Day Twelve, Kansas City, MO: State Line

After last night, which was a blast by all accounts, I decided to extend my stay in Kansas City. Having only arranged to stay with my original host, Greg, for two nights, I stayed one more night with Torey, who I met last night.

Kansas City has surprised me in a lot of ways. As I said before, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot coming in, but the city has grown on me. It has a nice big city feel, but with small town conveniences. It’s easy to get around the city and park your car without having to hunt down a bunch of one-ways and parking structures. In general, the downtown has a great atmosphere. 

Tonight Torey and I went downtown to the Power and Lights District, at the center of which is a semi-indoor atrium ringed by bars and restaurants which, in this case, doubles as a concert stage. Unlike downtown Detroit, Kansas City regularly sponsors free concerts and provides their citizens with something to do. Tonight they brought in the old 90’s post-grunge group Lit. It was a lot like going back to high school and turning on the radio really loudly. In fact, the girls that we had met last night explained that they couldn’t find the keys to their time machine, and thus, would be unable to make it to the concert. After the concert, we went over to the Flying Saucer once again, which was just down the street. Every Wednesday night, they have glass night. For a little bit extra, they’ll give you the pint glass that they serve that designed night’s glass special in. (And the Fire Sale Beer was Moose Drool. Actually pretty good).

That was about the extent of what I actually did today. I should talk a little, now that I have an opportunity, about CouchSurfing. This is a sort of hybrid between Craigslist and Facebook. People have profiles on the site, and they can search for other people with whom to stay when passing through a city, (as I am). The idea is to meet like-minded people (although Greg informed me that I was the first Republican Couchsurfer he had met), who can not only host you, but actually show you around the city. That’s how I arranged to stay with Greg, who in turn had met Torey through a local couchsurfing event a few weeks ago.

Finally, Kansas City is interesting in that most of the city lies in Missouri; however, a smaller portion does lie in Kansas. The two sides of the city are “separated” by State Line Road. But for the name, you’d never know you were crossing a state line.

And so tomorrow I finally cross the State Line into Kansas and leave Missouri behind for the foreseeable future. I’ve spent the last six nights in Missouri and all told, I’ve enjoyed myself quite a bit. The people are friendly, the economy is buzzing, the baseball parks are great, and the beer is fantastic. I’m glad I gave it a shot. However, I do not plan on extending the same courtesy  to Kansas. I will be camping one night in Kansas on my way to Denver, (to break up the 10 hour drive), but am told there is nothing to do besides look at corn. That is generally not how I like to waste my time.