Goin’ to Kansas City, Kansas City here we come.....We had a somewhat lazy morning as, apparently, nothing in Kansas City opens until 10:00 a.m. – a major difference between hikers and city travelers. We hopped on the Interstate and headed into the depths of the biggest city the boys have traveled around in to date.

We headed straight for the Liberty Memorial and National World War I museum in located on Main Street in downtown Kansas City Missouri. Because we are more of the hiker variety, we got there about 10 minutes before the doors opened. So, we wandered the grounds a bit.

The Memorial is built into a hill overlooking downtown Kansas City. The closely manicured but flowerless grounds are powerful, majestic and library quiet in the first few hours of the day. The 217 feet stone tower (almost as tall as a football field) sits atop the Liberty deck flanked by the Memory and Exhibit halls to the east and west. We learned that the bungalow sized exhibit hall housed the entire museum collection until the larger, underground portion of the memorial was built.

The first thing that I noticed as we climbed up to the windy Liberty deck was two large, stone sphinxes with their faces covered. Immediately curious about the symbolism, I learned later that the one facing east is called “Memory.” It is apparently hiding its face from the horrors of war. The one facing west is called “Future.” It hides its face from the future which is unknown. At a few minutes to 10:00, we walked down to the solid wall of metal doors that are the opening to the musuem. Isaac was watching the clock on my cell phone and was impressed as one door opened unaided just after the digitial display on the phone changed to the top of the hour. Out stepped an elderly gentleman -- I can only assume a veteran of some war -- to welcome us inside and give us directions.

We bought our tickets, just over $20 for all four of us, and proceeded as directed into the heart of the museum where the orientation video was just beginning. To get to the video, we walked over the Paul Sunderland glass bridge which spans a symbolic field of a 9,000 bright red poppies. Our museum guide explained that each poppy represented 1,000 dead combatants during World War I. It was an impressive, visual display that brought the massive casulaties caused by warfare home in a way the brain could process and easily understand. It was also a perfect introduction to the sites and excellent presentation we were about to experience.

Why the flower? Normally, to symbolize the dead in battles you see rows of gravestones lining a distant battlefield. How did such a bright, beautiful flower become a symbol of death? The giftshop provided the answer. The flower was used because it was the only thing that would grow among all the devastation caused by World War I. Each year, when the weather warmed, the red poppy would flower and decorate the mud and destruction with its bright, red color. Apparently, poppies lay dormant beneath the earth for years without germinating and only grow after the ground above them has been disturbed. Seeing seas of poppies appear among the mud and destruction must have been surreal for those in and on the battlefields of Europe. A sign from God. A symbol to ponder.

After that, we went in to the 15 minute orientation video which did an excellent job presenting the cultural context of the world leading up to the world war and a mind-blowing demonstration of exactly why the war began. The phrase about this war that I remember from school was "like lighting a match in a tinderbox." The video made that phrase abundently clear.

Through video, artifacts and interactive displays we learned about the contextual circumstances leading up to feelings of nationalism and power. We saw what it was like to be “in the trenches” with the Germans, the English and the French. Because they had time and inclination to establish their lines of defense, the German’s definately had the best end of that deal. We learned first-hand how big of a hole a mortar shell can blow into the landscape by standing in a life-size representation of one. And, each of us made a propaganda poster that we emailed to our home inbox.

We all enjoyed going through this museum and each of us found something to stir our interest. Sam enjoyed examining the trenches up close and personal that he had been reading about in school. Isaac enjoyed walking into the representation of the crater created by the mortar shell. Ross enjoyed seeing the weapons and tools used in trench warfare – mountable wire cutters and other things he had never seen or thought about before. And Brenda finally got to see an actual, factual Oscar up close which had been donated to the museum by the family of Gary Cooper.

The tickets are for two days and, if you are a military buff, you could definitely spend that walking through the halls of this wonderful museum. For us, it was a terrific explanation of why wars begin and a reminder of the need to avoid them if at all possible. Hanging like a spector in the final gallery was a poster and quote from Adolf Hitler vowing revenge for the defeat of the first conflict.

At one particular display and explanation of gas masks and the use of poisionous gas as a weapon in the first war there was a quote from a surviving soldier describing what it was like to watch a green, wispy cloud take shape and slowly, casually bring its promise of death your way. "You just hoped that your gas mask was tight enough," said the young soldier. The National World War I museum displays are real, educational, and disturbing. It is a “must see” in the Midwest.

