2021 Trip – 2 / Part 5, Week 4 in St. Joseph, Missouri

This post covers our fourth, and final week in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Wednesday

The weather continued to cooperate, for the most part. When we left the house, it was in the mid forties and we dressed for weather in the mid forties. So we were very comfortable. We decided to check out the mural exhibit in the downtown area. There were several murals painted on the sides of some of the downtown buildings. When we got out of our car at the first set of murals, the temperature had dropped to the low 40’s, which was still fine. That was until the wind kicked up and dropped the real feel to the low 30’s. It turns out being dressed for the mid 40’s is down right cold in the low 30’s. So we got out of the car, took some pictures of the murals, and jumped back into the car. Here are the murals from our first stop.

There were also some sculptures near the murals, so I got some pictures of those as well. These were from our first stop.

This sculpture was interactive as a musical instrument.

This was at our second stop, but we were not sure if it was part of the exhibit, or just a fancy paint job.

This was the mural at our second stop.

And the sculpture there.

And this statute was there as well.

The final mural was near the Pony Express Museum and showed the progress form the Pony Express to the Stagecoach, to the train.

We returned to our place and I started dinner. I discovered the chicken I was going to cook needed to be defrosted. I was under the mistaken belief I baked the chicken from frozen. So as I tried to figure out how to do a quick defrost, Heather got ahold of Cindy to see if we wanted to meet them for dinner. Problem solved. We all went out to San Jose Steak House and Mexican Food restaurant. As usual, the food was great.

Thursday

The temperature was not an issue today, because Cindy woke up with a headache that turned into a stomach bug. She was unable to keep anything down all day. I ran out to get some sprite and crackers for Cindy, and there was a really nasty accident at the corner where the store was. The front of car was smashed all the way back to the passenger compartment. I don’t know how, or if, the driver survived.

Later in the evening, Cindy became so dehydrated, we ended up in the ER where she received a whole bag of saline. All the Covid and other serious illness tests were negative, so Cindy was given a prescription for me to pick up and we returned to our place. I went to the only pharmacy that was open 24 hours, the one I was specifically sent to by the nurse, only to learn they had sent the prescription to the wrong pharmacy, the one that was already closed. Grrrr. That meant picking up the prescription the next morning.

Friday

Cindy was feeling much better, but was going to stay in and rest up. I spent the morning running errands and picking up the errant prescription from the night before. One of my errands was the post office. While I was there, all of the employees were talking about the car accident I had seen. None of them had seen it, only heard about it on the radio and from other customers. I learned the driver had died, which didn’t surprise me based on what I saw. I showed the postal clerk the picture of the accident on my phone and she took my phone and showed all of the other employees the picture. It made me laugh because she didn’t even ask, yet it seemed natural and normal for a stranger to take your phone to show other people a picture on it. That is something I really like about the area. Later on, the blue jays were squawking away and getting the peanuts Cindy left on the sidewalk for them. I was able to get a few pictures.

Saturday

Another day of great weather, so we headed over to the Amish town, Jamesport. The Amish still get around using a horse and buggy.

We had some really good food at a local restaurant, did some shopping, and headed back home. Jamesport is a must visit when in northwestern Missouri.

For dinner, we had a cheese, charcuterie, and shrimp dinner. I bought something I had never seen before. Triscuit Minis. A regular Triscuit is a cracker about two inches by two inches. These mini Triscuits were tiny. They looked more like Chex cereal than a cracker. They still tasted just like a Triscuit, only with much less cracker to eat. They would make a decent snack item, but were a little too small when trying to put some cheese or meat on them.

Sunday

Back on Presidents Day, Scott’s dad, Denby, had knee surgery. He had been at home recovering, and driving his wife Nancy crazy since then. With Sylvia scheduled to fly in, and the airport being within 15 minutes of Scott’s parent’s house, it only made sense to visit Scott’s parents before picking up Sylvia.

