Kansas City

Before we arrived in this large but sparse city, we spent the night in one of its many southern out of town suburbs. As a consequence, and partly due to a deeply unpleasant meal in Applebees (not vege friendly at all), my already low expectation of the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers managed to plummet to rock bottom. Honestly, at this point, after the rural endlesslessness through which we had passed to get here, I would have been happy if this city offered anything at all.

The next morning we set off through the first rainfall that we had confronted for 2 months. This trip immediately passed us through some of the most confusing and illogical elevated freeway systems ever constructed. Not for the first time on this trip, we were scared and bemused by a traffic system seemingly conceived after a long hallucinogenic drug binge. It was frightening. Lanes would suddenly split in two directions and present any inattentive driver with a concrete divider and a quickly issued ticket to oblivion. This was not good.

As the downtown area and the state of Missouri slowly emerged through the spray of a torrential downpour, our expectations were immediately surpassed. A sprinkle of intricately decorated gothic skyscrapers and large industrial brick structures poked through a haze created by the rain. This was by far the most interesting architecture that we had seen since leaving San Francisco, so armed only with a small umbrella we parked, and set out to explored the various central districts that define this city.

Kansas City is by far the most pleasant surprise that we have discovered so far this trip. Between an eerily quiet downtown area and a cosmopolitan 'Plaza' district sits a low lying (former)industrial sprawl that reminded both of us of Brooklyn. Here, countless bars and galleries and empty studio spaces are sitting, just waiting for the right kind of creative investment. I'm not sure what it was about this place, but it certainly felt like a place oozing with potential. I liked it a lot.

Downtown

The Missouri River

Local Fashion

The Local Brewes

Street Art

© All Images By Paul