Being a tourist in your hometown

Surprisingly one of the toughest things we have found to date in our full-timing lifestyle is how to be a tourist in your hometown. The surroundings are so familiar that we easily fell into our old routine instead of our on the road routine where we research the area before we get there and then gather info once we get there.

So we recently decided to treat the Kansas City area like a stopover on our journey instead of our home town. We may be in our home town but we have more time to see some of the sights now than when we were working. That is not to say that we have not visited the sites in the area as we have been to the Truman Presidential Library, the Kansas City Museum, the Zoo, the Steamboat Arabia and others but we haven't done much this extended visit.

With that in mind we decided to return to the Zoo to see the new polar bear exhibit at the Kansas City Zoo, The Polar Bear Passage. We watched as the polar bear named Nikita swam in his 140,000 gallon 65 degree pool and explored the 10,000 square feet exhibit space. We were amazed at how close we were and how active he was diving underwater and then putting his paws on the glass right in front of you and pushing off and back stroking. We also saw feeding time and watched as Nikita ate some of his 25 pounds of food each day.

We hope to do more sightseeing before we head in mid-November to Arizona for the winter. For more details on what to see, eat and do in the Kansas City area you can read our blog entry, Kansas City 

Till next time,

Bob and Jo