Ty! What’d you shoot today?
Oh, I don’t keep score, Judge.
Oh well, how do you measure yourself with other golfers?
By height.
Yep, first round of golf in something like 11 years, and only second round in 15 years.
It went about as you would expect. I picked my ball up on three holes, so I did not finish with an official score. It would have been well above 100 had I completed my scorecard, though. Hell, it was above 100 anyway.
I was the tallest member of our foursome, though.
We played at the Montclair Golf Club in Montclair, NJ. They have four nine-hole loops you can choose from, based on how busy each one is. Our host, K, is a member and he hooked us up with caddies and a fourth that he plays with often. K and the fourth are both really solid players and spent much of their rounds well away from me.
I was busy blasting it from side-to-side, duck hooking on one hole, power slicing on the next. Or taking four shots to chip onto the green from about 25 feet.[1] I was playing with loaner clubs,[2] but let’s be honest: they could have put me in thousands of dollars worth of gear and it would not have mattered.
I did have a few highlights. My caddy was kind of a dud, but the guy who was doubling up on K and the 4th’s bags was a green-reading savant. He had a lilting Caribbean accent and braids halfway down his back. He was also about 5’7” so looked kind of silly with bags slung over both arms. But he knew those greens. As each player lined up a putt, he’d grab the flag, point at a spot to aim at, and give you a speed. On the fourth hole I had a 35-foot putt that had a big left-to-right break in it. He pointed at a dead spot well away from the line I would have chosen and told me to hit it firm. Moments later the longest putt I’ve ever hit rolled into the cup. I pumped my fist, my playing partners cheered me, and then pointed at the caddy. “Nice read!” He threw his arms up in the air and said, “THAT’S WHAT I DO!!!”
Good times.
I also hit a 25’ putt and left three putts that were between 20–40 feet less than two inches from the hole. All credit to the caddy, although I was rolling it ok.
The rest of my clubs though…yeeeesh. I did go to a local driving range twice last week to hit real balls instead of the practice balls L and I had been hitting in the yard. Thursday I felt really good about my swing. But, of course, as a high handicapper who hadn’t played in over a decade, there’s a big difference between hitting ball after ball from a mat and getting into a rhythm vs. going out to a nice course that has lots of rough, elevation changes, etc.
Back when I played a fair amount of golf, I was notorious for hitting an absolutely terrible shot and then hitting a nice recovery shot. There were elements of that Sunday, although it often took 2–3 terrible shots before I could find the good shot.
My best hole was the fifth, a long par four that doglegs to the right. Instead of hitting a severe slice off the tee, I absolutely crushed a slight fade that went right at 300 yards and landed dead center in the fairway. It was on this hole that I rolled in my 25’ putt. However, in between my best drive of the day and that putt were four terrible shots.
Oh well.
I lost six or seven balls – I kind of lost track – most in an brutal stretch around the turn. My final lost ball of the was a big, majestic slice that easily cleared a stand of trees that protected a parkway that ran by the course. We all strained our ears and clearly heard my ball bouncing off pavement in the midst of traffic. Always drive quickly and carefully near golf courses, folks.
It was a gorgeous course, not terribly long but with lots of changes in elevation to challenge players on a normal day. Throw in ground that was completely saturated from all the recent rain in that area and the course was even more challenging. It was also a bitch to walk. My calves are still sore because each step meant your feet sank an inch or two into the soft turf. It was by far the nicest course I’ve ever played. Although that’s not really saying much as I specialized in crappy muni courses back when I used to play.
Regardless of the results, to was fun to get out and play again. I’m going to continue to hit balls for awhile and try to get my swing together, and then see if I can round up a friend or two to get out and play again before the fall season ends.
In me defense from deep rough on a steep incline. ↩
I haven’t posted anything about Anthony Bourdain. Although he didn’t impact my life as much as Scott Hutchison did, Bourdain’s suicide still struck me deeply. I watched his shows for years, read several of his books, and was a fan of his overall approach to life. I’ve written before about the irony of my love of travel books given the general lack of traveling in my life. Bourdain lived a life, at least the one that we saw on screen, that I would have loved to have lived. Spending most of the last quarter decade traveling to places big and small, familiar and unknown, and finding ways of connecting with the people in those locations while sharing their stories with Americans in hopes of broadening our horizons. So many people these days live in fear of anything that is different. Bourdain’s shows were a forceful plea that we’re more alike than the people fanning the flames of nationalism, racism, and xenophobia would have you believe. I saw this map yesterday and thought it was the best distillation of what Bourdain was all about. He didn’t travel just to fill his passport or check boxes on a list. Every dot on this map is a testament to his efforts to get people to open their eyes, get outside their comfort zones, and understand that most of the world – whether around the block or on the other side of the globe – live very differently than we do.
