Monday – July 1, 2013 – Kansas City, MO
- Rex Ballard
- Jul 2, 2013
- 4 min read
Updated: May 31, 2020
Hello again,
Monday – July 1, 2013 – Kansas City, MO
Today was a busy day. We started by visiting the National Headquarters of the United Federation of Doll Clubs (UFDC), of which Elisa is a Member. Their offices also serve as the home of a sizable collection dolls of all types and they are located in a business park near the Kansas City International Airport. All of the many dolls that are on display were donated to the UFDC and it includes everything from contemporary dolls (e.g. Barbies, American Girl, etc.) to antique French, German and English dolls, all of which are very valuable. The museum at the Headquarters really was not planned but they needed someplace to display all the items they were given, so they moved to this location that afforded them some space for the collection. The museum occupies approximately a space of 1300 sq ft along with an adjacent area that is about another 500 sq ft and there is another small space 175 sq ft that serves as a gift shop. It was impressive to see how much they could display in this amount of space. The display cases were very well designed and sized allowing viewing from both sides. They were illuminated from both the bottom and the top and utilized glass shelves. Also, they were of a good height suitable for kids and adults. They also included pullout drawers with plexiglass tops providing viewable storage space.
After that, Elisa wanted to visit a popular doll shop, The Doll Cradle in nearby Shawnee, KS. It was neat rolling into this small town and see it all decked out with Flags lining the streets and all the houses and shops decorated for the upcoming 4th of July celebrations. Very nice!!
By then, I had about as much doll related fun as I could handle, so I dropped Elisa off at a large Antique Mall near downtown KC and I decided to hit a local golf course. I read about the Hillcrest Country Club and I was able to make my way on with a 2:00 PM tee time. Hillcrest Country Club is one of the oldest in Kansas City and was designed by none other than famed Scottish course designer, Donald Ross. One of his most famous designs is Pinehurst #2 with its small unusually shaped greens. One thing Hillcrest has in common is smallish greens. Some of the greens slope severely from back to front and others from front to back. At one time, Hillcrest was the longest course in the US with Tees of 5,480 yards to 7230 yards I played from the more modest blue tees at 6450 yards. The layout is unique and makes good use of the hilly terrain. It opens with a 220 yard downhill part 3 and also has back-to-back part 5s on the front. One problem with playing in the late afternoon in the midwest is the wind. The course played tough because of the wind. As you can see from the photo, the course plays narrow as every hole is treelined and most drives typically require you to move the ball – mostly from left to right. It was still a very fun course and I played as a single and 3 other groups let me play through. Consequently, I was able to shoot my not so great 87 in only 3 hours. I would recommend it – I became best friends with the club pro that was working behind the counter by talking about golf in San Diego where he will be going in a couple of weeks – and consequently he let me play at the member-guest rate of only $30 including golf cart.
After golf, I picked up Elisa and was pleased to see that she only had one small package of “pickings” from her visit to the Riverside Antique Mall. We then headed off to dinner at Houston’s located in the Plaza in South Kansas City near the University. Houston’s was very good serving steaks, chops, chicken and of course KC barbecue. We shared a grilled artichoke as a starter and it was fantastic. We could have settled for that as our meal and been very happy. Elisa opted for a simple meal of a cheeseburger (sans bun). She ordered it cooked medium-well, but unfortunately, when it was served it was on the rare side. So back it went to the kitchen and they got it right the second time. I ordered the KC Pork ribs (not baby back ribs). They were very well cooked and the sauce was great. My only complaint is that the ribs were not that meaty as compared to the ribs I had at Fiorella’s Jack Stack BBQ. But they were still very good. I have to declare once again that these were not the best ribs I’ve ever had, so I guess I’ll have to keep trying them as I make my way across the country.
Tomorrow, we head for Branson, Missouri so that we can visit the “Worlds Largest Toy Museum”.
We’ll spend the night there, and head off to St. Louis the next day after we’ve explored Branson for awhile. The locals suggested we get out of their early as it will be packed for the 4th of July weekend.
I’ve gotten a lot of recommendations for places to eat in St. Louis, too bad we’ll only be there for a short while. I also received a request to fill our RV with IMO’s Pizza in St Louis and the bring it back to San Diego post haste. Not sure I’m gonna’ be able to comply with that request, but we are going to make a point of trying some.
That’s all for now.
For those of you interested, here is a link to more photos from our trip – enjoy.
Comments