Plus, there is a side story. Back in October when we were in St. Joseph, we had dinner at Denby and Nancy’s house. We wanted to take them some wine and learned Nancy really likes Stella Rosa Tropical Mango. How hard could that be to find? Impossible. We could find every variety of Stella Rosa except for Tropical Mango. We ended up getting her something else and it seemed to work out. However, we were bent on getting her some of her favorite wine. Once we got home, we had no trouble finding the wine. We bought four bottles, I packed them up all nice and safe, and we headed off to the UPS store. Did you know the only people who can legally ship alcohol are companies who are licensed to sell alcohol to parties in states that permit shipments? I didn’t and guess what? I am not a company licensed to sell alcohol. Turns out we should have ordered the wine on line and had it shipped to her. Live and learn. So now what. We held onto the wine and then brought it out with us. That was some well travelled wine and we were finally able to give it to Nancy.

Before going to Denby and Nancy’s house, we followed Scott and Heather to the town of Liberty. As crazy as this sounds, there are no full service car washes in St. Joseph, a town of about 76,000 people. The closest one is in Liberty, a town of about 32,000 people, and about an hour drive away. So drive we did. Liberty is a pretty small town, but it had every type of store and restaurant you can imagine. Oh yea, and a full service car wash. When we arrived, it seemed like all 32,000 residents were not only driving around the tiny downtown area, but were also in line for the car wash. Without exaggeration, the line was at least 200 yards long, if not more. This was the most crowded small town I have ever seen, and hope to never see again.

We took our dirty cars to Denby and Nancy’s house and caught up with them over a pizza lunch. Denby’s knee was healing and he seemed to be doing well. After lunch, we walked around the small lake behind their house.

After our visit, we were off to the airport where we picked up Sylvia. For the record, Kansas City International Airport (MCI) is a super easy to use airport. It is one of my personal favorites. It ranks up there with Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), another really easy to use airport.

We left the airport and headed straight over to one of our favorite BBQ restaurants, Q39 near the downtown Kansas City area. As we walked up to the front door, the smell was heavenly. Unfortunately, the wait to get a table was just over an hour. I was able to find a place very close to us named, “JJ’s Restaurant and Bar.”

It was a little fancier than we expected, but we were hungry and not too underdressed. The food was amazing. I had a wild boar ragu with fettuccini that was out of this world. Cindy had chicken marsala, and Sylvia had the salmon. They loved their meals as well. Here are what Cindy and my meals looked like.

As we left the restaurant, there was a neat full moon.

Monday

This was Sylvia’s first day in St. Joe, so we started off slow. Prior to Sylvia’s arrival, we had been looking at a lot of houses on Zillow, and found one we really wanted to see near the downtown area. It was a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 2,000 square foot two story house built in 1911. It had a screened in porch and was listed for $325,000. We had walked around the outside and it looked super clean. We both really liked it and wanted to do a tour. Here is the front of the house.

We were able to get a tour on Monday and scheduled it for after lunch. We had lunch at the Pronto Cafe (not my choice) and went off to have our tour. The first floor was amazing with many classic antique touches that we really liked.

Next was the unfinished basement that was not as creepy as we expected it to be. Off to the second floor where it started to get weird. The bedrooms needed some work and the master bath was actually a converted bedroom with a tub, no shower, and a funky closet. Up on the unfinished and cramped attic, there were several glaring issues that screamed huge money investment. Then we remembered the foundation in the basement was brick, which could become a huge expensive problem at any time. Bottom line was we loved the house, but we love our money more and were not going to invest in a potential money pit.

We spent the rest of the day showing Sylvia around the area before turning in for the night.

Tuesday

This was our last day in St. Joseph and we really wanted to have an exciting day. That was not going to be a problem. At 9:30 am, as the girls were getting ready for the exciting day ahead, we all heard what sounded like some sort of warning siren outside. I went outside and confirmed there was what sounded like a tornado warning siren going off. Yet this is what the weather looked like.

I’m no meteorologist, not do I play one of TV, but I’ve watched a lot of tornado shows on cable and have yet to see one where a tornado struck during clear beautiful weather. I searched the internet and found that the city tested its tornado sirens at 9:30 am on the first MONDAY of every month. This was Tuesday. Could they have been a day late? That was my guess. Then all three of our phones went of and displayed this.

This was not a welcome message. Cindy had just gotten out of the shower and was running around in a towel yelling at Sylvia to get her shoes on. I had to point out clothes were pretty important too. I went outside and could hear a distant siren, so maybe the tornado threat was a little further away? During clear blue skies? Once everyone had their clothes and shoes on, we believed the whole incident was some sort of tornado warning system test. It sure would have been nice to have the word “Test” somewhere in all of that.

