Kansas City is unique. It is said that it has more boulevards than Paris and more fountains that Rome. It is also divided in two by the state line between Kansas and Missouri. Downtown Kansas City contains ten neighborhoods with a diverse variety of music, shopping and dining. Encompassing the biggest entertainment and arts districts in the Midwest, the Port of Kansas City downtown has the third busiest arena, Sprint Center, in the United States and the sixth busiest in the world. Visitors to the Port of Kansas City will also find ample concert venues, performance stages, art galleries and studios, and museums.
The Port of Kansas City has a humid continental climate with warm, even hot, summers and sometimes bitterly cold winters. The Port of Kansas City is also located in the heart of America's "Tornado Alley," getting sometimes violent thunderstorms storms in the spring and summer and occasional ice storms during the winter. The city can also be subjected to flooding. Temperatures in the Port of Kansas City range from an average high of 32°C (90°F) in July to an average low of -5°C (22°F) in January. Snowfall is heaviest in January (an average 4.1 inches) and February (an average 3.2 inches).
The National World War I Museum and Liberty Memorial in the Port of Kansas City is the world's first memorial for World War I. Open from Tuesday through Sunday from 10am until 5pm, the memorial features a 62-meter (200-foot) obelisk and observation deck. Admission to the tower is $4, to the museum is $8, and to both is $10. The museum reflects decades of pro-active collecting and state-of-the-art exhibits that cover World War I from the first 1914 shots to the 1919 peace.
With more than 75 thousand items, this National Museum is a National Historic Landmark that is mandated to preserve the history of the War. Exhibits include a series of ground-level trench scenes with recordings of writings from the original participants, animated battle maps, a chronology of the war's events, a walk-through howitzer crater, a French Renault FT-17 tank, and three movies that tell the stories behind the exhibitions.
The Port of Kansas City's Toy & Miniature Museum has the largest collection of miniatures in the world. The fine-scale contemporary art miniatures are perfect in scale and reproduce actual pieces. The collection includes tiny copies of architectural residential and palatial decorative features from a variety of historic periods. Miniature artist Bill Robertson offers behind-the-scenes information on the creation and history of miniatures.
The museum's collection of toys includes dolls, dollhouses, trains, and cars from the Victorian era forward. The Marble Games and Gallery Room contains a huge collection of about one million marbles that visitors can play with. The museum is housed in a 1911 mansion once owned by Dr. Herbert Tureman and family. This Port of Kansas City museum is open from 10am until 4pm from Wednesday through Saturday and 1pm until 4pm on Sunday. It is closed on Monday and Tuesday and on all major holidays. Affordable admissions range from $5 for children from five to twelve to $7 for adults.
The Port of Kansas City Zoo is a great place to spend a day. Open from 9:30am until 4pm on weekdays and from 9:30am until 5pm on weekends, the admission price is from $8.50 for children from three to eleven to $11.50 for adults. The 200-acre zoo is located in Port of Kansas City's beautiful and historic Swope Park. The most popular areas of the Port of Kansas City Zoo include Kidzone, Australia, Asia, Tropics, aviary, a 100-acre African Plains, and an Endangered Species Carousel.
The Zoo contains three historic features. The 1909 Zoo Building was the original zoo and contains the Tropics indoor rainforest today. The 69-meter (227-foot) Suspension Bridge was built in 1907 and connects the African Plains area with the Congo area. The Lagoon and Boathouse celebrates the beach area and the 1912 boat house that was replaced in 1949. Today, the lagoon is the focal point for the African Plants exhibit. The most popular residents of the zoo include giraffes, black rhinos, gorillas, Nikita the Polar Bear, prehensile-tailed porcupines, gibbons, small-clawed otters from Asia, Blue Monkeys, orangutans, and North American river otters.
Visitors to the Port of Kansas City will want to see the Harley-Davidson Final Assembly Plant where the Sportster®, Dyna®, and VRSC™ are created. The tour center shows the manufacturing and assembly processes from both the factory floor and through a tour video. No cameras are allowed on the free one-hour tours which are available from 8am through 1pm Monday through Friday.
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