We left cold, snowy Indiana for a week in the warmth and sun of Mexico. It was, almost completely, an excellent trip.
Our home for the week was the Paradisus La Esmerelda resort in Playa del Carmen, about 45 minutes south of Cancun. Our flight down was without incident, we navigated the hour-long line that was Mexican immigration, gathered our bags, and found our transport agent, a man holding a sign with our family’s name on it. The girls thought that was pretty cool. My sister-in-law who works in the travel industry had arranged the transport for us. I had to chuckle and wonder if she had tipped our driver about my musical likes, because as soon as we left the airport he switched the radio from Mexican music to one that played classic 80s and 90s music. The first song we heard was “Maneater” by Hall & Oates. Nicely done, Mexico!
The resort was very nice. Our room overlooked one of the resort’s several pools. Sadly we were also right next to one of the main walkways, so we got noise throughout the night from people strolling about. And our next door neighbors liked to keep their three-year-old kid out until well after 9:00 PM each night, which meant he had a full meltdown when they tried to put him to bed. As our rooms had a connecting door, we could hear every single scream and shout from the kid. The parents apparently decided that it was better to let the kid shriek and disturb everyone around them rather than lay down with him or find another method of soothing him. On our final night, when we were all wiped out and in bed early, this went on for about 20 minutes. S lost all patience and went over and kicked the connecting door over and over, which made me laugh. The parents did remove their son to one of the bedrooms so his screams were at least muffled a bit.
Anyway, the resort… Paradisus is an all-inclusive place. S and I had gone to all-inclusive places twice before with mixed results. Paradisus was excellent. There were something like 16 restaurants, although not all were open to kids. The food was always good to excellent. We had Asian-fusion, Mediterranean, modern Mexican, Japanese steakhouse-style, Italian, and ate at the buffet two nights. We also went to the buffet every morning but one. It was really, really good. I fell in love with combining chilaquiles and scrambled eggs for breakfast. It’s going to be my new breakfast thing here at home, too.
We also paid a little extra for the “family concierge” service. This got you some things like a fancy check-in service, a private pool that other guests were not allowed to use, and a personal concierge who was there to help you with all your needs. It was a slow week, so we “lucked” into having two concierges. I use quotation marks because that meant we got to tip two people at the end of the week. Lucky us! Anyway, Eduardo and Fernando were very nice. They brought the girls cookies and milk each night, although the girls did not like the cookies since they were Mexican-style and much drier and grittier than what they were used to. They set up dinner reservations for us for the entire week. They answered questions. And the big event was drawing the girls a huge bubble bath in our balcony jacuzzi tub, complete with balloon animals and cupcakes. There was an insane amount of bubbles involved: when all three girls got into the tub, you could only see their faces and toes poking out. They loved it.
Our days followed a regular rhythm: I usually woke up a little after 6:00 when the birds started chirping. One of the girls and I would then walk down to the beach to watch the sun rise. We never got a great sunrise, the point we were on looked east over a little grove of trees so we missed proper sunrise, but I got a few good pictures. Then we’d go eat right when the buffet opened at 7:00. After that, we’d take a walk, get our towels for the day, and claim some spots at the private pool. We’d usually head back to the room for a bit and then return to the pool around 9:00. We’d hang out there until noon-ish, eat lunch either right at the pool or at one of the outdoor restaurants, then continue hanging in the sun until late afternoon. We usually ate dinner at 6:30 and almost all of us were in bed and asleep by 9:30 most nights.
