Columbia, Missouri

Part 4 of Our Eastern Day Trips

Our fourth and final stop on this trip is Columbia, Missouri. It’s the only place I’ve lived besides the Kansas City area. Quite frankly, I think it may be the only place I’d ever be willing to live outside of KC. It's the home of the Missouri Tigers!!! MIZ ZOU RAH!

Okay, I’m sitting here laughing my head off. I was doing a little online research about the city as it is today, compared to my college years, and I came across this little ditty on the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau website. It apparently sums up what you need to know about this town, turn on your speakers and click here and laugh along with me. I’m giving the CCVB a ten out of ten for fun and creativity for this one! Columbia Visitors' Bureau Of course, no trip would be complete without a visit to The University of Missouri campus (which was honestly my daughter/future alumni’s main goal of our most recent visit). While the University is finishing up some major construction projects, there are some things that can’t be improved upon such as viewing Jesse Hall through the columns on The Quad.

Jesse Hall and Quad at MU

or the entry gate at Faurot Field, home of the Tigers!

Faurot Field

The dining and shopping experiences here vary from specialty shops along the downtown district to mega-malls on the perimeter of town, and from the Heidelberg Restaurant right in the midst of campus life on 9th Street (where I first learned to eat chicken wings after a Wednesday night visit to The Blue Note) to every conceivable chain restaurant, and in every price range. (Heck, when I lived there, about the fanciest place to eat was Red Lobster. Nothing like going to Winter Formal when you, your date and all your closest friends smell like shrimp scampi!) My how times have changed.

Columbia has numerous historical sites, museums, parks and gardens--such as Peace Park on campus, down near the School of Journalism, and The Shelter Insurance Gardens where they offer, among other things, a sensory garden for the visually impaired.

Check out the CCVB website for a complete listing of festivals, events and other must see and do places in this area.

That my friends, completes our Kansas City daytrip to the east on I-70. You can easily make a daytrip out of any one of these places, and I hope you do. Take your family or friends and make your own memories.