Today was certainly a day for contrasts! Bill and I decided we would head down to Independence to the Church's Visitor's Center. They have an exhibit about the Dead Sea Scrolls and we thought that would be interesting to see. Also, we wanted to tour the Community of Christ's temple and auditorium. Bill had never seen any of this so off we went. We had a difficult time actually getting to the site as all the roads leading into it were closed off for a parade. After cutting through a few parking lots and running more than one barricade, we made it to the parking lot for the Visitor's Center. We hiked over to the COC Temple, walked through the door and were met with a cacophony of voices - hundreds of kids gathering for a colloquy (a peace prayer). We were struck by the level of noise in what we thought would be a temple. There were no tours of the temple itself because of the colloquy. We started through the museum that is in the basement but had to leave because they were closing for the colloquy. They have many interesting artifacts that belonged to Joseph and Emma Smith, the door to the Liberty Jail (we have the key, they have the door) and much more. We will go back there another time and finish the tour. We then went over to the COC auditorium. No tour there either but they did let us in to see the auditorium itself. Very interesting. On the way over to the Visitor's Center we ran into the above float for the parade. They were starting to gather for the parade and were lining up in the road between the Visitor's Center and the temple. When we went into the Visitor's Center we heard hymns playing and when we came out there were bands warming up, scary music from Halloween floats, rock music blaring - more contrasts. I think the most interesting contrast was the gathering of all these Halloween related things between two important religious buildings! Apparently the Halloween Parade is the biggest thing all year in Independence. We enjoyed seeing everything - the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit was very interesting - but one of the best things was that we ran into a friend from Fort Collins while in the Visitor's Center - Pam Little was there with her daughter, who lives in Liberty, and her granddaughter. It was fun to see her. Every time we go somewhere Bill says "we'll run into someone we know today" and I always say, "yeah, yeah" and we never do until today. That was our adventure for today - looking forward to next week.

Our Trip to Wichita

Our big adventure today was a trip to Wichita. Bill had to take some granite down to a customer and so I rode along hoping to find something exciting to see. As you can tell by the pictures, there wasn't a lot to get excited about. The picture of the lake was kind of interesting. It is a man made lake that is gradually inundating the area and it is full of dead trees. Kind of eerie looking. The other picture was funny. We kept seeing signs for "cattle pens" coming up. When we got there it was what it said - cattle pens in the middle of nowhere. Apparently people bring their cattle there and the trucks come and load them up and haul them off. It was odd to see along side of the tollway. I guess it beats the old cattle drives! The postcard from Kansas wins the prize for the best thing we saw on the trip. Not a great adventure but it was fun to have the day to spend together and I did get to see Wichita - hadn't ever seen it before. Stay tuned for something greater next week.

Historic Liberty Square

Today we decided to stay close to home and visit Historic Liberty Square right here in Liberty. Actually it is just down the street from us and I had no idea it was there. The two pictures with Bill and me in them are from the Clay County Historical Society and the bank picture is the Jesse James Bank and Museum. It was the first bank to be robbed during peace time and it was robbed allegedly by Jesse James and his gang. That history seems to be a big thing around here and will take some more exploring. My knee was giving me grief so walking a lot wasn't an option. We will have to go back another day and catch everything as there was lots to check out in the area. Last week I was able to spend the week in Fort Collins while Bill was in Omaha working hard. I had lots more fun - I got to see James play football and Laura play rubgy. I was also there for Laura's 18th birthday and James' 14th birthday. It was great fun to be there and hard to come back home again. We are looking forward to visits from family in the coming months and plan to get the knee better this week so we can continue our adventures around the area. We will take suggestions from people who know the area or have visited something fun in Kansas City. Because someone commented that we didn't look like we were having fun in our pictures, we both tried hard to smile in these. It didn't work out all that well but we were having fun!