KCMO

   We left one friend’s family for another's:  Our friend Alea’s parents live in Lee Summit, a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri(henceforth KCMO as the locals refer to it). We arrived early in the morning after driving all night, and while neither Carol nor Dean were home, they had left us all we needed to feel welcome: loving notes and bedding.  We made ourselves at home and fell quickly into restful naps.  

   After satisfying one basic need it was onto the next: sustenance and society.  We met up with Catherine, a friend of Alea’s and a vegan cook at her restaurant, Eden Ally, one of the few designated vegetarian/vegan restaurants in KCMO.  If you ever have the opportunity to be led through a three course vegan meal by a cook/vegan/fan-of-food at the restaurant she loves to work at, we highly recommend it!  With our bellies full but our appetite for KCMO still whet, we headed out to a tour (pronounced to-er) of the gay night life with Catherine.  Our tour guide took us to three different bars: Outabounds the “sports bar”,  SideKicks the “dive bar” and Toosties the “everything-goes-dancing-nightclub bar.”  Catherine and her friends easily showed us up at pool at the first two bars, but when it came to dancing at Tootsies, the out-of-towners showed them how it’s done when they took over the empty dance floor and busted some moves.

   Just when we had gotten comfortable in Alea’s bed, room, (green) house, area code, and with her family, friends, and cat (Pookie) we got a text from her: “can someone pick me up at the airport at 9:48 tomorrow AM?”   And just like that Alea joined us for our stay in KCMO and made it exponentially more enjoyable. Joyously reunited,  we celebrated and recovered (from her red eye and our tri-bar-athlon) with another nap.  Later that day three well-rested traveling vagabonds, Alea, Carol, Dean, Marina (Alea’s sister) and her boy Bob all went out to dinner at Blue Koi.  We shared a lovely meal with lively conversations all going on at once around a big table and generally enjoyed both Olson sisters home for the weekend; apparently this road trip fosters togetherness.   After dinner we browsed in Prospero’s a funky, radical used bookstore.  Just lovely.

   The next day we took a little drive to go visiting in Lawrence, Kansas.  First we stopped at the natural food store, where Zach was incredulous that such a thing existed in Kansas.  “If you had told me about this place I would have come out here sooner!” he remarked to Alea. It was quite big and extensive and we flitted around for a bit.  Then we went to Marina’s apartment and got to meet her roommate and their rabbits, Jesus and Mongo.   We even helped her take out our her trash (and teased her relentlessly about it). 

   Alea invited us to meet and dine with family friends Marla and Alison and their daughters Katie and Charlotte.  The whole bunch was delightful, and we passed a wonderful afternoon munching, reading books, creating math problems, playing hide and go seek, sharing stories with Marla and Alison, and generally having a wholesome good time.  The girls were smart, entertaining and (as we found out later) infected with H1N9 (but don’t worry, we never showed any symptoms and the exposure hopefully strengthened our immune systems against it).  The food was tasty and the company outstanding, a wonderful was to pass the afternoon.  We rounded our Saturday off with another trip to Tootsies, this time with Alea!

   On Sunday we toured downtown KCMO with Dean and Carol.  We went to the Public Library, a renovated and repurposed bank, to check out the movie vault.  Inside the old vault was a mini-movie theater! In the Library we also found some interesting art exhibits, including one about cowgirls with photos from the National Cowgirl Museum…so of course we looked it up and Fort Worth, Texas may be added to our itinerary so we can check it out.  After lollygagging in the Library we headed to another renovated historic space: Union Station.  This big old train station now houses touristy adventures such as a Chocolate  Museum, Science City, a little toy train village display shops etc.  We had fun just scoping out the space, people watching and chatting. 

   Our time in KCMO would not have been complete without Dean and Carol each sharing their interests with us.  Dean performed an impromptu Japanese Tea Ceremony, a methodical, purposeful practice of making and serving tea that he has been studying for 12 years (and is 2/3 of the way through the program!)  We were delighted to be served tea; How often does one get to participate in the Ancient Japanese Tea Ceremony?   Carol was more than happy to  share her silent talent of being a mime with Zach.  She led him in the makeup technique.  Amazingly, but perhaps not surprising, Zach was   able to come up with a zany mime outfit out of his own cloths! Carol and Zach put on a small show for Chelsea. Chelsea gave the show two silent thumbs up!

   Our time in KCMO was rounded out with as a soul food themed supper party at Catherine’s friend Amanda’s house.  After food, a  heated game of Trivial Pursuit began with the teams clearly polarized between in-towners and out-of-towners.  It was a close, drawn-out game but in the end we claimed victory.  Chels claimed her own victory in a drawn out battle with Connor the dog! 

   On Monday Alea returned to Arizona and we made preparations to move on.  We left for Boulder the next morning at the record early   time of 8:30am!the bean counter
miles traveled: 562
pieces of snail mail sent: 12
lost: zach’s cell phone
found: alea! winter coats for the girls, Zach’s inner Mime
mullets: our 1st mullet!