St. Joseph

 

Breakfast-in-a-bag is provided by this motel.  I picked up a couple to tide us over until we got to a breakfast restaurant.

The is the contents of the bag:  Honey Bun (very tasty), granola bar, and bottle of water. 

 

 

This is the restaurant we ate breakfast.  There is a LePeep in Springfield at which we have eaten.  Carol had biscuits and gravy, hash browns, and eggs and I had a Spanish omelet and potatoes.  Both of us ate every bite and walked out very, very full.  It is a great place to eat breakfast.  Our first stop was an antique mall.  We have passed through St. Joseph many times and saw from the interstate signs for a couple of antique malls.  We never stopped because we were on our way west.  On this trip, we finally visited those antique malls.

There used to be a Pony Express Motel and this was its sign

This metal depiction of a pony express rider is outside the Pony Express Museum.

Next stop was the Pony Express Museum.  The foundation of this building is the original 1850's stable.  The pony express headquarters was in St. Joseph.  The first pony express rider left from St. Joseph on April 3, 1960 .  The  nearly 2,000 mile would take 10 days with a relay of riders and horses carrying the mail and newspapers.  The idea was successful for nearly two years; then, the telegraph was invented and wires strung across the west making the pony express obsolete.

                                                        

 There were nearly 200 men who rode for the pony express.  One of those men was Buffalo Bill Cody.

This is a reproduction of a pony express station.  It  contained a bunk bed, table and chairs, and cooking area.  Riders would exchange mail and rest in the station while waiting for their next shift of ride.

This mural was painted on the side of a building in the area.  St. Joseph uses the Pony Express name in its businesses, etc.  This is pony express country.

 

This is the Patee House Museum.  It was a hotel built in 1858 and was used as the pony express headquarters.  It served as the U.S. provost marshal's office during the Civil War.  St. Joseph contained both union and confederate supporters.  The Patee House served as a hotel three times, a girl's college twice and a shirt factory for 80 years.  Finally, in 1965 it became a Western history museum.  Now it contains the history of St. Joseph.   One fact we found interesting was that the owner, John Patee was a Confederate sympathizer and was short of cash so he had to sell his hotel by a lottery.  He had to buy the last 100 tickets himself in order to get the tickets sold.  When the winning ticket was drawn, it was one of the tickets he had bought.  

This was the office of the pony express.

This is called a mochita and carried the pony express mail.  The rider carried it to the next relay station.  He would take it off his horse and place it on the next rider's horse, who would then mount his horse and carry the mochita to the next relay station.

The museum was a very interesting display of St. Joseph in the early years of the city.  It revealed events and people who played a part in the history of the city. 

Who knew...Walter Cronkite was born in St. Joseph.  In fact, his grandfather and father were dentists practicing in St. Joseph. 

This the check-in counter in the lobby of the hotel.

The Studebaker family owned a wagon and carriage business.  They went from building wagons and carriages to building the Studebaker car.

This Studebaker was called the "President's Car."

I caught Carol coming out of the saloon!

The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was the first in the nation to extend as far west as St. Joseph.  The last Hannibal steam locomotive and railway mail car are on display here.

Robert Wadlow was born in Alton, Illinois, and was the world's tallest man.  He filed a lawsuit against a doctor who lived in St Joseph so he was in the city for the length of the court proceedings.  Carol looks like a shorty standing he Brown in front of this life-sized photo of Mr. Wadlow.  He worked for the Brown Shoe Company as the advertising face of the company.  They supplied his shoes.

This is a 13-star American flag.  It was carried by an early military troop.  I don't know what its connection to St. Joseph was.  I had never seen a 13-star flag before.

Arthur Pryor was from St. Joseph and played in John Phillip Sousa's band.  This is his trombone and band uniform.

Aunt Jemima pancake mix was invented in St. Joseph.  It was originally milled here but was eventually brought out  by the Quaker Oats Company.  Quaker Oats retained Aunt Jemina as its trademark.

One of the things St. Joseph is known for is Jesse James.  He was shot by a member of his gang in this house. He and his wife and children were renting this house in 1882 when he was shot.  He was 34-years old and had spent half of his life as a bank robber and murderer.  

The bullet went through his head and into this wall in the living room.  The hole has been made bigger by people visiting the house and taking pieces of the wallpaper as a souvenir.

We left the old downtown area on Penn Street.  The street took us out to the newer parts of the city.  It was a small two-laned street on rolling hills.  I noticed that the original street signs were on the corners.  One side showed Penn Street and the other showed the cross-street.  I had never seen street signs like these.

We ate supper at Fazoli's which is a fast-food Olive Garden.  They have unlimited bread sticks and delicious Italian food.  It was very good and should keep us from getting hungry the rest of the evening.  We got back to the motel about 4:30 and are just relaxing.  It was a great day spent on our feet and those feet need to rest.

