Kansas - Day 3

On Day 3, we went to downtown Kansas City.  First stop was the Crown Center which is anchored by Hallmark's corporate headquarters.  It includes a visitor's center as well as a hands on art center called Kalidescope.  The art center is geared towards children and a popular school field trip destination.

The visitor's center provides information about the historical beginning of Hallmark as a family business, its evolution through the years, its integrity as a business, and the family of artists who have worked there over the years.  Each year until the death of the founder of Hallmark, Joyce Clyde Hall, the artists would design and hand create a themed Christmas tree which they would present to Mr. Hall at Christmas time.  These trees are on display along with a bit of information about each tree

The trees provided a window into the decorating or stylistic themes over the years.

I loved the Santa collection on this tree.

Different Hallmark artists would take charge year after year.

Lynette liked this tree of miniature shadow boxes.  There were also displays of memorabilia and Hallmark cards by decade, artist's works owned by Hallmark, and the machinery needed to make a greeting card.

There was also a portion devoted to the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies which have been produced almost since the advent of television.  As we left the center we received free postcards including the this one.  We also received a free recordable book, very generous.

We also explored the Crown (remember Hallmark's logo) Center including the chocolate shop.

It was fun to watch the young man throw that fudge around.

There were too many kinds to choose from so we skipped the fudge and shared a toffee encrusted caramel apple and two pecan smothered chocolate turtles instead.  We also called that lunch.

The center includes a Crown Hallmark store, of course, and we purchased our husband's Father's Day cards.  Seemed appropriate.  There are also department stores for men and women called Hall's, also appropriate.  The center has theaters for live productions, restaurants, and unique shopping.

After leaving the Crown Center, we traveled a few blocks north to the home of the Kansas City Star newspaper.  In the quilting the world, the Star is famous for the quilt patterns it published weekly from 1928 to 1961.

The Kansas City Star was holding a quilt exhibit in conjunction with the time of Quilt Market.  These were quilts which had been included in books now published by Kansas City Star Books.  They, of course, also had stacks of their books for sale.

It was fun to see the quilts and then look through the books after.  This was a travel quilt covered in postcards.

We were blown away by this lovely fashionable art quilts.

The embellishments were beautiful.

And each included a moon which the artist/quilt maker had enhanced with Ritz dye in a spray bottle.

She also used the dye for the shadowing.

They were beautifully done.

We oohhhed and ahhhed for a while before the tour guide admitted that it was her work.  I wish I could remember her name.

Later in the display we came across this beautiful quilt, also hers.

There were two floors of beautiful quilts.  I loved this one made out of feed sacks.

We found this Sunbonnet Sue quilt inspired by Barbara Brackman to be out of the box, humorous, and a bit disturbing.  How many ways can one say goodbye to Sunbonnet Sue?

See what I mean?

There were also windows overlooking the presses.  I made me wish we were touring on that side of the glass as well.

On the way back to Leavenworth, we drove along the Missouri River to Parkville.  I had a hard time getting a good picture, but you can see last year's flood line near the trees which are some distance across a pretty wide river.

In a gift shop/antique store up the hill a bit was a sign which gives a good perspective of how high it has been in the past.  The shovel handle is upright and I'm looking up as well.

Harry Potter also lives here.  No, not really, that is a college, but I really enjoyed many of the old, ornate buildings in Kansas and Missouri towns.

Of course, we also checked out the Parkville quilt store, Peddler's Wagon.

The Bunkers have decided that the barbeque restaurant walking distance from home is as good as anything in Kansas City.  That's where we had dinner on Day 3 and I have to agree that it was pretty darn good.  Slab of ribs anyone?!!