We set our sights for the week of July 4th on a family trip to Grand Junction, Colorado. We already have family there, and we were able to coordinate with other family to meet them out there from Denver and Houston. So it was a nice big family reunion for a summer vacation.
It always takes longer to get out of the house then we want, and this was no exception. We wanted our three year old to be able to do his swimming class in the morning, which meant that we were getting an even later start than usual. Fortunately, by leaving a week before July 4th, we had plenty of time to make our way there at an appropriate pace. Work jumped in there too, to make us a little bit later.
By the evening of the first night we were in Ohio not far from Dayton, and we decided to follow up our stop at Kitty Hawk last year with some time at the Wright Brothers bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. After some driving around, our destination was the Wright Cycle Company and the Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center / Aviation Trail Visitor Center. After some shopping in the gift shop, we realized that we could catch the tour as it was going into the bicycle shop, and we did so!
It was a very short stop for us compared to many of our national park and NPS site adventures, but nevertheless worthwhile. We reminded our son of the airplanes that we sought at Kitty Hawk just last year. And then we piled in the car to make our way west to finish the day near the St Louis Zoo.
We probably could have made an entire weekend travelling to the different sites dedicated to the history of flight around Dayton, including the National Museum of the Air Force. After the good time that we had at the Udvar-Hazy center in DC, that would surely have been a hit. However, we had another popular activity on the agenda – a zoo!
The St. Louis Zoo has more than 16,000 animals including two from our local Elmwood Park Zoo that were relocated due to construction. So we went to visit them! It is free admission too, and the parking attendants had left by the time we got there in the late afternoon so we were also able to get free parking. We practically ran (more like an uphill fast walk) from the parking area into the zoo through the entrance, up the Historic Hill, and then through the Red Rocks area.
Because it was summer, and very hot, they were not out in their enclosure, but had retired inside already. We were disappointed, but happy to see that they had a very nice habitat. We walked slowly back retracing our steps through the exhibits, and back to the car as the zoo was closing to
We stopped for dinner at Mod Pizza, one of our favorite allergy-friendly pizza places, and decided we were going to call it an early night at a nearby hotel. It worked out surprisingly well, as we pretty much perfectly timed getting to Kansas City for an early BBQ lunch the next day.
The last time we were driving through Kansas City at a meal time, we stopped at Jack Stack Barbecue and picked up some brisket, pulled pork and burnt ends. They were fantastic. This was on our way back from Colorado a few years back. Now that we have a favorite bbq place in the city, we can’t help but visit it. And I spent at least an hour with my mouth watering while we were driving over from the excitement of recreating that meal.
It was only a few minutes to get a table because we beat the lunch rush, so we sat down for an early lunch and gobbled down way to much food for a mid-day pit stop on a long drive. But it was really good again and we were able to get into Denver in the evening in great time to meet some friends for breakfast the next day.
