Lee's Summit, Missouri

Lee's Summit was a beautiful suburb of Kansas City.  The houses were large with huge, green yards.  All the stores and restaurants looked new and well kept.  On the surface it appeared to be a wonderful place to live.  I'm pretty sure one of my cousins does live there.  Wish I'd had time to visit her, because after we'd found a pamphlet from the tourism department we had a lot of questions.

First question - Why are they having Oktoberfest in September?  Don't the German's and the Americans use the same calendar?  Isn't Oktoberfest supposed to be in...well...October?  What is this all about?

And then there is the whole controversy about the name.  Is the town named after Robert E. Lee, as popular theory would suggest?  Or is it named after a prominent physician Dr. Pleasant Lea who was murdered in 1862?  The brochure said that the town isn't really sure.  I asked one of our customers and her reply was "Well, people don't like to say we were named after Robert E. Lee."  I think they could have come up with an option better than a doctor who was likely murdered for a reason, only lived in the area for twelve years and whose name isn't even spelled correctly.  Just saying.

We had an hour before our appointment so we went to see Longview Mansion and Farm, built in 1914 and once named "The World's Most Beautiful Farm."  Why did it lose it's crown and who has the title of Most Beautiful Farm now?  And for that matter, who goes around giving away these kinds of titles?

We couldn't go in because they were having an event, but I can tell you this.  It may be beautiful and it may be a mansion, but I would title it "The World's Thinnest Mansion."  I would guess at most it was one room deep. The most exciting thing about out little side excursion was the sudden sight of a beaver (my rep shouted "It's a Beaver!!" and then said "What's it doing in a planter?  Shouldn't it be in a dam?").

We should have gone to the cemetery to see the grave site of Civil War Gorilla (yes, that is what the brochure said...Gorilla) Cole Younger, but we didn't.  Next time.

On the way back to the airport we went past the new bridge they are building AND saw a human dressed as a mouse standing next to the highway holding some kind of advertisement.  I can't remember what he was trying to advertise, because let's face it, it was a Giant Human Mouse.  My eyes were riveted to his large grey cranium.

I have only this to say about the Kansas City Airport - it is very long, but very, very, very thin.  I think could walk from entry door to the plane gate in about ten steps if there wasn't a wall blocking me.  And there were no restaurants or Starbucks past security (outrage).  There was barely enough room for a bathroom, and it looked like they had discovered the need for toilets after they built everything else.  Sigh.

Fun trips coming in the next few weeks - Seattle (yay!), Chicago (yes, again) and...wait for it...ORLANDO!  Why?  Because.  Did I try to get out of that trip?  You bet your booty.