Baseball, blues, barbecue

For the last several years, Aaron and I have talked about heading down to Kansas City for a weekend to watch the Twins play the Royals and to sample some local barbecue. It hasn't quite worked out until this year. We kept an eye on the weather forecasts and decided to get tickets for the Friday night game, leaving us all day Saturday and Sunday morning to explore the city.We left Friday morning, arriving in Kansas City with just enough time to check into our hotel and grab a bite to eat before heading to the stadium. We had heard nothing but good things about Kauffman Stadium and we weren't disappointed.

We had seats along the third base line, which gave us a good view of the Twins players warming up.

The night before our trip, Aaron had spent a couple of hours on a sign that would hopefully get us on TV. I'm not sure if it worked, but he certainly made a good effort.

It seemed like just as many fans were wearing Twins shirts as Royals shirts. I was just glad my shirt still (mostly) fit!

Outdoor baseball was quite a treat, especially on such a nice evening. Fortunately, the Twins managed to pull of a win. It wasn't pretty, but we'll take it! We stuck around for the post-game fireworks, too... something else we don't have at the Metrodome.

On Saturday, our plan was to explore the city. We started off at the farmers' market, which was absolutely packed with people. It was much more comprehensive than the farmers' markets up in the cities, although there didn't seem to be quite the emphasis on local food. After buying coffee and pastries, we eyed the local peaches and vowed to come back on Sunday right before we left.

Our next stop was a shopping area south of downtown called Country Club Plaza. It is modeled after a shopping district in Seville, Spain. While the architechture was fun to look at, a number of the shops could be found in any shopping mall. We walked around for a little while before moving on.

I get acquainted with a pig statue while Aaron relaxes on some steps.

Our next stop was the Old Westport historic district for some lunch. This area was filled with interesting shops and restaurants. After lunch, we headed over to the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum to look at the sculpture garden and relax in the shade.

The shuttlecocks are to Kansas City what the spoonbridge and cherry sculpture is to Minneapolis.

One of our goals for the trip was to eat at Lidia's, the restaurant owned by one of our favorite PBS cooking show personalities. Since we were planning on finding a barbecue place later, we ended up only getting dessert there, which was a delicious compromise. Aaron got an almond/peach semifreddo and I got a blackberry tart with scoops of basil and blackberry ice cream. Aaron was quite satisfied with his choice:

Finally, it was time to find some blues and barbecue, and BB's Lawnside BBQ had both. Again, Aaron was quite happy with his choice:

Today was spent buying peaches and eating more barbecue before heading back to the cities -- quite an enjoyable weekend trip!