Day 81.5 - 84 (7/23 - 7/26): Finishing the Midwest (Iowa & Missouri)

I'm including the latter half of Day 81 in this post since that is the beginning of driving through the rest of the Midwest (Iowa & Missouri are shown below, and our path in blue).

We drove to Des Moines, the capital of the state.  We only stayed one night, but got to explore a bit of the downtown area (it is not that big).  Here is a view of downtown from the capital, as well as the capital itself.

There is an area called East Village that has cool artsy stores...

...and their downtown Sculpture Park is excellent!

Next day we drove out (through the cornfields) to Eldon, which is where the American Gothic House & Center is located.  The Center is the home of "The Home" (in the painting)...and also has a museum and documentary all about the artist Grant Wood. 

On to Marceline, MO, which is the hometown of Walt Disney.  Disney based Mainstreet, USA on his hometown, and there is a "Walt Disney Hometown Museum" located here in the old train depot, where the Disney's landed when they relocated from Chicago.  Walt and his siblings grew up here before they made their way to fame.

My personal Disneyland was on the next day, when we visited Hamilton, MO...home to the largest quilt store in the US - The Missouri Star Quilt Co.!  They operate 16 stores, which pretty much takes up all of downtown!  There is also another Quilt Museum (recall that I visited one in Nebraska earlier on this trip 😬), and the store also runs a retreat center!  WHAAAATTTT!?!?

They have thought of everything...I left Barry & Luke in "Man's Land" with the other guys who waited for their ladies!

This is their latest store to open, and I think it is so creative!

We continued on south to Kansas City, MO and it was getting more and more HOT!  So I did a search on Rover to see if I could find someone to watch Luke for the day so that Barry & I could explore the city.  We found a great young couple, Trent & Kalyn 5 minutes from where we were staying, the 21C Hotel, which worked out perfectly!

I love the whimsy of this hotel chain.  We rarely splurge on "nice" hotels, but ever since I was introduced to them, I've wanted to try to stay at all of them!  Also, I told myself that at the end of this 3 month trip I would treat us to stays here and the one in Bentonville, AR.  They are basically a museum and hotel merged into one.  

After dropping Luke off at the sitter's we headed over to the National Museum of Toys/Miniatures.  Wow...we've been to the one in Tucson, and Chicago has some miniatures...but I have to say, this has been the best one we have visited!

In addition to miniatures, they have a huge collection of toys and history!

We were starving and tried to go to the #1 BBQ place in KC (Joe's), but the line was like Franklin's and impossible, so Barry found another place, Q39.  Got seated right away indoors, and I have to say...maybe the best beef BBQ I've ever had!!!

We just made it in time to check out the Hallmark Visitor's Center.  They were nice enough to stay a little late to show us the movie about JC Hall and the history of the company!

We have time to walk over to pick up Luke and check out the rest of Kansas City.  It's a great city, with some amazing architecture!

We are almost to the end of this trip!  We head to Bentonville tomorrow for 2 nights, and originally I had planned for us to break up the drive home by staying in the DFW area, but after some discussion, and desire to just get home, we've decided to drive the 8+ hours straight!

GOOD NIGHT!

Miles driven: 281 (Minneapolis - Des Moines), 234 (Des Moines - Brookfield), 136 (Brookfield - KC), 37 (Driving around KC), 213 (KC - Bentonville)