But not to worry, I’ve got a last bit for you – if not the burnt end of the trip, at least an after dinner nosh (this metaphor could get old, yet as I recall, Henry Fielding keeps it going for pages in Tom Jones. But I don’t need to tell you I’m no Fielding).
See, Hank, as his friends surely called him, never flew first class.!!!
You see, today K & I did from Kansas City. Woo woo. Our first time. & I even paid for – not one of those make up by the airline kind of things (I missed this chance on the flight to London on the student trip in 2015 – I was a day out of the hospital with the heart attack, which I feel isn’t as coincidental as you might construe).
Anyway, there’s something to be said about how the other half lives, or rather the other smaller slice of the populace.
First, you have to admire the room. As K &I pointed out, there was enough armrest that we didn’t have to elbow wrestle.
Then there’s the one & off thing. You’re first on, yet somehow also first off. No waiting. Which has always boggled my mind: why do airlines fill planes from the front first? So everyone has to wait for the people in the front of the plane to put their luggage up, etc? Dumb.
Then there’s food and drink. We were offered a drink before I was settled; then food as soon as we were at our flight altitude.
If there’s a downside, it might be the company. One guy acted like he needed to be first on the plane, like it was a competition, or there was a beer flight waiting, or something. I heard no one make an outrageous request, but the flight personnel treated you like you were moments away from asking for Baked Alaska or a butt wipe (sorry, they handed out warm, moist towels, so…)
But it was well worth the $128 I paid for the upgrade for the 3 plus hour flight.
Oh yeah and you have your own bathroom. You know, the one they wont let the hoi polloi in the back of the plane near.
As for our day, it began with a combination of burnt end and airline allusion.
We had breakfast with John & crazy woman. In the search for where, K found this place google maps “4 minutes away” called Hangar 29. You might remember (and if you don’t, here’s my blog write up) that the four of us found this brunch place in Nowhere Texas 2 years ago at Hicks Hangar. Not making that up. That place was great and John and Lanisa have been back several times.
This place specialized in the cute names and modest food. The basic breakfast “twin engine eggs your way” the pancakes I had were the “perfect landing pancakes.” Do you want or need me to go on? One more though: luggage rack of ribs.
Of course they did barbecue. Its Kc after all. John, shockingly, didn’t have brisket with his eggs. There was house made ghost pepper sausage, in case your internal organs wanted that at 830 in the morning. Here’s what he had — he claimed the toast and hash browns are in a wing pattern. No he didn’t share whatever he was smoking.
We sobbed goodbye and they headed for Michigan and then Indiana by car.
We went to Kansas.
See, one of the “things” discussed often these last few days was the absence of Kansas (except for the Kansas City name, of course — and OC the name is Native American). You see, we came down from Minny via I-35 all the way, and it turns out everything we did was in Missouri. In fact, it seems, despite what one might think, most everything notable (say, the arena) is on the Missouri side. At one point we were maybe a bit off target and we worried we might cross the Missouri River into Kansas. We didn’t.
But today we went on purpose. K had never been to Kansas. She said, initially, it looked a lot like Missouri. Writing this blog is a lot easier with wits like that around.
We went to Lawrence and here’s a decent shot of the campus with football field. You can think of the football field shot as ironic, as their football program is often cited as the worst in Big 5 football. You’ll see no shots of the basketball arena, the famed Phog, not the least due to them beating the crap out of my beloved Boilermakers in the round of 16 a year ago. Bastards!
Then, back into Kansas City Mo because I didn’t think we had figured out how to make beer yet. ): We took the Boulevard brewery tour. Boulevard is a big deal, the 11th largest craft brewery in the country (you know you can look this shit up?), and the official beer sponsor of the Royals. As Greg, our tour guide, pointed out, that’s not helped this year — they are like 24-64. The upside is that might increase beer sales at the park.
Their tour is nice. The facility, most of which dates from 2005, is new, expensively accoutered and impressive. I only took this one picture because…well, as John likes to say, my give a F was broken.
Let me just say, the founder story here sounds remarkably like the one of the founder of New Belgium, which we visited two years ago in Ft collins, CO. Went to Europe in 80s, discovered they made beers beyond an American lager, found out how to brew belgium style beers, eventually funded a small (in this case 35 barrel) beer-vat and away they went.
I will say, from the tasting, I really liked their unfiltered wheat beer. Greg said a lot of people had a drunk on Tank 7 story because Tank 7 is a light saison (if you know your beers) with, get this, 11% alcohol. K of course thought it was the bomb.
But Boulevard only charged $5 which only got you 3 4 oz tastes. Lakefront was more of a beer drinkers mecca.
Finally, on this, let me say, one of our tour compatriots was a young woman whose 21st birthday was today. Well played. Her parents took her up to the beer hall after tasting, clearly to buy her a Tank 7 drunk story
We then were off to the airport. It is all over. Sob sigh. Another vacation come and gone. We enjoyed this a lot, so it was good. And only one of us has to go to real work tomorrow.
I have another blog started, my hotel and restaurant review of the trip. Your give a bleep can be broken too but I have these thoughts and experience and I want to share. If you like stories of poor service, flirty waiters, and stuff like toilets that don’t work, please read.
For now, so long, faithful Readers.