The girls did a few activities with the Kids Club, but they were kind of silly and aimed at younger kids. We didn’t take any trips into town or to visit any Mayan ruins either in Tulum or Chichen Itza. And the beach was a big disappointment. It was covered in some kind of nasty seaweed that washed up and rotted on the sand. So the area stunk and was full of small, flying insects that liked the rotting piles. Everyone told us this was unusual and was more typical of late summer than fall. There were crews out shoveling and using a Bobcat to move it, but it was a fruitless exercise as it just kept building up. S and I have been to Cancun and had told the girls about the beaches there, beautiful white sand and shallow, impossibly clear blue water that you can walk out into for several hundred feet and still just be knee-deep. So the expectation was pretty high for that kind of beach experience. They were disappointed, although we pointed out we still had a bunch of really nice pools. Even if the seaweed had not been present, the beach wasn’t nearly as clean as Cancun’s, once you got into the water it was very rocky, and the water was much more murky than 30 miles up the coast.
Although this was my third trip to Mexico, I did experience something new: coatis. We first saw them on Sunday morning at the pool. The girls started screaming about seeing ring-tailed lemurs. I said they looked like raccoons with long tails. Turns out I was closer to the truth: coatis are members of the raccoon family, although their tails are indeed rather lemur-like. They are active during the day and love to come out in packs of 5–20 and dig through trash, scavenge through leftover lunch trays, and take whatever you feed them. The younger ones, which have more colorful fur, are pretty cute. The older ones, which often turn gray and lose their fur, are borderline disgusting. One morning we found an old one hunched over on the stairs up to our floor. It looked like it had come in to die or something. We reversed course, took the elevator up, and then I walked down from above, slapping the stone steps hard until it scrambled back outside. There were also lots of big ass iguanas running around. One day one jumped up onto the lounge chair next to me. I heard scuffling, thought it was a bird, and just about pissed myself when I turned and saw this big lizard sitting two feet from me.
We did have the inevitable stomach issues during and after the trip. M likely ate something bad on Wednesday, and threw up overnight and Thursday morning. C and L both had lower GI issues that caused some trouble. And I think all of us have had lower GI “looseness” since we got back. I’m having some issues today, but let’s stop right there. Some of that can just be attributed to the amount of food we ate, I think.
C made a friend. The night we went to the Japanese steakhouse we sat by a family from the UK. We chatted them up and the next day their 10-year-old daughter and C started hanging together. They were kind of inseparable for the next five days. M and L also played with some sisters from New Jersey a couple days, but they didn’t get nearly as friendly with them as C did with her friend.
Once upon a time I spoke a fair amount of Spanish. Most of that is gone but I was able to recall and use a little last week. The waitstaff who were most comfortable with English enjoyed messing with customers who said more than “Por favor” and “Gracias” to them. Most of our meals began like this:
“Hola señores, ¿como están?”
“Muy bien, gracias, ¿y tu?”
“Bien, gracias, ¿hablas español?”
“Sí, pero muy, muy poquito. That’s about all I can do, your English is much better than my Spanish!”
And then we would all laugh.
One day at the pool our waiter came around and greeted us “Hola amigos!” I was talking to one of the girls at the time so instead of ordering a Dos Equis, I ordered “Dos Amigos.” I immediately caught my mistake and corrected it, but our man Alejandro loved that. “Dos Amigos, señor? Maybe dos amigas, right!?” The rest of the day he’d come by and ask, “¿Señor, quires más Dos Amigos?” and laugh again.
Folks also liked to ask where we were from. Apparently Indianapolis isn’t well known in Mexico so we ended up just saying “near Chicago.” Then they would ask if it was much colder up there. When we told them our security camera showed the front yard covered in snow Monday morning they were all amazed.
I believe those are the highlights. We had a very good week, the minor stomach issues excepted. It was relaxing, the girls were relatively well behaved, and we all came back with a little more skin color than we had when we left. Well C came back with a lot more, but she tans about 100 times faster than the rest of us.
We were supposed to jump right into spring sports today. It is Opening Day for spring kickball and we had three games on the calendar, plus L had a soccer practice we were going to try to make after her game. Naturally it has been snowing all day and although none of it is sticking, the windchills are down in the 20s. We’ve postponed all our games and are hoping the weather cooperates so we can get them in later this week. It is supposed to warm up quite a bit but there is also a chance of rain every day.
But we can’t complain after our lovely week in Mexico.
Glory be! After roughly 36 hours without either cable or internet access, our house (and neighborhood it turns out) has been reconnected! So I can finally start unloading some of the accumulated content from the past week-plus.
First, Happy New Year! I hope your celebrations, large and small, were fun and safe.
