Day Nine - Independence, MO

Day Nine - Saturday, June 4^th 2016, Independence MO!

This morning we woke up in Kansas City.  We had another continental breakfast before packing up and hitting the road.  We drove about 40minutes into Independence, Missouri.  In addition to all the Oregon Trail history, Independence is also known for being Harry Truman’s homestead.  We drove through the Main Street area and past Truman’s house.  There is also a lot of Mormon history here, and there were several museums and buildings dedicated to that.  We started our day at the National Frontier Trails Museum.  We saw a 15minute video about the different trails that jumped off from Independence – the Oregon, Santa Fe, Great Salt Lake.  Despite being made in 1990, the video was fairly interesting and informative :)  There’s so much history to immerse yourself in.  Reading excerpts from journals and seeing real pictures of real pioneers, really brought it all to life for me.  I’m sure the kids were a little bored, but I know they did have fun packing their wagon.  Everything was ¼ scale, and they had a list of suggested items to bring along.  As the wagon started filling up, the light would turn yellow and when it turned red you knew you had more than your mules could pull.  We also enjoyed seeing the display about the Santa Fe Trail.  There was a huge mural of the Plaza, and it looks very much like it does today – the Palace of the Governors, the huge church.  Another highlight was the rock where you could sign your names.  We had read about Independence Rock and how the travelers would sign their names and dates as the passed by.  There was a large rock with a binder of paper, and they all took turns signing their names too.  Good thing Chloe learned to write her name in the last week or two!

After the museum, we headed outside for a covered wagon ride, yay!  We rode along with a newspaper journalist from 1849.  He was quite a character, ha!  He asked us about our journey to Independence all the way from Atlanta, and he even tried to convince Coleson to head out to California to find riches.  The Mayor was also wandering around, as well as the mill owner’s wife.  That’s about all though, honestly the reenactment wasn’t all we had hoped it would be.  But we did ride in a covered wagon.  And we learned that mules were mostly used to pull the wagons.  They don’t sweat and work as hard as horses do.  Horses were used on the trail of course, but were mostly for riding alongside the wagons and keeping cattle in line. 

The wagon ride let us off in the Main Street square area of Independence.  We had lunch at Clinton’s, a soda fountain shop that I had been real excited about.  It’s old and was actually the site of Harry Truman’s first job.  The food was pretty good, but the atmosphere and experience overall just seemed a little lacking.  The kids had grilled cheeses, and Coleson and I shared a chicken salad sandwich.  And of course we all had to have ice cream when we were done with our lunches.  We tried to walk around afterwards, but there just wasn’t much to see.  I was surprised at how slow the town area was.  They sure advertise it well and play it up!  We walked the short distance back to our car; the covered wagon rides weren’t running at the time.  Back in the same parking lot as the museum, we wandered into an old train station.  The kids were itching to look inside, and we ended up getting an all-out tour from a sweet old volunteer.  He sure knew his stuff, although he did tell us the same story about the reclining chairs twice.  The station was a restored original, and it was full of fun things to look at. 

The last stop on our way out of Independence was a strawberry festival that we had heard about at the Vaile museum.  It was about a mile drive, and oh boy was it the place to be.  There was nobody downtown because they were all up there.  Coleson was done for by now, and it would have been hard to get a decent parking spot anyways.  So he dropped the girls and I off, and he and Ryan sat in the car in a nearby church parking lot.  While Coleson rested his eyes, the girls and I took a quick walk around the grounds.  It would have been easy to stay there for a while, but we were tiring fast, and I didn’t want to keep the guys waiting too long.  There were dozens and dozens of crafts booths set up with everything you could imagine for sale.  There was also a huge, empty parking lot area that was probably being used as a stage.  There was nothing going on at the moment, but there were tons of people sitting in camping chairs all around it, a tent with audio equipment, and I saw several young girls in dance outfits nearby.  Vaile museum was definitely where all the action in Independence was! 

