Old Shawnee Days

This weekend, I was super pumped to visit our suburb's annual festival Old Shawnee Days. You see, Shawnee likes to totally capitalize on the fact that it is an old western town and does actually have some interesting history; however, it has now been gobbled up by the rest of Kansas City and is presently like any suburb in America. In the heart of the restaurant and shopping chains lies Old Shawnee Town. Old Shawnee Town is a little area which is more like a living history museum lined with a taste of what the old west used to entail. Amongst the festival activities which included a tomato roll, parade, and a Night Ranger concert I was hoping to see a cowboy shootout enactment or something with people dressed in pioneer garb. No such luck. No cowboys. No covered wagon. The only cool things I saw were the historical buildings with old western face fronts, this silver firefighter suit, and melted telephones reaping messages about fire safety. In disappointment, Justin and I left the festival and went to our local bar and grill Tanners. Tanners had the only picture of a cowboy I saw for the entire evening. At least we got to see one cowboy even if it was only a picture.