Exciting day officially begun. Our first stop was to look at another house we had some interest in. It was a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1,100 square foot attached home (they call it a townhouse) for $135,000. This interested us as an investment property we could also use ourselves. There were people living in the house, but Cindy really wanted to look in the front window. So she did.

I told her if the police came, I was throwing her purse out and driving away. Luckily, no police and she got to go with us to Weston, our next destination. We drove to Weston so we could do some wine tasting and eat at the Tin Kitchen Café. Unfortunately, many of the Weston businesses were closed on Tuesdays, including the Tin Kitchen. We found an open restaurant in the Weston Brewery complex named, “America Bowman Restaurant.”

The food ranged from average to pretty good. The highlight of the stop was finding the former largest ball of string on the property.

We returned to Weston to do some shopping.

As we headed toward our place, we decided to stop and check out the “Green Dot Farm and Creamery.” You can wine taste and get amazing cheese and charcuterie trays. We ordered a tray with just cheese samples and it was amazing.

I did a wine flight tasting and the girls each had a glass of wine. The wines were, but nothing caught my tastebuds enough to buy a bottle.

We returned to our place, freshened up, and headed off to the Culver house for our farewell dinner. We had a great dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, and enjoyed our evening. We returned to our place, packed up as much as we could and got some sleep.

The next post will cover our drive home with short stays in Fort Worth and San Antonio Texas, and Sierra Vista Arizona, near Tombstone.

2021 Trip – 2 / Part 2, Week 1 in St. Joseph, Missouri

This post covers our first week in St. Joseph.

Tuesday

This was our first full day in St. Joseph. We started by going to Cindy’s favorite coffee shop, Hazel’s. Ever since we were first here in August, all I have heard about is Hazel’s. Cindy finally got her fix and I’m sure we will be there many more times.

Our next stop was the St. Joseph East Hills Library. Because of Covid, we could not go inside. So why would we be stopping at the library? So Cindy could pick up her new library card. She wanted a library card so she could use the remote check out and get some reading material in case we got stuck indoors because of weather. But what are the chances that could happen?

Next we went to a grocery store named Cosentino’s Price Chopper. We wanted to check it out for meal ideas so we could make some meals at our place. It was a brisk 29 degrees out, but manageable with very little wind.

I didn’t think I would like a store named “Price Chopper,” but I have to admit I was impressed with it. They had a large pre-made food area, in addition to the normal meat, deli, bakery, etc. They also had a decent wine selection at reasonable prices.

By this time we were getting hungry, so we picked up some sandwiches for ourselves, and Scott and Lauren Culver. We ate at their house and caught up a bit. They live less than a ten minute drive from our Airbnb.

We did some shopping and Cindy really needed a mirror she could use for her make-up and drying her hair. I suggested we get a lightweight dollar store type mirror and I could hang it with a single nail. Obviously, I would repair the nail hole before we left. Cindy was having none of that. So we did buy a mirror at one of the dollar stores and I figured out a way to hang it so it didn’t do any wall damage.

Unfortunately, a wire coat hanger was sacrificed during the process.

The weather was pleasant most of the day. We decided to check the forecast to see how many meals we would need to eat in: Wednesday looked great; there was a rain/snow mixture forecast for Thursday, so possible stay in day; Friday looked cold, but clear so going out was in the cards; Saturday was forecast as cold and snowy, a definite stay in day; Sunday and Monday were WTF………..

We made our shopping list and loaded up at the ole Price Chopper so we would have plenty of food on hand.

Wednesday

Our Toyota hit 5,000 miles on the trip out and kept giving us the “maintenance required” message every time the car was started. We assumed this was the first oil change and since we have “Toyota Care,” the service would be free. I made an appointment at the local Toyota dealer and we took the car in. While it was getting serviced, we walked around a nearby shopping center. Once the car was done, they told us they had found a screw in a tire and were able to patch it. Since our car uses synthetic oil, it turns out the 5,000 mile service is nothing more than a tire rotation. The oil change will come at 10,000 miles. At least it was done and all of the tires were back in tip top shape.

