Kansas City!

Man, oh man!  Did we have a great time in Kansas City, or what?!  The answer is: Indeed, we DID have a great time in Kansas City.

We needed a win.  In a big way.  After the disappointments of not being able to take a job that Josh wanted, and not getting the house we offered on, and not having completely alone time away from the kids, in oh – 9 months (hadn’t left the baby overnight) – we needed a vacation. 

We intended to keep the trip fiscally reasonable so we drove to Kansas City to a Priceline.com hotel room with a few things on a list that we wanted to do while we were there.

Our long weekend turned out to be just about the most successful, fun trip we’ve ever taken together!

We dropped the kids off with my mom on a Thursday night.  As mentioned above, it was the first time leaving Jace overnight.  I couldn’t believe it – I was sad!  I know, a new sensation for me regarding parting with my kids.  (Dabs eyes) “What is this salty discharge?  …I care!”  I didn’t actually “cry” per se, but I felt like I could have as we walked away.  That’s saying something.

And then I didn’t think about him – or the other two [kids] for that matter – until we were on our way home.  And then it was kind of like, “Well, I guess it wouldn’t be so awful to see them again.”  I hope you wanted to know the truth about how I felt.  Because, really, that’s the truth!

Friday morning we got the house in “show condition” just in case anyone wanted to see it while we were away.  No luck there.  And then we hit the road.  Just north of Kansas City is the city of Liberty.  They have lots of stores and restaurants and such, so we stopped there.  Clothes shopping was on our list of things to do.  And we did it… at Kohl’s.  Yeah, not that exciting because we have plenty of Kohl’s stores in Des Moines, but kind of exciting because we don’t spend much money on clothes, ever.  I think the permission to shop and buy things was what made it fun.

We grabbed sandwiches at Quiznos – again, not exotic, but it’s the Midwest.  Before we went to our hotel, we decided to check out record stores in the search for some awesome vinyl.  We found a big store called Streetside Records with lots of records old and new.  We found this store by doing a Google search from Josh’s iPhone.  Another record store was listed as being somewhat nearby, called 7th Heaven.  We decided to give it a try.  What did we have to lose?  We were on vacation!  All the time in the world.

If tasked to come up with an appropriate name for this record store, 7th Heaven would not come anywhere close to being in the top 500 names.  Wow.  First of all, it was in a rough neighborhood.  Secondly, there was a homemade sign on the door showing an illustration of a gun and a knife crossed out.  We walked in and realized it was a head shop.  There were a few boxes of used vinyl albums for $0.25 each.  We must have looked confused and anxious to leave as we headed for the exit.  The gal behind the counter said that they have 2 other floors: an adult section and a rap section.  We told her that we were looking for vinyl, and she suggested we try Streetside Records!  Oh well. 

Next, we went to our hotel – Hotel Phillips – to check in; it is in the Power & Light district and it was excellent.  Each employee was so warm and welcoming.  And when we told them we were celebrating our anniversary, they comped our internet access, tried to upgrade our room (because of the James Taylor concert that evening, they were booked solid and unable to accommodate) – that’s ok… we paid less than $60/night.  They did send these up to our room, though:

Should have taken a before picture… they looked more appetizing before, I assure you.

That evening we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant.  Eh, my food wasn’t that great.  Actually, it wasn’t that good either.  We did see the Living Room, though, which is a cool hangout place.  Several restaurants back up to this big outdoor common space, with live music on the weekends.  After that, we tried this bar called Indie on Main, which was supposed to be centered around indie music.  They did have some mixed drinks named after iconic indie bands and songs… but that’s about it.  It wasn’t a bust, though, I ordered a chocolate martini – the first time I’ve tried such a thing and it was delicious!  Like a dessert after dinner.  But really, should you be able to order a chocolate martini at a bar named Indie?  I think not.

That was enough excitement for one night.  We headed back to the hotel and I had the ladies at the front desk pop my microwave popcorn that I had brought with me. What?  You don’t think that’s weird, do you?  Josh seemed to think so.  For me, microwave popcorn + pop + tv = perfect ending to any day.  Even a vacation day.

The next morning, we walked to Fran’s Restaurant and had breakfast.  It was good.  Awesome diner decor and good food.  After that, we crossed the street and watched Iron Man 2 at the AMC Mainstreet Theatre.  It was a fancy-shmancy place, for a theater.  I mean, we had to select our seats when purchasing the tickets.  There were about 4 seats spoken for in the whole place, but we had to chose our seats on a computer screen in front of the register.  I tried to select one pair of seats and the attendant said, “You want to be that close to the screen?” and so I selected different seats, and he said “You don’t want to be closer to the center?” And then I selected another pair of seats, and then he said, “If you are unhappy with your seats, please find an usher and we can change them for you.”  Seriously, dude?  Six warm bodies and 200 empty seats and we have to find an attendant?  Swanky.  We liked the movie and thought it was entertaining.  I see it didn’t get the best reviews, but we liked it.  The theater – oh, excuse me, theatre – was all digital and was wired for crazy sound and vibrations, so that was cool.

