We slept in and then enjoyed a leisurely continental breakfast courtesy of our hotel, Fairfield Inn by Marriott. Their breakfast has improved since I worked there—they now do Belgian waffles and have Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches. Yum! With all of the options available, Michael chose Fruit Loops. After breakfast, Jeremy and Michael went for a swim in the pool.
It was so cold! We didn’t leave our hotel until after 10—hey, it’s a leisurely vacation! Our first stop of the day was the Independence Visitors Center. It is near the Truman Birthplace and Historic Downtown Independence. Michael was not thrilled and said he was tired of looking at pioneer stuff. Interestingly enough, Independence is the headquarters for the Community of Christ church (RLDS). We saw their temple but it is undergoing renovations so it was unavailable for tours. They gave us the GPS coordinates for Adam Ondi Ahman (I’ve only been there once—it’s somewhere in the middle of nowhere near Gallatin). I haven’t been down to the Missouri sites since I was a teenager so it was interesting to see what’s changed and what I’d forgotten.
After Independence, we drove up the road to Liberty Jail. This is where Joseph Smith was held from October 1838 to April 1839 and wrote much of the Doctrine and Covenants.
Jeremy was astounded at how rundown much of the area is. He said several times that much of the vegetation was like being in the mountains (sans mountains) and that many of the streets and old homes reminded him of England.
We heard about this really cool place called the T-Rex Café in Kansas City, Kansas. Because we really love our son, we decided to drive clear back across town (almost 40 minutes) so we could go there for lunch. It was about 2 when we got there. It is in an outdoor shopping mall and the only other location is at Downtown Disney at Disney World. They have animated lifelike dinosaurs and some really good food. Since it was before 3, I was able to still have the lunch special. Michael loved his dinosaur nuggets and Jeremy ordered a Bronto Burger (one whole pound of meat). Needless to say we were so full that we didn’t eat dinner that night!
In addition to the cool themed restaurant, they also have a Build a Dino store (think Build a Bear but with dinosaurs only) complete with a place where your kids can do a dino dig ($2). We told him he could have one toy—he wanted the Dinosaur Hot Wheels but we wanted him to build a dinosaur buddy (he was going through withdrawals because we didn’t let him pack Sparky, his Build a Bear dog). In the end, dad said he could have both the dinosaur figures and build a dino so he was happy. He picked a triceratops, put him in a baseball outfit and named him Reggie.
We then proceeded to drive to Burlington, Iowa, where we were going to spend the night (I wanted to stay at Keokuk but the Fairfield was almost full and didn’t have the Friends & Family rate). I was thinking it would be a 4 ½ hour drive but because we were clear in Kansas and overshooting Nauvoo by 30 minutes, it turned into a 6 hour trip. Yikes! Needless to say we skipped Haun’s Mill, Adam Ondi Ahman (we were 4 miles away) and Farr West. Luckily, Michael slept and watched movies the whole way (Clarissa, thanks for letting us borrow the portable DVD player)! We drove through Princeton, Misssouri, where some of my cousins live, about 7 and wished we could stop there for the night. During the course of our driving we saw about 10 deer, mostly does.
By the time we got to our hotel, it was almost 11. After following our crazy GPS route—I ended up sending Jeremy the wrong way on a one way road—we were glad to be in our room. Although it was late, I was tempted to go over to Taco John’s but didn’t. I was really bummed to find out it was right next door to our hotel all along. Doh!
