Family of Four Goes on a Road Trip

We've been home for 6 weeks and we are just starting to get into a routine. Alexander is starting to sleep in his crib occasionally which means we are getting more sleep. The house is a mess, but its looking better than before. We are still barely holding it all together, but things seem to be headed in the right direction....... Sounds like a perfect time for a weekend out of town! (We are nuts). Last Sat/Sun (12th and 13th) we loaded up the minivan (and I mean LOADED -- it looked like we were going to be gone for 2 years) and we drove to Kansas City for the weekend. Every year in the fall there is a professional bike race there called Tour of Missouri. Its like Tim's own private little Disneyworld. He loves it and gets to see all the big-name bicycle dudes that he watches on TV all the time in the Tour de France and other fancy bike races.

Its always a very fun weekend, and this year was no exception. We met Jed, Maya and Kieran Parry there, so the kids had a blast playing together. Here's Adam all decked out in his bike hat.

Our first stop on Saturday was Stage 6 of the Tour. The race went down a highway about an hour outside St. Joseph. Tim and Jed decided to set up camp at the "feed zone" and wait for them to ride by. The feed zone is where the bikers get their bags of food - their crew passes them out as they ride by. After receiving the bags, they will discard their old water bottles and bags on the side of the road. Its sort of like catching the foul ball at a baseball game - its really cool to get a water bottle with a team name on it.... so, as the bikers rode by the kids scrambled to pick up as much as they could (personally, I think its a little weird to pick up trash for fun but I ended up getting into it once they started throwing stuff!). We ended up with lots of water bottles and two bags complete with sandwiches and sport beans.

After this burst of excitement, we went to the T-Rex restaurant in Kansas City for dinner. Overpriced, average tasting. food and a fun and exciting atmosphere for the kids. They had a lot of fun. Here's a picture of Adam playing in the fountain at the Legends Mall, where the restaurant was.

We stayed in Downtown KC. Lots of new development there (the "Power and Light" district). Not really kid friendly, but fun for us grown-ups. Here's a photo of the guys walking around downtown near the Sprint Center.

Adam and Alex did great in the hotel and we all slept well. Sunday morning we had breakfast and walked around downtown KC so we could see the route that the bikers would take that day. The race on Sunday was Stage 7, the final race of the Tour. They would do a 72 mile ride around metro KC by riding 7 laps in a row. The race started at Crown Center, so we headed down there. Lots of tents set up and free stuff to carry around. It was so fun for Tim because lots of the bikers were just riding around through the crowd warming up. We got up close to Mark Cavendish - who was not riding (he got sick) but I am told is the fastest person on a bike these days. Tim and Jed were walking around in a daze. So fun. We found a good stop to watch at Crown Center and the bikes did their laps - about 20 minutes apart - going about 35 MPH. Amazing. Between laps I tried to get Alex to sleep, but he was too excited. Here are some photos of the race, and Adam drawing "Go George" on the street - apparently George is a famous bike racer who was there (I should have Tim write this so he can actually tell you what was going on!).

We ate lunch at a restaurant in Crown Center called Fritz's. Its a burger joint, but each table gets their food delivered to them by train. There are little tracks all along the walls above the tables and the train brings a basket of food to the table, releases it and a little elevator thing will lower it down. The kids LOVED it. All in all, a fun trip. Now it will take me another 6 weeks to get caught up! Here's a picture of the restaurant.