We spent the afternoon driving around the area looking at houses for sale. We are not specifically looking to buy anything, but we enjoy seeing what is for sale and the prices. In the evening, the Culvers came to our place and we caught up over a glass of wine. We then dined in the downtown area at Boudreaux’s Louisiana Seafood & Steaks. We had “alligator bites” as an appetizer. It was small cubes of deep fried alligator you dipped in a spicy sauce. It was delicious. Cindy tried one and was done and Heather would have no part of it. If you are in the St. Joseph area, this is a must visit if you want a great Cajun meal.

Thursday

We expected the day to be cold, rainy, icy, and possibly snowy, so we planned this as a stay in and relax day. That turned out to be a pretty good call. After a short rain shower at about 5:30 in the morning, this happened for the rest of the morning until about 1 pm.

By the time it stopped snowing, there was at least an inch of snow covering the ground. While that may not seem like much, for Californian’s like us, it was a huge amount. It was about an inch more than we are used to seeing. So we enjoyed our inside day looking out at the snow.

We also discovered something interesting about our kitchen when cooking dinner. We made some stir fry beef and vegetables and used the hood vent over the stove to vent some of the smell outside to avoid having a place that smelled of stir fry. When we turned the vent on, we realized it sucked the air in from the bottom of the vent and shot it out of an opening at the top of the vent right back into the kitchen. If you are going to vent the air from the kitchen into the kitchen, are you really venting the air at all? The answer is no, you’re just moving the cooking smells around in the same place. We were able to place a box fan near the back door and open the window in the door to vent the odors out. While not a perfect solution, it worked.

At the end of the day, we checked the weather forecast to see if it had improved at all. Nope.

Friday

The weather was very nice, partly cloudy with temperatures in the low to mid 30’s. It was time to get our sightseeing on. We went and toured the Pony Express Museum, located near the old downtown area.

This was a fascinating museum that is a must visit if you are in the St. Joseph area. Here are a few general pictures from the museum.

This is Cindy pumping an old fashion water pump.

This clear top allow you to look down into the 22 foot well.

Here is the employment flyer looking for Pony Express riders. Note how “orphans” were preferred.

Here is a map showing the route the riders took.

This is a Colt Model 1851 .36 caliber cap and ball gun. It was the gun carried by Pony Express riders.

We also learned a lot about the Pony Express that we did not know. Here are a few interesting points: The Pony Express only operated for a year and a half; a rider typically rode around a 100 miles a day, before handing off to another rider. The riders would change horses every 9 to 12 miles; the Pony Express operated from St. Joseph, Missouri to San Francisco, California, going both ways; the first westbound rider was 19 year old Johnny Fry.

A 16 year old named William Frederick Cody claimed to have been a Pony Express rider. You may know him as “Buffalo Bill” Cody.

“Bronco” Charlie Miller claims to have been the youngest rider at age 11. He outlived all of the other riders, dying at the age of 105 in 1955. James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok never worked as a rider, but did work for the Pony Express as a stocktender in Colorado. He could not be a rider because was older and heavier than the other riders.

And the most important thing I learned was no one should ever name their child “Dorcas.”

After our Pony Express Museum experience, we felt daring and tried a Mexican food restaurant named “Barbosa’s.” We tend to be Mexican food snobs and have discovered in our travels that once we are outside of California, we just never know what we are going to get. This experience was no exception.

I will start with the margarita. I ordered the plain house margarita and it was pretty good. And as simple as you would think it is to make a margarita, I have had my share of average or worse ones. So this was a good start. Next we learned the chips and dip were not complimentary, but something you had to order as an appetizer. We looked at the menu and they had homemade corn or flour chips with a choice of 5 different dips. We chose the flour chips with the regular salsa.

Even though this was different to us, it was very good. So far, Barbosa’s was two for two. For me, the first test of any Mexican restaurant is their pork chili verde. Barbosa’s didn’t have that, but they did have a pork chili rojo that they called red pork chili. This came with flour tortillas and a tostada! I knew that would be too much food so I cancelled the tostada. The waiter could not believe I didn’t want the tostada, but still took it off of my order. Just the pork chili rojo and the Spanish rice was more than enough food.

Drum roll please…………..The verdict…………….The pork chili rojo was outstanding. The rice was average, but that is ok. They were now three for three, an impressive feat for any Mexican restaurant in the Midwest. The last test was Cindy’s order of cheese enchiladas with rice and beans. Probably the simplest item to make. We received a bad omen when Cindy asked if she had a choice of red or green sauce. The waiter explained the enchilada had cheese fried into the tortilla and a type of mole on the outside.

