By Glenda Winders

It's true that winter visitors to Kansas City, Missouri, won't be able to watch a Royals baseball game, attend outdoor concerts and art fairs, or enjoy the spray from 200 legendary fountains that are mostly turned off. But anyone lucky enough to come while the snow flies will find plenty to do inside and few people with whom to share it.

High on our list of places to visit was the Hallmark greeting card company, so my husband and I decided to stay at one of the hotels in the aptly named Crown Center and start there. That way we were able to see the Hallmark operation as well as its many associated shops and attractions, all without ever leaving the warmth of the complex.

We started at the visitors center, where a self-guided tour passes windows filled with Hallmark memorabilia. The first recalls the beginning of the company in 1910, when Joyce C. Hall began selling bundles of postcards from his room at the local YMCA. The final ones illustrate the company's flexibility in branching out into collectible ornaments and TV movies.

In between are windows that contain vintage greeting cards as well as the toys and clothing that have sprung from the images created by Hallmark's artists. Some are homages to the company's many licensing partners, such as Disney and Norman Rockwell. Props from movies made for the Hallmark TV channels are on display, and so are the first printer and die-cut machine used by the company.

Also at Crown Center are the upscale American Restaurant, the elegant Hall's department store and several casual eateries, with not a fast-food chain among them.

Across the street is legendary Union Station. Amtrak operates here, but the station offers much more — restaurants, shops, a history museum, a venue for traveling museum exhibits and the interactive Science City.

From the station we walked to the National World War I Museum and Memorial, which contains the most diverse collection of World War I artifacts of any museum in the world. The 217-foot-tall tower was founded in 1919 to honor the men and women who had served in the "war to end all wars" and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006, the same year the museum opened. The museum is partially underground, so when we walked inside and discovered its scope, we were stunned.

The tour consists of a short film and then an in-person history lesson from a docent, in our case the very knowledgeable Rick Roth.

"The shooting of Archduke Ferdinand should not have started a world war," he began, "but it did."

With that he led us through several battles and explained the aircraft, tanks and armaments on display along our route. As we walked through trenches like those in which the troops fought he told us how rats had crawled into sleeping bags to stay warm and soldiers slogged through mud and manure, often butchering the mules that got stuck so they could have something to eat. It was a sobering and unforgettable experience.

We did finally take our car out of the hotel's garage so we could visit some places farther away, but we also had the option of taking the city's free streetcar to several notable areas. Our destination was the campus of the University of Missouri at Kansas City to see the National Museum of Toys and Miniatures, which had recently undergone an $8 million renovation.

The 72,000 objects housed here are the collections of two friends — Barbara Marshall's fine-scale miniatures and Mary Harris Francis' toys. The world's largest fine-scale miniature collection on the first floor includes a furnished Boston Beacon Hill mansion, Louis XV's study at the Palace at Versailles and an Italian Renaissance studio.

My favorite was an art deco jewelry store in which a man is buying a gift for his female companion. The room contains 15,800 glass beads in the pieces on display, and the creator paid such attention to detail that the woman has lingerie on under her clothes and the man has a 5 o'clock shadow because viewers can see through the tiny windows that it is evening.

The toys on the second floor have been skillfully curated into exhibit categories that stress social and cultural history, the world around us and learning to be a grown-up, among others. They range from dolls and Lincoln Logs to board games, sewing machines and decoder rings.

One of the city's surprises was the Arabia Steamboat Museum. As we entered the replica of the ill-fated craft, I heard another visitor comment, "This museum is more impressive every time we come." That's because the dig to uncover the remains of this steamboat is still going on.

The Arabia sank in a shallow area of the Missouri River in 1856. Over the years the river's course changed, and eventually the steamboat was buried in mud in the middle of a cornfield.

Then, in 1987, David Hawley discovered its location and began digging. Because the boat had been loaded with supplies for a general store, it carried everything from tools, boots and canned foods to printers type, silverware and toys, all of which have been lovingly cleaned up and put on display in innovative ways.

You can't go to Kansas City without a visit to 18th and Vine streets, the location of the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

"This is a campus that contains art, history and performance, jazz, a gallery, a club and baseball," said Karen Griffin, our passionate guide in the jazz museum.

The museum contains artifacts such as Charlie Parker's plastic alto sax and the belongings of such jazz greats as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. The Blue Room is a museum by day and a club by night that has hosted Prince, Charlie Watts and Stevie Wonder.

A few steps across the atrium we arrived at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which is filled with memorabilia from uniforms and stadium seats to artwork and a copy of the "Green Book," a travelers' guide that let the players know in which hotels and restaurants they would be welcome. The Negro Leagues were formed in 1920, so segregation was a reality that impacted the players wherever they went.

Raymond Doswell, vice president of curatorial services, regaled us with tales of athletes such as Satchel Paige and Buck O'Neil and teams such as the Kansas City Monarchs and Indianapolis Clowns from the days of segregation. It wasn't until 1959 that baseball was completely integrated

"It was a difficult time," Doswell said, "but something good came out of it - everyone loves baseball, and those players broke down doors in sports and society."

Kansas City has two remarkable art museums that are fun to visit whatever the time of year. We headed first to the Kemper Museum of Modern Art. This spacious venue maintains a permanent collection and also hosts visiting exhibits, but what impressed us most was its calendar of free creative activities — such as art talks and hands-on workshops — for all ages.

Not far away is the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, with its impressive collection of Asian art — some say the best in the West - as well as other notable painters and sculptors from Gilbert Stuart and Georgia O'Keeffe to Thomas Hart Benton and Winslow Homer. There's a fee for parking, but admission and audio guides are free.

WHEN YOU GO

Start planning your adventure by visiting www.visitkc.com.

We stayed at the Westin in Crown Center: www.westincrowncenterkansascity.com.

My favorite meal was the roasted chicken atop a bed of root vegetables at the Jacobson in the Crossroads Art District, located in what was formerly a warehouse connected with the haberdashery operated by President Harry S Truman: www.thejacobsonkc.

To ride the free streetcar: www.kcstreetcar.org

Hallmark Visitors Center: wwwhallmarkvisitorscenter.com

Union Station: www.unionstation.org

The National World War I Museum and Memorial: www.theworldwar.org

The National Museum of Toys/Miniatures: www.toyandminiaturemuseum.org

Arabia Steamboat Museum: www.1856.org

American Jazz Museum: www.americanjazzmuseum.org

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum: www.nlbm.com

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art: www.kemperart.org

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: www.nelson-atkins.org

Glenda Winders is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.