We started the day off by looking around the Old West Lawrence neighborhood. The neighborhood was home to prominent Lawrence citizens and was therefore a prime target of the Lawrence Massacre/Quantrill's Raid in 1863, when most of the homes were burned. Today, it is one of the few neighborhoods listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was a finalist in the "America's Prettiest Painted Places" competition. My photos below don't show a lot of the pretty painted homes, but the snow caused lots of parking issues which made it difficult to get photos. Everywhere we turned, though, there were absolutely gorgeous homes, either painted or brick, but with really neat details on all of them.
Then, we headed back to downtown Lawrence for a little shopping. We stopped by Au Marche, a European goods store, and Brits, a shop with everything British. Totally up my alley. :) We got some fun chocolates, drinks, and a little bit of Royal memorabilia. We really would have loved to wander a little, but it was just too darn cold!
Next, we headed south to the Black Jack Battlefield. This is the site of another one of the incidents of "Bleeding Kansas" and some even consider it to be the first true battle of the Civil War (occurring in 1856 before the "official" start of the Civil War in 1861). The Battle of Black Jack was a clash between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces than ended with a surrender by Captain Henry Clay Pate (a pro-slavery Missourian).
Again, the weather really kept us from being able to take advantage of this stop. There is a self-guided battlefield walking tour, but with nearly a foot of snow on the ground, it just wasn't going to happen for us. From the road, all we could really see was this little glimpse of the farmstead home of Robert Hall Pearson, one of the Free State fighters, which is currently under restoration.
After our "drive through" battlefield tour, we stopped by the Lilly store (more on that tomorrow!) and then headed to the Boulevard Brewery in Kansas City. The tour tickets are first-come first-served, so unfortunately we missed out on that. We did get to look around the outside of the brewery, sample an ESB only available in the tasting room, and pick up a pint glass at the gift shop. I really wish we had been able to do the tour, but apparently tickets are given out very early.
We killed a little time at Central Market before having an early dinner to beat the crowds. We really hadn't planned on what we would do for Valentine's Day evening, but we had been wanting to make it to the Kansas City Power and Light District, so we did some quick internet research and decided on the Maker's Mark Bourbonhouse and Lounge.
They were on a special set Valentine's Day menu, but we both really enjoyed what we got. They had an extensive bourbon menu, but we went with the classics. I had an old fashioned and James had a Manhattan. Both were quite good. For dinner, James started with the crab bisque while I had a panzanella salad with golden beets and pancetta. The chef followed that with escargot and beef wellington before our main courses. James had a sirloin with fingerling potatoes and haricot vert, which he loved. I loved the airline chicken, arborio rice, and glazed carrots that I had. I got the chocolate mousse swan for dessert and James ordered the strawberry crepes suzette. We split them both. It was a perfect way to end our impromptu Valentine's Day dinner before driving home.
How did you spend your Valentine's Day? Hope it was lovely!
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