We left town around 2:30 or 3:00, programmed our google maps app for home, and just like that our vacation was over.  Sad!  Coleson drove us three hours to St. Louis, Chloe and I each took short naps, and there was some movie watching on the DVD player.  I’m still not a huge fan of having it built in to the van, I definitely didn’t want it, but I suppose it is okay.  The kids don’t bug me about watching it around town, they know it’s only for trips, so it’s not ever been a fight or anything.  One big drawback for me though, is that the sound plays through the car speakers.  Way back before the portable ones died, I could have those playing while I turned the radio volume to the front and listened to my driving CDs.  Oh well, first world problems indeed. 

Our route home just happened to take us through St. Louis, one of our favorite stops.  We ate dinner at an Imo’s Pizza again, yumm.  Different location this time, and quite possibly even better, the toasted raviolis seemed a little less greasy.  The store had a totally different atmosphere too.  It was a little outside of town, much quieter, newer, lots of big windows.  We splurged on the girls this time and ordered them bread sticks.  For whatever reason, they really don’t seem to like pizza, at least not like Coleson and Ryan and I do!  The three of us put away the largest pepperoni they have.  While in St. Louis, we also made a couple of quick stops looking for a souvenir magnet.  We had managed to purchase six already on our trip, but nothing from our favorite spot.  I eventually found a cheap, boring, generic Missouri one at a Love’s gas station, but at least it is something.  Guess we’ll have to come back again someday to find a better one :)  We passed through the outskirts of the downtown area and saw the arch in the skyline as we drove into Illinois, another new state for the kiddos!  I suppose it counts, we drove through it for several hours, but we never actually stopped the car, and they ended up sleeping through most of the state!  We also passed through Kentucky, although I don't think that's a new one, pretty sure we drove through there two years ago on our way up to Ohio and Niagara Falls.  The drive home was uneventful, which is always a good thing when you’re driving somewhere.  There were a few rainy spots, but that's always helpful for washing bugs off the windshield.  We took turns driving and sleeping, and we made it home about 4:15am.  Which is really only 3am central, so not quite as bad?!  We brought kids inside, visited with Maya for a few minutes, and went quickly to sleep.  From what I can gather, the kids were up about 8:30 today – a little earlier than I had hoped, considering that’s only 7:30 central, and they had been sleeping later than that in the hotels.  But they didn’t wake me up, and I slept until almost 10, a whole five hours, so no complaints here ;)

Today has been all about laundry.  I had thought about making tally marks for the number of loads, but I didn’t, and I’ve already lost count, and I doubt I’m even halfway.  Boy, it sure is nice washing clothes!  Can you believe I’m saying that??  I don’t think I’ve gone this long without the ability to do laundry before; our road trips usually include visiting family, which comes with the added bonus of borrowing their washers and dryers!  And I finally freed our tick-infested sneakers from their quarantined grocery bags.  Lots of lysol spray out in the front yard away from the house, and then through the washer with laundry detg, bleach, and vinegar.  They might just be safe now!  Coleson and I also took turns going running, as well as napping, and Ryan and I went to the grocery store.  It was crazy packed on a Sunday afternoon, but it was certainly worth it to have a home-cooked meal at our own kitchen table – tacos and fresh southern caviar dip and veggies, yes veggies! 

So, anyways, there you have it!  Nine days, just over 2,700 miles, seven different states [I think.  We really only spent time in four : TN, MO, OK, Kansas].  Lots of memories, some good stories, bunches of new facts learned, plenty of pictures to go through.  And mostly, just a lot of family time!  I love that we really do like each other, and we can take trips like this.  I think there was only that one time along Route 66 that we actually had to pull the car over ;)  An awesome week with my awesome family!  Wonder when and where our next adventure will take us?!?     

PS, the Oregon Trail was about 2,000 miles and took an average of six months.  The trails were only used for a short amount of time before the trains replaced them.  And now, 150 years later, not that long in the grand scheme of things, we can do that same journey in a car in a matter of days.  Things to ponder.