This year I took my two boys to the Kansas City Maker Faire for the second year in a row. We once again had a great time. This year we attended both days of the faire. We learned last year that one day was not long enough for us.
We live in Minnesota so our adventure starts long before we get to Kansas City. On our way to the faire we managed to find a couple of interesting items. First was the large art display of buffalo silhouettes cut from steel plate. These buffalo were located at the first rest stop in Missouri as we drove south on I-35. It was a bit of a surprise because they were not visible until we were already at the rest stop. It was a great place to get out and walk around a bit.
Our second surprise was an antique store in Bethany, MO. We were stopping for the day in Bethany to stay in a hotel since it was much cheaper than staying in Kansas City. We had a bunch of time to kill so I took the kids to Jim’s Antiques just east of I-35 (Exit 92). My kids loved it. The antique store had a whole yard full of rusty tools, including some old propane tanks plasma cut with various designs including the local high school team logos. Inside the store there was a vast array of items. We didn’t escape before my little blacksmith bought an anvil shaped aftershave bottle for $2. They had some real anvils and a blacksmith vice but they were too expensive for my 9 year old to afford.
The next morning we headed to Moon Marble Company to see marbles being made live in the store. The Moon Marble company store had a lot of games, skill toys (throwing tops, yo-yos, puzzles, etc.) and novelty items. We had plenty to keep us busy while waiting for the marble making demonstration to start. We were able to stay and watch Bruce Breslow (the store owner) make a marble from start to finish (I would guess it took about 45 minutes). Bruce did a great job describing what he was doing and keeping the audience interested. It was a great addition to our “making” themed trip.
After the marble making demonstration we finally headed to the maker faire. As usual we had a great time at the maker faire. There was a lot of variety and a bunch of new things that were not there last year. The kids had a chance at a variety of activities. They Flambé-ed someone, checked out their entries in the Make A Robot Challange and were able to try tying a fly for fly fishing (Thanks to Donfishin).
We were glad we spent two days at the faire. The items in this post are only a sliver of what we saw and did at the faire. Check out some of the Make posts and many other blog posts on the faire itself to see the other great many things that were at the 2015 Kansas City Maker Faire.
Owen and Derek discuss their trip in this video