.
The best part was the lorikeet cage. The zoo invites groups of small children with parents inside at regular intervals to feed the birds from cups of nectar.
Abbie thought this was pretty cool, as you can tell from the above picture. Some other children didn’t enjoy the experience, like the girl right behind Abbie flailing in her mother’s arms. Ellie didn’t enjoy it as much with birds crawling all over her, and she enjoyed it a lot less when I informed her that a bird left a souvenir on her left shoulder.
The boys were a little young to get much out of the zoo, but they enjoyed getting out of their stroller. They seemed to like watching the giraffe at least as much as the giraffe seemed to like watching them.
I think Abbie’s favorite animals were the meerkats. The zoo had a cage with about a dozen of them scampering about the ground. She liked them so much she was willing to share her fish rattle with them.
The boys didn’t nap much at the zoo, proving we don’t learn our lessons well. They were ready to leave by the time we went back to the hotel in early afternoon. Everyone took a good nap, and we awoke feeling the need for dinner. Ellie found the phone number for a place coworkers recommended, Jack Stack Barbecue, and I bravely volunteered to bring it back for us. I don’t know much about Kansas City traffic patterns, but I do know that going downtown in any city at 5:30pm is generally a bad idea.
Fortunately MapQuest gave succinct directions from the hotel to the restaurant, and traffic was mostly headed in the opposite direction, so I reached the food with ease. Unfortunately once I had the food, I was now driving with the throngs of people desperate to leave downtown at the end of the workday, plus I had no idea how to get back to the interstate I took downtown. It seems that Kansas City doesn’t like letting people back on the interstate once they exit in downtown since the road that provided my exit didn’t have an entrance. I was able to drive parallel to the interstate for a couple miles until I found a valid entrance while, in an even more difficult task, resisted eating the source of the smoked goodness wafting through my car.
The return trip to the hotel took about twice as long as the initial trip, but it was worth it as the meat was fall-off-the-bone good, plus Ellie couldn’t finish hers so I picked up a couple extra ribs, and probably a little extra meat around my ribs. It was the best meal I had on vacation, which may not say much since every other meal was fast food or eaten in non-optimal conditions, but it was still good.
In blatant disregard of our childhood teachings, we went swimming after our heavy meal. Abbie again like jumping in and out of the pool while the boys floated about and tried to chew on each other’s floaties. We tried dipping Abbie under the water a few times, and she generally emerged without sputtering too badly. All three children hated leaving the pool, which made leaving a challenge as two adults tried to prevent three children of varying mobility levels from reentering the water.
Eventually we toweled off and returned to the room for bedtime. It was our last night in the hotel, and we needed to prepare for departure in the morning. We still had one more attraction to visit before returning home, though, so we needed our sleep.
A trip to the Kansas City Zoo was a shot in the dark. We knew nothing about it other than a) it’s a zoo, and b) children generally like zoos. We did know that Omaha has a world-class zoo a few hours away that was likely to sap much of the region’s zoo mojo (zoojo?). Why bother seeing rainforest animals roam in pens littered with local vegetation at your local zoo when you can drive a couple hours to see a grand indoor rainforest stuffed with native flora and fauna in a mechanically controlled environment plus a café overlooking it all?
The Kansas City Zoo wasn’t as nice as Omaha’s, but it was still good. It may have lagged behind Omaha in every possible area, but the animals were healthy and varied. They even tried hard to recreate an African nature reserve with signs in native languages and vast distances between animals to represent to enormity of the continent. It would have been more realistic without the cottonwoods everywhere, but it had its moments.
The best part about the zoo, and the area where it surpassed Omaha’s, was its preschool-age attractions. It had a series of structures designed to appeal to the youngest kids right inside the entrance so little ones could enjoy them without having to trek across the park. They had a zoo-themed playground where kids could learn about animals, jump around like animals, and climb a giant tree. They also had a two-story tall tube-slide, which I thought was a lot cooler before Abbie emerged from it backwards and screaming. They had a normal set of playground equipment nearby that you might find outside any well-funded preschool, which seemed a little out of place, but Abbie enjoyed it.
The best part was the lorikeet cage. The zoo invites groups of small children with parents inside at regular intervals to feed the birds from cups of nectar.
Abbie thought this was pretty cool, as you can tell from the above picture. Some other children didn’t enjoy the experience, like the girl right behind Abbie flailing in her mother’s arms. Ellie didn’t enjoy it as much with birds crawling all over her, and she enjoyed it a lot less when I informed her that a bird left a souvenir on her left shoulder.
The boys were a little young to get much out of the zoo, but they enjoyed getting out of their stroller. They seemed to like watching the giraffe at least as much as the giraffe seemed to like watching them.
I think Abbie’s favorite animals were the meerkats. The zoo had a cage with about a dozen of them scampering about the ground. She liked them so much she was willing to share her fish rattle with them.
The boys didn’t nap much at the zoo, proving we don’t learn our lessons well. They were ready to leave by the time we went back to the hotel in early afternoon. Everyone took a good nap, and we awoke feeling the need for dinner. Ellie found the phone number for a place coworkers recommended, Jack Stack Barbecue, and I bravely volunteered to bring it back for us. I don’t know much about Kansas City traffic patterns, but I do know that going downtown in any city at 5:30pm is generally a bad idea.
Fortunately MapQuest gave succinct directions from the hotel to the restaurant, and traffic was mostly headed in the opposite direction, so I reached the food with ease. Unfortunately once I had the food, I was now driving with the throngs of people desperate to leave downtown at the end of the workday, plus I had no idea how to get back to the interstate I took downtown. It seems that Kansas City doesn’t like letting people back on the interstate once they exit in downtown since the road that provided my exit didn’t have an entrance. I was able to drive parallel to the interstate for a couple miles until I found a valid entrance while, in an even more difficult task, resisted eating the source of the smoked goodness wafting through my car.
The return trip to the hotel took about twice as long as the initial trip, but it was worth it as the meat was fall-off-the-bone good, plus Ellie couldn’t finish hers so I picked up a couple extra ribs, and probably a little extra meat around my ribs. It was the best meal I had on vacation, which may not say much since every other meal was fast food or eaten in non-optimal conditions, but it was still good.
In blatant disregard of our childhood teachings, we went swimming after our heavy meal. Abbie again like jumping in and out of the pool while the boys floated about and tried to chew on each other’s floaties. We tried dipping Abbie under the water a few times, and she generally emerged without sputtering too badly. All three children hated leaving the pool, which made leaving a challenge as two adults tried to prevent three children of varying mobility levels from reentering the water.
Eventually we toweled off and returned to the room for bedtime. It was our last night in the hotel, and we needed to prepare for departure in the morning. We still had one more attraction to visit before returning home, though, so we needed our sleep.
posted by Matt at
11:34 PM
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