The Prize at the End of a Long Road

Road Trip Day 12: Rapid City - Kansas City

Yesterday was the longest day of our trip. We’ve had a couple drives that took longer, but none that quite felt this long. 

Our drive was 9.5 hours over the plain farmland of South Dakota and Iowa. I never thought I’d actually see or visit Iowa, let alone drive through the whole thing.

Luckily, the highways were still 80mph speed limits, which helped as we traveled over the 700 miles of farmland. 

Before taking off on the long drive, we woke up in Rapid City and of course had to grab some coffee. It ended up being delicious! It was from a place called Harriet and Oak. 

The “Oak” in their name was actually a very similar font and style to the Oak House in Durham haha! It was a nice reminder of home.

We also went to a local donut shop that a particular blog said was one of the best in the country!

It was definitely good, but nowhere near the best.

In fact, as I waited in line an older lady came in behind me. She was ecstatic that they had donuts at 9am; apparently, they were usually sold out by that time. I thought this was a good sign, thinking the donuts must be amazing. I asked her what the best donut was; always wise to get the inside scoop.

The older lady didn’t respond right away, but first asked me, “have you ever been to a Dunkin Donut?” To which I responded, “yes mam.” She went on to tell me that her family loves Dunkin Donuts and everytime they find themselves in Denver, they just have to stop by. She said that the donut shop we were currently standing in was almost as good as Dunkin Donuts and I couldn’t go wrong with any of them. Though the double chocolate was her favorite.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her we really don’t like Dunkin, that Krispy Kreme is superior, and that we have a dozen donut shops local to us better than Krispy Kreme too. Instead I just smiled and thanked her and pretended to be excited.

The donuts were still good though! And super cheap! We got a half dozen for $5. The double chocolate was by far the best one!

After donuts we hit the long, long road.

The only stop we made was a random grocery store where I got some watermelon and cheese.

Of course the original reason we stopped at the store was because inside was yet another Caribou!

But having some fresh fruit was a great change of pace too. The cheese was a delicious Wisconsin Cheddar, and Caribou was just the pick me up we needed.

We took at least an hour or so to pick the restaurant we wanted to eat at in Kansas City that night. We obviously wanted to try their BBQ, but they had hundreds of options!

We read almost a dozen “Top 10 BBQ in Kansas City” blogs and not one restaurant repeated itself.

Well, almost none of them did. One that we settled on was Q39, which had over 10,000 reviews at an average of 4.8 stars!

Unfortunately, it was a Friday night and even though we were still 4 hours outside of Kansas City, we couldn’t get a reservation. They were booked all day Friday, even though we weren’t even getting in until 8:30 pm. 

We thought perhaps we could grab some togo, but even that was gone. It was wild!

Feeling defeated, we kept searching. Meanwhile, also listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and checking in on work every now and then.

We found one other place that had multiple locations, good reviews, and was on a couple of those Top 10 blogs as well. It was called Jack Stack Barbeque. 

We found a location that actually had reservations available and got in. Thank goodness!

Making a reservation was the best idea ever! We parked at 8:26pm for our 8:30pm reservation (God’s perfect timing again), and wow it was busy! I mean, without reservations it probably would have been like an hour wait! 

We had done it. We had finished our drive and were about to eat some genuine Kansas City BBQ.

Wow! Let me tell you what, it was good! Probably the best barbecue we’ve ever had! 

I mean, the wings cooked over a hickory flame were smoky, tender, and full of flavor. And dipping it in their bbq sauce just added a million more delicious flavors! The rins slid off the bone if you held it at an angle and was perhaps the most tender meat I’ve ever eaten! The brisket was full of flavor and cut like butter with only a fork. I also tried the pork burnt ends, which we’d never heard of. They tasted like delicious rib meat but instead of a bone, they were large juicy chunks of delicious tender pork. Tay had a pork sandwich that had like a pound of meat piled on top. It consisted of every kind of pork from pulled pork to bacon! It was so good!

I don’t know if that was the best restaurant in Kansas City. A lot of the ones we found that were called the best supposedly would always sell out within an hour of opening. But after eating at Jack Stack I think we’ve realized you really can’t go wrong in Kansas City. It’s all gonna be amazing!

Make a reservation, though.

We left with full bellies and went on to check into the hotel pretty late. We ate our chocolate brownie we got togo, and then crashed for far too long.

As we get closer to the end of our trip, we already miss traveling. We can’t wait to plan another trip. However, on the other hand, we are getting pretty exhausted. As we get closer to the southeast, the scenery is a little less “new and exciting” and the traffic is getting worse, going in and out of actual cities.

We are super excited to see our puppies and kittens, and sleep in our own bed too.

As excited as we might be to get home and as sad as we are to leave the traveling lifestyle, there is one thing that will remain consistent that we are most excited about. We still get to live together, follow the Lord wherever he takes us, and enjoy life together all our days on earth. No matter how much life changes, the fact that we get to do this life together is something that will always excite us!