Antiques Roadshow - 7/9/2017

Up this morning at 6:30 and down to the breakfast room by 7:30. Today we try sausage with gravy and biscuits - tasty.  After check out and packing up the blue chariot, we are off at 8:45 to the Missouri Botanical Gardens - a 15 minute drive.  Come to find out, there is a reciprocal agreement between Botanical Gardens, so our Lauritzen membership card gains us free admittance, a $24.00 savings - ka-ching!

I spent half a day last week at the Lauritzen in Omaha, and was amazed at how great things looked.  Now that I see the 150 year old MBG, I see what time and dedication can bring.  No disrespect to Lauritzen, but MBG is amazing. With temperatures again in the mid to upper 90's, we still spent three hours wandering the gardens, taking pictures of plants we wanted to remember, trying to fix in our minds groupings on display, and really falling in love with the Japanese Gardens, although the boxwood garden was no slouch either.

We stopped for lunch and a cool down in the on-site Splink restaurant, for a shared quiche with salad, an iced tea, and a Top Shock white beer. Hard as we tried, the only purchase after two cruises through the gift shop was an MBG baseball cap to keep the sun out of Deb's eyes, and that gained a 10% discount with our membership rights.

By 12:30 we were back on the road, headed to KCMO for our last night's stay at another Drury Inn in Shawnee Mission.  It didn't take long on I-70 for us to become frustrated and nervous.  At Florence, we dipped south to Hermann, Missouri and picked up the Missouri 94 which was the Lewis and Clark trail along the Missouri River and we were quickly relaxed on this two lane scenic highway with almost no traffic.  We cruised along, enjoying the scenery and slower pace until we reached Jefferson City, spotting the capitol building as we reached the Missouri River Bridge.

We transitioned to US 50 and cruised into KCMO on this four lane.  Although traffic picked up considerably as we moved west, there were no semi-trailer traffic.  We finally arrived in Shawnee Mission at 6:00; a longer drive than we anticipated, and tired, but enjoying the day.

We pulled in to the Drury Inn Shawnee Mission in time for the free drinks.  We dropped our bags and headed to the common room for our merlot and we ended up dining on their abundant snacks: salad, chicken tortillas, build-your-own nachos, and hot dogs.

We retired early and spent the rest of the evening doing some work that we had neglected, and then settling in for a Sunday night of PBS.  Another good day on the road.