Let’s go back to 2017 and review how our family rolled over Christmas.
Christmas Day
I believe I mentioned this in my annual Christmas Spirit post, but the myth of where gifts come from was finally burst in our house this year. There was no formal acknowledgement, just little comments here and there that made it obvious the girls know that all those Amazon packages that show up from late November through December contain their gifts, not a jolly fat man and his reindeer who deliver them on Christmas Eve. L still put up appearances at times, because that’s what she does. But we knew the girls knew.
It didn’t help that at least one of them found our gift hiding place. For years we’ve been able to put boxes on a shelf in our closet that only I can reach. It’s just inside and behind the door, so younger eyes were generally not looking in this area. But one night I went in to change for bed and noticed the box was on the floor. I asked S about it the next day and she said she hadn’t taken it down. We’re not sure how but one/a combination of the girls pulled the box down and saw all their unwrapped gifts. S was more than a little pissed and wanted to say something. I pointed out that one year I had unwrapped nearly all of my gifts well before Christmas.[1] Looks like we’ll have to hide things better next year.
Anyway, Christmas morning… our girls all did well. M got the Beats headphones she desperately wanted but was sure we wouldn’t get her. She also got some new adidas and a shirt. Yep, she’s reached the age where she’s more interested in clothes than toys. Along those lines, C got a new desk and sheets. L got an Amazon Fire tablet and some Star Wars Legos. All were pleased with their gifts.
After presents, we did our final packing and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Denver. As we had hoped, the Indianapolis airport was pretty slow that morning. The weather was fine – we got about an inch of snow on Christmas Eve, but Christmas morning was cold and clear – and our flight was on time. We looked forward to being in Denver in a few hours.
The Flight
Facebook friends know our flight had some issues.
We took off as scheduled and headed west. Shortly after the fasten seatbelt sign went off, we heard an announcement that the front lavatory was not working. A few minutes later, the pilot said the rear lavatories were out of order, too. They were trying to figure out a fix in the air, but he added they were “exploring all options.”
About 15 minutes later, he came on again and said that they were still talking to the ground to see if the lavs could be fixed in the air. He also said that because our flight was so heavy, we had limited options on where we could land if we needed to. That seemed a little ominous. He would keep us updated, he promised.
Another 10 or so minutes went by when he came on again and announced than none of their in-air fixes were working, so we were turning around and landing in St. Louis, hopefully for a quick fix and back into the air shortly thereafter.
We were just a few minutes past St. Louis, so were on the ground quickly. Then we waited as technicians came in-and-out trying to get the shitters fixed. We sat for an hour, with some folks exiting to use the airport restrooms, before they announced we were switching planes. So off we went, down one gate, and waited about another hour before we boarded and took off again.
We figure St. Louis was the only airport on our path that had an extra plane we could switch to if needed. Because it would have made more sense to continue to Kansas City and land there. Yes, I was wondering if there were any decent barbecue places in KCI these days.
Oh well, we arrived about three hours later than planned, hungry, tired, but excited to start our Christmas adventure.
Denver
So my sister-in-law and her husband knew we were coming, obviously, but their kids did not. We Facetime with them once a month or so and ever since we booked the trip in the fall, our girls were always giggling and whispering “Don’t give it away!” when we talk to them. My sister-in-law picked us up and delivered us to their front door, where we all donned Santa hats and rang the doorbell. The kids answered and freaked out a little bit. My nephew, who turned 8 the next day, fell over and grabbed his heart. His five-year-old sister squealed with delight. It was exactly the reaction we had hoped for and a Christmas surprise all the kids will never forget.
On Tuesday we celebrated W’s birthday. We went bowling in the afternoon and had his local grandparents and an uncle over for dinner that evening.
On Wednesday we drove up to Vail, where my brother-in-law’s family has a place, for some mountain time. Since we were only spending one night there, we decided not to have the girls try skiing. So Wednesday we walked around Vail, had lunch and dinner there, let the kids ice skate in the evening, and got our girls the obligatory local sweatshirts.