As you can see, that is not an enchilada. It looks more like a folded quesadilla. It had American cheese in it and Cindy said it tasted exactly like a grilled cheese. So we called it the Mexican grilled cheese. And that was not a good thing. Oh well, three out of four wasn’t too bad.

Saturday

We expected a cold, snowy day and were not disappointed. It started snowing around 8 am and didn’t stop until around 5 pm, dropping around 2-3 inches of snow. Around mid day, I noticed the road was getting covered with snow and ice and was getting slippery. I also noticed our car was parked at the end of a T intersection. Notice how the turning cars had left marks that headed toward our car then veered to the left.

I remembered Newton’s first law of motion. “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” So what does this mean to us and our car? A car in motion going toward our parked car on a slick road will stay in motion until acted upon by being stopped when it hits our parked car! So I moved the car across the street. Notice the black spot where our car was parked.

By the end of the day, our walkway was completely covered with snow. I went out and gave it a quick shovel.

At 8 pm, I checked our forecast again. Besides the fact it was 3 degrees, with a real feel of -5, the rest of the week wasn’t looking so good either. Were we in Missouri or Montana? Oh, I checked. The Dillon, Montana area was actually warmer.

Sunday

The day started with another snow storm. Imagine that. We were supposed to go to the Culver’s house for the big game (I refuse to acknowledge the name; I protested this season and did not watch a single game), but that was in jeopardy. By noon, our back deck had so much snow, it was partially blocking the back door.

Luckily, it stopped snowing and warmed up to a balmy 7 degrees around 3 pm. That was our window of opportunity to head on over to the Culver house. All of the roads were plowed, except for the 200 yards leading up to the Culver’s driveway. There was about 6 inches of snow on the road, but we made it through. There ended up being a total of 9 people at the event. In California, we all would have been arrested and thrown in the gallows for a gathering that size. It was fine in Missouri.

Usually at this event, I bring my world famous award winning chili. Being away from home and not having access to what I needed for my chili, I was unable to make it this year. Scott also always makes brown stuff he calls chili, but is has beans, and corn, and other items that make it non-chili. This year, he made an all meat chili using some of my super secret chili spices I gave him when he left Cali. I feel as if my long time chili student has finally passed the test. It was outstanding!

And in case you were wondering, the reddish spots were diced tomatoes, not beans. Scott got two thumbs up and a snap in a Z formation.

Around 6 pm it started to lightly snow again and the temperature had dropped to 4 degrees, so it was time for us to get home before we turned into frozen pumpkins. We got home safely with no incidents, but it was starting to get slick on the roads.

Monday

There was no forecast snow for the day and it was supposed to warm up into the teens, so we made plans to meet the Culvers for lunch and then we would all go to a local museum. In the morning, Cindy and I went to Walmart to get a few more groceries. It was cold, to say the least.

There is a song that says one is the loneliest number. I believe two is one of the coldest numbers.

We met the Culvers for lunch and afterward headed over to the Glore Psychiatric Museum. It was closed because of the weather. We should have called, darn it. We went to the local mall and walked around to get some exercise. From there, we went to Hazel’s for hot coffee and tea, then called it a day. At home, I checked the weather forecast again. It was not promising.

It was this last weather check that made me realize what had happened. We must have gone to the St. Joseph in Antarctica, not the one in Missouri.

Tuesday

Another brutally cold day, imagine that. We stayed inside until the warmest part of the day, 3 pm. It had warmed all the way up to 14 degrees. We drove to our favorite grocery store, Price Chopper and bought mostly treats for ourselves while trapped inside. We returned home, had dinner, and watched some TV. At about 8 pm while watching TV, there was a knock at our door. This was the first time this had happened since we had checked in and we were not expecting anyone or any deliveries. I answered the door and it turned out to be a food delivery guy looking for the unit next door to us. That was the most exciting part of our day. I checked the weather report, and holy cow.

The good news was it was still 12 degrees outside (in what world is that good news?). The bad news was it was forecast to be -3 on Sunday. That’s so cold that if Aunt Barbara were here with us, she might have to wear a sweater. Now that is cold.

The next post will cover week two in this frozen hell, I mean vacation paradise. I will also discuss some things we have learned about staying in an extremely cold environment.