Exciting Kansas City – Outdoors With Hank

My wife set up a day trip down to Kansas City to see the sights. My people all came from southern Missouri. I used to have relatives that lived in Independence so this part of the country was not new to me. However, there was a lot of great history and culture I had never seen.

From Council Bluffs to Kansas City is only a three hour drive and with one quick stop, the trip is really quick. Plus you drive along the Missouri River bottoms next to the Loess Hills and really get to see some beautiful Midwest scenery. This is the land Lewis and Clark came through on their trip west. I have read their book twice and started on a third reading because it is so fascinating. When the explorers wanted meat, they sent out some hunters and shot an elk. How much better can it get than that? Elk used to roam the country where I now live. An outfitter I hunted with once told me elk were originally a flat land animal, but moved to the mountains by being pushed out of their habitat by civilization. It can’t get any better than having elk for dinner every night.

The tour had some really interesting highlights. First we toured Kansas City’s Sub Troppolis or the Kansas City Underground. This is a 55,000 square foot man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River and is claimed to be the world’s largest underground storage facility. It is 160 feet beneath the surface and contains almost 7 miles of illuminated paved roads and several miles of railroad tracks The facility maintains temperatures of between 65 and 70 degrees and is used by over 50 businesses.

We also toured the renovated old section of the city down by the river. This is very similar to many old market areas along both the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. It provides some outstanding gourmet restaurants, excellent shopping, and of course renovated lofts, townhouses, and apartments.

Our next stop was the Federal Reserve Money Museum. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City is home of one of the region’s largest automated cash vaults. From the viewing area in the money museum, visitors can get a close up look at how bank employees and the vault’s robots work together to move large containers of cash within a secure area. Also there is the 463 piece coin collection of Harry S. Truman. The Truman Collection is unique in that there are examples of coins produced by the U.S. Mint during every presidential administration.

Pam at the bar in the Savoy Grill

The dining room in the Savoy Grill

For lunch we went to the Savoy Grill. The Restaurant is in the heart of Kansas City and was established in 1903. Here is a touch of class and sophistication not seen today with chain restaurants. You do not go to the Savoy to eat, you go to have a dinng experience.