Day 14- The Hallmark Center in Kansas City

Today was a short day for touring, we woke up to cloudy skies, then a pretty heavy rain.  So we cut our list short, and headed back down to the Toy and Miniature Museum, so Bette could take a look at their collections.  Got a nice Colagiovanni gift there...

Then, we headed downtown to the Hallmark Cards Headquarters and Visitor Center, and something they call the Crown Center.  This was a part of JC Hall's vision for a big urban renewal project for his card company, and is quite nice.

We found a convenient spot in the parking garage, and they validate your ticket inside for 3 hours of parking, more if you buy 24 from a merchant... we went into the store part of the mall, and snooped around, Bette found a cute Shitzu sign that look just like Buster in a Dog gift store, so that was purchased,  and then we went downstairs to eat. 

Lots of places to choose from, we chose Fritz's Railroad Restaurant-  this is a KC standard, and they bring you your food on a delivery system that is a little train that runs around the perimiter of the restaurant, and if it has your order, it stops and lowers your order to you in a little basket.  The food was pretty good, but it was $17 for the two of us.... 

Then, we walked on over to the Visitors center for Hallmark- this was an exceptioinal free museum that traced the history of the company and its products.  It included a 12 minute film about the Hall family and their beliefs, etc., which was done very well.  They handed you some nice gifts as you left, so it was a very nice visit. 

After that, we headed back home, made a Wal Mart stop for four items, then back to the coach.  Its about 330, and I'm pretty sure we'll both nap. 

I looked at the return trip early this morning, and I think we'll just come back down this way from Omaha and let Brandon see the KC sights, then head down to pick up a couple of National Parks we missed when we changed our plans to come here, then maybe go to Sherry's for a day or two, then over to St Louis, then up towards Chicago and drop Brandon off at O'Hare for his flight back to SC on August 6th. 

Tomorrow, had thought about maybe going up the road to St Josephs, and Atcheson and Ft Leavenworth, now we'll do those stops on the way back to KC
so tomorrow is a full rest day and planning day for trip stuff.