Kansas

We just returned from a glamorous long weekend getaway--in Kansas. For those of you wondering why the hell we went to Kansas--and by the way, we made our trip even more glam by traveling there on Southwest, we went there because Laura grew up in Kansas. We knew we were on the right plane when a dude sat down next to us with "Born" tattooed on one arm and "Again" tattooed on the other arm. Then, our rental car shuttle driver told us to "have a blessed day..." Worried that the trend would continue, I responded that we were in Kansas for a "sinful weekend" when the rental car agent asked us what we were there for. She seemed somewhat confused. She warmed right back up to me when I told her--after she offered for us to upgrade from our basic car and rent "any car on the lot" that I really wanted to rent a hummer. "oh, yeah" she excitedly exclaimed. "me too." Unfortunately: (1) there were no hummers to be had and (2) my lovely little wife stepped in and we ended up driving a prius away from enterprise. A friend pointed out, however, that renting a hummer would be a good first step towards a sinful weekend.


Alas, it was not to be. Instead, we drove our prius deep into the heartland of kansas farm country where laura grew up. On a dirt road. (if you know Laura, that's not what you expected is it?) Although Laura's family all lives elsewhere now, we visited her faux-grandmother--a neighbor lady who was like a grandmother to Laura when she was growing up. As you can see, grandma-D's tulips were looking nice. You can also see the dust from the dirt road in foreground.

Here is a photo of Laura with Grandma-D, who is looking pretty darn good for 92 years old.

Grandma D took us out for dinner at a BBQ joint--the beginning of our four days of eating piles of meat for every meal. My old self would have been really excited (although after the bbq of screen door here in portland, most bbq pales beside it), however since I have mostly stopped eating meat, especially pork I was a little disappointed. However, I wasnt going to tell that to a 92 year old! The next day when Grandma-D took us out for lunch, I tried to get away from the meat fest and order the special, which was pasta with (allegedly) wild salmon. Well, maybe that salmon was wild back in 1894 when the Shawnee indians brought it back from the pacific and traded it to the pioneers. It wasn't too hot in 2010. My advice: dont order salmon in Kansas. And, yes, you would think that might have been obvious to me, but well, it wasnt. We then visited a variety store-- I will post some goodies from that tomorrow, but let's just say if you want a 3 bladed knife with Elvis's picture on it, I know where to send you.

Next, we got the real party started and headed over to Lawrence to visit Laura's friend Steph.

And Steph's husband Jason and super cute baby penny:

As you can see, I wasn't kidding when I said that Penny was super cute. She spent the weekend entertaining us and hardly cried at all.

Things were kind of crazy when we arrived at Steph's. We got there around 5:00 pm. We were supposed to meet Steph at 5:30 and then get out of the house because the house is on the market and a perspective buyer (PB) was coming by. At around 5:05 three things happened: (1) laura started changing her pants in the car; (2) steph called to say that the PB was coming a bit earlier; and (3) the PB and her realtor rolled up. Hmm, sure that the lady stretched out in the car changing her pants out front did wonders for the sale. Moments later steph careened around the corner to get the dog out of the house. So, there we were: 2 houseguests, one crazed barking dog and the PB. We wrangled bear the dog out and headed two doors over to get the baby from the neighbor lady who watches her. Bear continued his frenzy. Then he took a dump on the neighbor's yard. Steph and I left laura standing there while Steph went to get a bag to clean it up. The PB left the house in about 2 minutes. Don't think that sale went through. So, Jason decided to burn the house down:

Just kidding. Jason was actually (no pun intended) firing up his smoker to grill some hamburgers. The firing up got a little out of control as you can see from the first picture. In fact, there was so much smoke that the neighbor leaned over the fence to see if he needed to call the fire dept. But we got things under control and the hamburgers were delicious.

Here's one last picture of that super cute baby! And check back tomorrow, when I detail our adventures with steph's crazy dog bear.