On Thursday we drove down to Frisco and went snow tubing. That was a lot of fun. We did this ten years ago at Keystone, and that was a small hill on a golf course you had to drag your tubes back up each time. This was a manicured hill that was twice as big and had a Magic Carpet ramp that hauled you back up. We found that connecting multiple adult tubes together really made you fly. It was a pretty good time and no doubt better for our girls than trying to teach them to ski in just one day.[2]
I was pleased at how well we handled the altitude. I was very nervous because 10 years ago I had a really hard time in my first 24 hours in Breckenridge. But I had only occasional moments of needing to quickly catch my breath in Vail. We figured it was because 10 years ago our time in Denver was in a hot hotel where I didn’t drink much water, with a wedding squeezed into the final night. I went to the mountains dehydrated that time, where I was drinking tons of water as soon as we got to Denver this time.
Unfortunately, by this time my nephew was getting pretty sick. And it was beginning to pass through to our kids. C was coughing a lot and the rest of us all had sniffles. So Friday we kept things pretty tame. We had planned on going out that night to look at some of the holiday stuff in downtown Denver, but the kids were dragging so we let them watch a movie at home.
Saturday morning C was feeling much worse, coughing like crazy, and having trouble breathing at times. There were a few moments where we worried about whether she’d be able to get on the plane or not. But we got her steadied and we made it home without incident.
Other than the illnesses, which you kind of have to expect if you travel this time of year, it was a great week. We had plenty of fun in Denver. I do admit it was weird spending Christmas week somewhere else. When we got home Saturday evening I kept thinking, “Wait, Christmas is over?” My brain is still having trouble with the abrupt ending to all our traditional activities. But I also appreciate how our Denver relatives are often spending their holiday week in Indy with us, so was glad they could stay home for a change.
NYE
As has become a family tradition[3] we threw together a last-minute dinner for S’s sisters and their families. I made chili, there were lots of appetizers, and we did a mock countdown around 10:30 for our girls and their young cousins. It was a fun night. I’ve managed to hold off the illness for the most part, but was still pretty wiped out. I think I read until about 11:15 before I called it a night. L claims she was still up in her room until after midnight.
F&%K It’s Cold
We’re are about 36 hours away for setting the longest stretch in Indy history where the temperature has not risen over 20. We had some more light snow Sunday and are supposed to get enough to make rush hour tonight pretty nasty. When it finally warms up a little on Sunday we’re supposed to get hit with an ice storm.
Already so sick of winter.
We’ve had a couple practices and have a couple more later this week. The girls have some friends over now. L has a party Friday. We are gathering with some friends on Saturday. I’m trying to come up with some other indoor activities to get us to next Tuesday when the girls begin the new semester.
We’re a put all the gifts under the tree Christmas morning family. My mom preferred to slowly lay them out over the course of December. Since I was home alone roughly six hours every afternoon/evening, I sliced through the tape on one side of each box, carefully peeked inside, then placed a new piece of tape directly over the original. Christmas morning I made sure to open each gift from the re-taped side to hide my work. As far as I ever knew, my mom had no idea. ↩
And, to be honest, me as well. I only tried skiing once, 30 years ago, and was not good at it in the hour or so I tried. I’d be starting from scratch, too. ↩
We had ourselves a good ass weekend in San Antonio! Here’s a rundown of what all we packed in.
We flew down Thursday, getting in late afternoon. We went down with one of S’s partners and her husband, and met a friend of theirs who was in from Colorado for the conference. After checking into our hotel – the Grand Hyatt on the River Walk – we changed and hustled out to grab an early dinner. We went to Casa Rio, the first restaurant built along the modern River Walk. We enjoyed some fine tacos and margaritas while sitting outside in the perfect air.
That perfect air was the highlight of the weekend. I know it gets hot as balls in SA in the summer, and there are stretches of the year where the humidity can be nasty. But, man, it was freaking perfect all weekend. Always in the low-mid 70s during the day with almost no humidity. Evenings remained warm well past sunset, so dining al fresco didn’t require a jacket.
There was an interesting mix of folks at our hotel. Lots of docs in the for conference. There were lots of people in for the Rock n Roll marathon. And there were all these middle and high school mariachi bands in for some kind of competition. Friday and Saturday evenings we saw the kids heading to and from their events in their amazing outfits. Lots of bold colors, girls in big hoop skirts, etc. It was a lot of fun to people watch in the hotel bar.
