Days 24-29; Kansas, Independence/St. Louis, Missouri

In Genoa, CO (eastern border) we came across The Tower Museum, it was only $1 per person, so we gave it a try. I have never seen so many arrowheads in my life! Literally thousands, maybe more. There were also old tools, old pictures, old bottles, etc. The tower (on the left of the picture) was supposedly 600 feet up and we would be able to see "6 states"! We walked up a few flight of stairs, but I doubt it was 600 feet, and I'm a little doubtful we saw 6 states too. Nevertheless, it was a good stop.

Hooray! We crossed into Kansas!

Kansas has a tourist site called The Largest Prairie Dog in the world! And yes, here it is:

Along with the many prairie dog holes all over the yard (and occasionally we would see them pop up from their holes), they also had several other interesting animals in cages. Foxes:

There were also goats, pigs, peacocks, rattlesnakes, coyotes, rabbits, and donkeys. It made me sad seeing these wild animals locked up in cement cages. And we even saw two 5-legged cows! Can you see the 5th leg growing from it's back? :

Here's a closer look. Yes, it's a useless leg and kinda gross:

Our drive through Kansas wouldn't be complete without seeing The OZ Museum:

All kinds of The Wizard of Oz paraphernalia and some statues. Us with Dorothy:

Look! The red slippers! :

The scarecrow:

You'll notice Nicholas was just so amazed at this whole museum. He has a total look of awe (or boredom) on his face in every picture.
The tin man:

Posing like the lion:

The witch with her flying monkey:

Brooke and David posing like a good witch and Nicholas still in awe:

And the kids each got a turn to sit in Oz's throne and feel important:

We crossed into Missouri on Day 25 and Independence is right near the border:

We toured the Church's Vistor Center in Independence and it seems the Saints were miserably treated the whole time they were there. Here is Nicholas and a statue of Joseph Smith:

The Visitors Center is really well done with a replica log cabin that seemed so small, but usually housed TEN families! And this little play area for the kids:

Then a few miles away was the Liberty Jail that Joseph spent some time in. Here's the upstairs of what the jail looked like:

But they had to stay downstairs in miserable conditions. This was really well done with spotlights on each person and hearing them "speak" and I'm sure it was a powerful experience for the rest of the people on the tour, but our kids were pretty much unruly so we were just ready to leave. Here's the downstairs:

And wouldn't you know it - just as were were leaving, someone calls out my name (which took me by surprise) and it happened to be a girl I worked with on BYU campus 16 years ago! It was good to catch up with her for a few minutes. Small Mormon world!

Near Independence is Kansas City, MO and we saw they are building a temple! :

It should be done the end of October.

On Day 28 we got to the other side of Missouri and toured The Arch in St. Louis. This is when our CD player quit working in the car and we couldn't listen to any more books on CD. This is not good.

Below the St. Louis Arch is The Westward Expansion Museum because the Arch represents the Gateway to the West. Here's a cool Arch in the museum:
And a big boat steering wheel Brooke thought was cool:

A life size bison:

Some other cool things in the museum were old boots, tools, guns, saddles, and supplies that Lewis and Clark used.

We rode an elevator up the Arch for 4 minutes up 630 feet to the top where you could see for miles to the east and west.
Here's a couple pictures of the Arch from the outside:

It's weird to think there is an elevator inside that thing!

The Arch is right on the Mississippi River and I was looking forward to a riverboat ride on the Mississippi, however, the boat rides were all cancelled due to the flooding of the river. So we took a picture of us in front of the flooded docks:

Then we headed to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. They are very beautiful as you can see Mike, David, Zach and Brooke in front of this neat waterfall:
And along the muggy, hot paths:

The kids found a cool Children's Area with this neat rope bridge:

Even David could do it!

And some other fun things like a tree house, water fountains, puppet theater room, and a general store with fake food to play with.

Tree house:

Wagon pose:

We couldn't take the heat and high humidity any more so we went back to our KOA and hit the pool! Ahhh...
Nicholas and I jumping in:



The next morning on our way out of town we stopped by a sculpture park and here were some interesting sculptures we saw:

Eyeball sculpture:
Cat sculpture:
And as we drove a little further we passed the St. Louis, MO temple:


Driving over the Mississippi River: