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It took 13 hours just to travel there, much of it through flat Illinois cornfields that went on and on until I thought I'd fall asleep.
Kansas City had a few nice things: the Plaza was very nice, with beautiful outdoor sculptures, gorgeous historic architecture, and fountains, as well as the upper-end stores it's known for. (Brooks Brothers had a storefront there.)
Brookside on the Missouri side of the river was beautiful, it's an historic neighborhood in Kansas City with its own historic schools and pretty shopfronts.
Then, we found delicious barbeque at a restaurant called Jack Stack. Yummy! I never thought I liked barbeque until I tried Jack Stack.
Anyway, those were the three things we liked about Kansas City. We drove around in vain, trying to find a lovely, historic small town to relocate to, if the job were offered to Brian. All we found was ugly architecture from the 60's and 70's, sprawl, and decimated, uglified downtowns devoid of character. One downtown had even replaced part of its historic structures with a 1960's strip mall, complete with a large expanse of front parking lot. It left an unattractive hole in the middle of their downtown.
Overland Park was a sea of recent big box retailers and upscale chain restaurants, and parking lots. Oh, and McMansions and upscale apartments.
Brian did receive a very attractive offer from the company he interviewed with, but after a weekend-long deliberation, we chose to turn the offer down. Kansas City just didn't have what it took to make us uproot our whole lives to relocate there.
But the barbeque was really tasty!