Our tickets included a trip up to the top of the tower to view the city from its observation area at the top. The elevator was the old fashioned, gated kind with an operator directing the number of passengers and spouting jokes that seemed a little out of place after our earlier experience. We reached the top and exited into an extremely narrow space crowded with people and assaulted by high winds which threatened to remove every single piece of unattached paraphernalia we had. We made a quick trip around the circle, peeked over the edge while holding on to our glasses and sunglasses and headed right back down.

After that, we headed north up Grand street, past Crown Center and towards the Missouri River to the City Market and Steamboat Arabia museum. After a walk around the perimeter of shops offering everything from hot dogs to Ethiopian cuisine, we landed at Carollo's Groceria Italiana - an authentic Italian deli. We ate inside the store lined with shelves of things that we didn’t recognize and didn’t know how to use – including a barrel full of octopus tentacles labeled "Octopus Salad" ready to dish up and take home.

After lunch, we walked to the museum and bought our tickets just as a tour was ready to go. We followed Greta, our tourguide, down into the basement of the museum. Greta was an animated guide who told the story of the Steamboat Arabia and how it sank using her entire body. She was passionate about the story and kept the boys trained to her speech – which is a coup in itself. She engaged several of the children on the trip, using one young man in front of us to open the tour rope and, as expected, noticed Isaac's freckles and offered to count them.

From the story of how the Arabia sunk and how it was discovered, we moved into a theater and watched a movie made by the family. After the movie none other than Bob Hawley, patriarch of the family of explorers who dug up the Arabia, showed up to talk to our group a little before we headed into the museum of treasures.

And then we walked into what Greta called an 1800’s Walmart of supplies that were found on the steamboat. The display is nothing short of incredible. The Hicks family is used to seeing things like we saw on display. But, normally there is only one in the case – and it is chipped, broken, bent or incomplete in some way. Behind these cases were rows and rows of plates, glassware, silverware, knives, jars of pickles, doorknobs, key rings, boots, hats, shoes, pipes, tools, buttons – everything you could think of that might be headed to the furthest reaches of the United States in 1856 to be sold to the settlers who were heading west.

According to Bob and Greta, only 75% of what the group uncovered is on display. They are still restoring and preparing the other 25% of the treasures for the museum. The museum also contains a life size replica of one of the water wheels, a demonstration of how the steamboat was powered, the snag that sank the ship, a piece of the boat's deck, and the bones of the only casualty on the trip – a mule that was left tethered to the hold and was unable to escape.

It is difficult to describe the impression a person has walking in and amongst the cases and cases of items on display. Many of the items were things that are one of a kind – things that only exist in pictures or through writing – that were perfectly preserved in the mud and silt of the Missouri for 100 years. If you are in the area, go. It is worth the price of admission.

After the Arabia museum, we went back toward the Plaza to end the day zipping through the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine Art. I'm pretty sure that Mom was the only person who enjoyed this little trip into culture. There were a few moments of giggling around some of the statues that according to Isaac were "inappropriate."

But, maybe someday, the boys will remember that they were able to see a Monet, a Renoir, a Van Gogh and a Remington. There was an Egyptian mummy on display that interested the boys for about two seconds longer than anything else. I did also get a slight response from an oil painting depicting the scene of the beheading of John the Baptist. Other than that, we were in and out in about an hour and a half. A world record, I’m sure.

We topped off the day eating at one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas cuisine - Fritz's Union Station. There is a spin off of the original spot located in Crown Center, but we were topping off a day of seeing LOTS of originals -- so we traveled to the first location off of the North 18th Street exit off of I-70. It was an older section of Wyandotte County, but our quest paid dividends as we were almost the only patrons in the place for dinner.

Due to a shortage of waitresses and labor, the original owner set up a restaurant where you order by phone at your booth, and your meal is delivered by train. The ladies serving behind the counter immediately gave the boys paper engineer hats -- having a little fun with the length of Sam's hair. We ordered our burgers and fries and watched in fascination as a little blue engine quickly sped from the kitchen to our table carrying our meal. The meal which had been packed into a shelf-paper lined hamburger box slid quickly on to a silver elevator tray and descended to our table. The ticket which had been artfully arranged on the train dislodged in this whole operation and floated to the tabletop like a paper airplane caught in the wind.

After we ate our hotdogs, cheeseburgers, grilled cheese and Fring (fries and onion rings), it was back to Lawrence and the hotel where Mom enjoyed a quiet hour or two alone in the hotel room while Dad took the boys to the pool. He returned with two wet, exhausted but happy boys and stories about how at one time he counted 40 kids jumping in, out and around the pool area. I think I picked the right night to be the Hicks off duty lifeguard.