After the movie, we went back to the hotel for our car and then drove to the Plaza for more shopping.  We spent way too much money on clothes.  We are good for each other and work as a team almost all of the time – except when we’re on vacation.  We enable each other in spending money and that’s not good!  It’s fun, but it’s not necessarily a good thing for the old pocketbook.

After shopping, we ate some authentic Kansas City barbeque at a restaurant called Gates.  We both ordered short ribs and sides and got stuffed silly.  It was a delicious experience!

We went back to the hotel to recover from all of the shopping and eating and then later that night we went to a bar called The Flying Saucer and had fun there.  We sat next to a New Zealander who was in Kansas City on business but also plays for his nation’s World Cup lacrosse team.  Interesting!  I discussed this with him:

It’s from Flight of the Conchords, in the episode they are watching television from New Zealand and a commercial comes on showing the usefulness of phones.  It’s classic!  Trust me.  Our Kiwi didn’t “get it”, though.  Well, I shouldn’t say he didn’t get it, he understood the concept: New Zealand is lame, but he hadn’t seen the episode.  He was nice.

Sunday morning we walked to the same place, Fran’s Restaurant, for breakfast.  I just love eating out, but I especially love eating out for breakfast.  There’s just something about it, man.  Speaking of which, when given the choice between toast and pancakes, is it even a choice?  It’s like saying, “Hey, guy, would you rather drive this awesome new sports car (pancakes) for free or walk (toast)?”  Dur.  No contest.  If I was a comedienne, I would have a whole stand-up routine around this topic and it would kill.

Moving along…

After our ample breakfast, we walked about a mile to the National World War I museum.  This was purely my idea and I loved it.  I think Josh thought it was ok, but he soon became annoyed with me and all of the things we were doing on our vacation.  He was wanting to sit in the hotel room and watch tv and nap… you know, relax.  Interesting concept for a vacation!  I wanted to get out and do things.  He was with me up until about this point in the trip, on the way home from the museum.  He started to get a leeeetle cranky. But!  You should go to this museum if you get a chance.  It was so well done.  Great exhibits, great information, great American history and pride.  Loved it!  I now want to read a book on WWI and how it started, all of the events leading up to the actual start of the war seem complex and fascinating.

Josh got to nap in the hotel room after the museum and then that evening we went to a Lost finale party.  FUN!  I can’t remember if I told you guys about our Lost experience.  We haven’t been watching it since the beginning.  We only started watching it a couple of months ago.  Josh got seasons 1-5 on DVD for Christmas, and we powered through every episode and caught up with the shows as they were airing on tv late in the season.  So, we were invested in the show, but we weren’t 6 years invested in the show.  I think there is a difference.

Anyway, the finale was at Studio Movie Grill – a theater/restaurant.  It looked like a regular movie theater, except there was a podium-type table between every 2 seats and a call button on each table.  The button alerted the servers and we were able to order and enjoy DELICIOUS gourmet pizzas & sodas while enjoying the show.  It was perfect.  We really enjoyed the last episode of Lost.  The people there were hardcore fans and you could tell they were having a great time during the show and even during the commercials.   The event was sponsored by a Lost fan website and they gave away prizes and asked Lost trivia questions.

For as animated as the crowd was the entire 2 1/2 hours we were there, there was no reaction whatsoever when the episode ended.  It was weird.  We expected strong feelings: cheers, boos, clapping, anything… but everyone just got up and left the theatre in silence.  Perhaps they were sad the run was over, maybe they needed time to digest what they had just watched.  It wasn’t what I expected, but it didn’t damper the evening.  We were so glad we went.  It was a free event, by the way – except for the food & drink – and I found it by googling “kansas city lost finale event” or something like that.  It was fun.

The next morning was Monday – our actual anniversary – and we slept in, gathered up all of our stuff and then checked out of the hotel.  We headed out of Kansas City proper and stopped to do the one last thing I on my mental list of things to do.  Actually, it ends up being the one thing I really want to do whenever traveling outside of the state of Iowa: eat at a Waffle House.  It goes back to that strong desire to order breakfast food at restaurants.  Well, this Waffle House didn’t disappoint.  What augmented our breakfast experience was a group of mentally handicapped  adults who were also dining there.  I loved this group.  From what I could tell, they were all older folks who had come on a bus trip from Minnesota.  Each person paid for his or her own breakfast when they were done – which I thought was great.  Well, one gentlemen was walking around making comments here and there with a big smile on his face, and before he left, he looked at me and said, “Whatever you do, don’t beat around the bush!”  I promised I wouldn’t.  Waffle House never disappoints.

And so back home we begrudgingly went, having made great memories and making plans to return for our next anniversary, if not sooner.