Kansas City

We were on the road for Kansas City by 8:30. This is the bridge that crosses the Missouri River on I-35  South.  Traffic was light so we made it to the World War I Memorial and Museum by 9:30.  The memorial didn't open until 10 so we drove around the downtown area a bit trying to locate the restaurant in which we planned to eat lunch.   

This is the World War I Memorial and.  The museum is fantastic.  We really didn't know anything about WWI but the museum uses technology, movies, displays, and artifacts to tell the history.

This display shows the type of artificial arm a soldier would be fitted with after WWI.

A tank from the First World War.  It is not much when you compare it to today's tanks.

This shows that the dog tags used were round.

Illinois men were the third largest number in the list of states who serviced in WWI.  Nearly 250,000 served.

World War I was a war fought in the trenches.  Over 35,000 miles of trenches were dug during the war.   The first three years of the war, the United States managed to remain neutral; although we produced weapons, ammunition, etc for those countries who fought.  It wasn't until Germany communicated with Mexico in hope of getting Mexico to attack the U.S. that we entered the war.

Poppies would grow up in the land between the trenches.  In 1915 a doctor wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields" about the field of poppies that grew across the battlefields and fresh graves.  The doctor himself died in the war.  After the war the handmade poppies were made and sold to raise money for disabled veterans.  Poppies are still sold today.

In order to enter the main area of the museum, you had to walk over a glass bridge over the poppies.  Carol was very uncomfortable walking on that bridge.  There are 9,000 poppies below the bridge.  Each poppy represents 1000 men who died in the war.

We spent nearly two hours in the museum but after two hours of reading and looking at displays, our brains shut down and refused to absorb any more information or facts.  We left the museum and drove to the old Kansas City Union Station.    You can walk through the station for free but there are some things that cost extra for a ticket.  The station has a section on dinosaurs and this dinosaur is being used to advertises that show.  Notice the mask on the dinosaur.  We had to wear masks when we were inside a building.  This day was a record, mask-wearing day for us.  

 

The interior of the station was beautiful.  The ceilings were very ornate.  It was built in the day when traveling by train was the premier was to travel.  It is still a functioning train station.  You can buy tickets for Amtrak trains that come into the station.   BNSF rail system comes through this station and Kansas City.  We saw a train filled with coal when we crossed this old train bridge to downtown Kansas City.  I read that Warren Buffet owns that line.  He says that rail cars are cheaper to run than semi-trucks  We saw a train filled with shipping containers and actual semi trailers.

This old train bridge  crosses the rail yard.  It is an original bridge built in the early 1900's to carry trains over other tracks.  When that bridge was no longer in use, it was moved to this location.

I was surprised to see this Western Auto sign on top of a building.  I did not know that Western Auto was still in business.  This sign may just be the last leftover from by-gone days.

We saw this old train section from the bridge.   The last car is an old dome car.

This display was in Union Station.  Kansas City is proud of their Chiefs.  We ate Kansas  City BBQ at Jack Stack's BBQ near Union Station.  It was very good.  I had to get a take-home box but Carol was able to eat all of his.  After lunch we got on I-29 North heading to St. Joseph.  It has been a good day.  We would like to come back to Kansas City on another trip.

Happy 54th Anniversity

 We decided since we weren't taking our usual fall 6-8 week trip, to take a smaller trip to celebrate our anniversary.  We are visiting Kansas City, St. Joseph, and Omaha.   This trip will be shorter and we will be staying in  motels.  We put sweet Sandy in Ruff-Inn-It in Mt. Zion and headed west on I-72/36 to Cameron, Missouri.  It was a five-hour drive from Warrensburg.

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It was a nice  drive.  The sun was shinning and I always love it when we drive through Missouri.  The rock cliffs along the highway make a beautiful view.

The corn and grasses along the road make interesting scenery.

We arrived in Cameron and are staying at the Red Roof Inn.  It has been a long time since we have stayed at a Red Roof.  It is comfortable. We have a king bed, TV, etc.  We were told that the restaurants in Cameron were open and the lady recommended Dino's Diner.  It was a old-fashioned restaurant in a small town but the food was good.  Carol had catfish and I had Chicken Fettuccine.  We asked what the guidelines were for Covid and were told that masks are recommended but not required.  We took our masks into the restaurant, but no one was wearing one, so we took ours off too.  I noticed on the news on the TV that Missouri has only  80,000 cases and less than 2,000 deaths.  Missouri seems to be doing much better than Illinois.  Their schools are in session and Friday Night Football is going on as normal.

Tomorrow we are driving into Kansas City to visit the World War I Memorial/Museum and have some famous Kansas City BBQ.  Looking forward to that.  It is suppose to be near 90 so I am glad that for the most part we will be inside.