I have to say, I truly love the kcparent.com website! It has so many great resources with one being the out and about section. I get pretty much all my ideas on where to take the girls from there. One of the blogs posted about Leavenworth and it sounded interesting enough to make a trip so off we went in the Odyssey. Since it was en route to Leavenworth we first made a stop in Bonner Springs to visit the Moon Marble Co. I highly recommend coming here! They have the largest selection of vintage toys I have ever seen and of course the marbles, oh so many pretty and shiny marbles. My girls couldn't keep their hands off, not that I blame them. It was so tempting to just reach right in basket after basket to hold the smooth round orbs. Before I allowed them to pick out some we went to the back room where the owner was giving a marble making demo. He does this every Saturday so I would advise going then to watch him masterfully mold the different colored glass into a 4 leaf clover marble or whatever his fancy for the day. It was fascinating to me but not so much to my dear two year old so we went back to the marbles and they each picked out a tube full. With both girls happy with their selections we jumped back in the van and headed to our awaiting destination. We started at the C.W. Parker carousel museum and took a tour. We watched a not-short-enough-for-my-two documentary on the history of carousels and then good ol' Jerry took us upstairs to see the majority of the memorabilia. Jerry was the best! How he loved to share his vast carousel knowledge with us but unfortunately the girls didn't appreciate all the details he so willingly shared. I didn't get any pics because I had to keep Princess Tiger Lily from knocking over the antique horses from over a hundred years ago. Boy, I had no idea on the intricacy of the horses and each company's specific designs. The museum housed a large amount of old horses and three full size carousels among other carnival collectibles. One carousel was the first one ever made in Maryland around 1847 I believe. It was all wooden and had to have two men hand crank the machine to make it twirl around. See Jerry, one of us was paying attention ; ) We finally went downstairs to the promised carousel ride. This one was from 1913 and was still a well oiled machine. It was surprisingly fast, I suppose these were mustangs we were riding on. I had a death grip on Princess TL since she kept sliding and there were no seat belts. Picasso rode in the spinning tea cup so she was safe, phew! We finally came to a stop with crazy wind blown hair and after smoothing our manes we made our way to the gift shop. Who knew the girls would want one of everything but I put my foot down and only allowed Picasso to pick out one thing. It was a puppet marionette that she once had but got it so tangled I had to throw it away. She has been asking for one for the last 3 years and finally we found the long awaited toy. We were hungry so we headed down the street to the Corner Pharmacy, a soda fountain and lunch counter that has been there for over a hundred years. We walked in and sat at a booth by the window since all the counter seats were taken. To my surprise we could purchase a hot dog, fries, AND a soda for $2.49! You can't even get a happy meal at the golden arches for that price, man oh man did we find a treasure. We had these wonderful hot dogs, a chocolate malt, and a piece of blackberry pie, mmmm 'twas old fashioned heaven!! After we finished we hit the pavement and toured downtown. We stopped in a few stores but I heard rumors about this fabulous tea shop and we saved that for last. It's called the Queen's Pantry and it's all about proper English tea. They had beautiful (and expensive) tea cups and pots, tea diffusers, scone mixes, curds and jams, and all the tea your heart could desire. Loose teas galore and a fine selection of tea bags were sitting so pretty on the shelves. I chose a dozen different tea bags and picked up a tea magazine also. By this time I knew we were going to have a major meltdown if we didn't jump back in the Odyssey so we said goodbye to Leavenworth (the first incorporated city in Kansas) and headed home. I am planning on bringing my mother in law when she visits so hopefully I will get to snap some pics and share with you then!
moonmarble.com
No comments:
Post a Comment