What is there to do around Kansas City?

While wandering full-time around the country, we got good at finding things to do everywhere we camped in the motor home. Now we are finding things to do in Kansas City. Many of our choices have something to do with our son's family, who live just two miles away from our front door.

Downtown Kansas City has lots of long-term attractions like Union Station, the World War I Museum, Crown Center, and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. About a year ago, an over-sized ferris wheel was added to the downtown list. We took our first ride on the KC Wheel on a beautiful morning.

Our three-year-old grandson thought the ride in the air-conditioned ferris wheel car was great! From the top we could see the entire metro area and miles in all directions.

We have been to the Kansas City zoo many times, and we continue to be fans. We love the new aquarium, and we always visit the penguins and the polar bears. But we tend to spend the most time near the giant touch tanks where the rays float by our finger tips.

Near the zoo, is an outdoor theater that we visited for the first time since we moved here. Starlight Theatre hosts Broadway-quality traveling troupes in a lovely setting.

For our granddaughter's birthday, we purchased season tickets for her and us to Kansas City's amusement park. Our season passes included free parking, and access to all the rides in Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun.

We went many times throughout the summer with our six-year-old granddaughter who was trying out the rides for the first time.

We had so much fun! By the end of the summer we decided to see if our three-year-old grandson was old enough to enjoy the rides at Worlds of Fun. We started with something slow, and to tell you the truth he looked a little bored with the carousel.

Gram didn't think it was a good idea to take him on the adult rides, but his father thought he could handle it.

I think you could safely say that both of them really enjoyed the fast ups and downs and rounds! It looks like Eli will be going to Worlds of Fun with us from now on.

We're living in Kansas--the Sunflower state. So when we heard about a nearby sunflower farm, Denisa and our daughter-in-law went to see it. It was a free stop a few miles out of the city, and we managed to arrive during the peak blooming season.

One of our favorite things is the trail system in Johnson County. Even though we are technically in a city, the trails make us feel like we're enjoying a day in the country.

From our front door, we can be on this trail in just a half-mile walk or bike ride. From there we can bike 13 miles in one direction, and around 4 miles in the other direction. While we often walk, we are now enjoying biking the trails more since we have new bikes. After our children got new e-bikes, we inherited their old bikes.

Since we are on the edge of the city, we have fun farm activities all around us. In October we visited a fall festival at one of those farms while our other son and his girl friend were visiting us.

We enjoyed the farm activities including some horseback riding . . .

and photo ops in the hay bales.

Our cool bus photo op had one empty window . . .

because Eli would rather burrow in the corn.

Another new activity is climbing at the indoor rock-climbing gym. Grandude and Eli climbed all the way on many of the routes to the top.

The whole family likes to climb, and it was fun to see them in action.

 While some of the routes are tricky for adults, we were impressed that Eli's short little arms and legs could reach and zoom to the top.

We also enjoyed apple harvest this fall. Denisa's sister and brother-in-law visited us, and we enjoyed picking apples. We went to the Apple-Fest in Weston, Missouri, and we can highly recommend the apple dumplings served at the local church during the festival.

Besides growing apples, Kansas City is also a good place to grow a garden. When a friend went on a cruise, we volunteered to take care of her garden. Carter often helped us, and she is holding a sampling of the day's harvest. We decided not to plant a garden because we intend to travel too much to take care of one, but we enjoyed the delicious harvest from Mary's garden.

This fall brought more Kansas City activities, including Halloween. We have been able to be in Kansas City every year on October 31, and we love trick-or-treating with our grandchildren. Eli was spiderman. Carter was a zoo-keeper, and her Mom and Gram were two of her zoo animals.

This summer we enjoyed going to a Kansas City Royals baseball game. But we had to change to Kansas City Chiefs fans when football season started. We've noticed that all of Kansas City pauses during a game.

When a nephew called to say that he had an extra football ticket, Mark was so happy to join them for his first professional football game!

They enjoyed great weather and a great game as the Kansas City Chiefs came out as winners in another close game.

We're looking and finding lots of things to do around Kansas City!