Friday the ladies got to learnin’ so the other husband and I went out to explore the River Walk. I’ve never heard anything but good things about the River Walk and all of those were confirmed through the weekend. It’s really a fantastic place to hang out. Tons of restaurants and shops, lovely scenery, and this weekend not too crazy. We had lunch at County Line barbecue, which was very solid. A couple Shiner Bocks made it a real Texas meal.
After the ladies were done for the day, we all retired to the hotel pool. It was a pretty meager pool, more of a lap pool than a splashing around pool, so we mostly soaked up some rays. Since it wasn’t a big pool like the one at the Biltmore in Scottsdale, where we went two years ago, that also meant it wasn’t overrun with crazy kids.
For dinner that night we decided to hit the happy hour at the Tower of the Americas, which was right behind our hotel. We rode the elevator way the hell up, grabbed a nook in the bar, and ate some tremendous appetizers as we watched the sun set from 700 feet above ground. Following that was another stroll around the River Walk. As a Midwesterner, it’s always a little odd for me to spend time during the holidays in a warm climate. I loved how the River Walk was decorated, though. The river is bordered by all these huge Bald Cypress trees. Rather than being draped in lights, the trees had long light strands hanging from their upper limbs vertically toward the ground. The lights mimicked the natural tendrils you see on some southern trees. It was really nice.
Saturday I put in a long, photo walk in the morning. I managed to log nearly nine miles. I covered every path of the River Walk, toured the Hemisfair Park around the Tower of the Americas, and mingled around the Alamo, where a 5k/10K was being held. I didn’t cross the highway to tour the Alamodome, but it in sight of our hotel so I bowed in its direction to honor the events that took place there on April 7, 2008. Everything I had ever heard about the Alamo was also true: it’s pretty damn small. I also enjoyed the irony of how celebrated it is for its role in American history when San Antonio is an overwhelmingly Hispanic city.[1] Seriously, when I walked up to the actual building, they were organizing kids for the children’s run and I swear there wasn’t a white kid in any of the groups.
That’s the big takeaway from spending a few days down there: San Antonio really is a hybrid city. It feels both very American and very Mexican. Spanish is spoken everywhere, but you also see people who look like they are from Mexico who speak with a Texas accent. It helps that the Mexican government has a cultural office in Hemisfair Park, there is a UNAM extension, and the park is filled with art donated by Mexico. I’ve never been to Houston so can only compare with Dallas, which feels uniquely Texan with a dash of Mexico. San Antonio is a much more even mix.
Saturday afternoon my college buddy E-bro drove down from his home in Austin to watch the KU-Syracuse game with me. We hadn’t seen each other since my wedding over 14 years ago, although he, another college buddy, and I text each other almost every day. It was also the first KU game we had watched together in nearly 20 years. We found a table at a bar with a ton of TVs that were mostly tuned to the SEC championship game, got one switched to the KU game, and did our best to catch up while watching the Jayhawks win and under the din of the CBS broadcast which did its best to down out all conversations. It was great to spend a couple hours together.
I met the ladies at the Ruth’s Chris in our hotel where they were wrapping up dinner. I grabbed a quick bite, had a couple more Shiners, and that wrapped up our trip.
We were off early Sunday, which was kind of a mess. The Rock n Roll Marathon was starting about three blocks from our hotel, so our Uber driver struggled to reach us. Fortunately it’s only about 15 minutes from downtown to the airport and we got there in plenty of time to get through security and grab some breakfast before it was time to head home.
All in all a really good weekend. I highly recommend San Antonio, provided you time your visit properly. Avoid the summer heat. Locals told us the River Walk can be packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people in the winter when lots of northerners come down.
I sent M a photo S and I took in front of the Alamo later in the day. Her response was “Is there a basement?” That’s a high quality response. ↩
Another great weekend in Kansas City. Then again, aren’t all weekends in Kansas City great? At least when you’re visiting there. This trip was made more fun by it being the first full-family trip to KC in over three years. For my readers who weren’t involved in the weekend festivities, here’s a little run-down of what we did.
We drove over Friday. Had great weather and easy traffic the whole way. We marveled at how quiet our girls were when everyone has their own screen in front of them. The girls were basically silent for the first half of the trip, until we stopped in St. Louis for lunch. Then they remained quiet until we reached Concordia. Then they started getting a little antsy and ready to get out of the car.
We cruised into our hotel on the Plaza, relaxed for a bit, then headed straight to the original Joe’s barbecue location.[1] The girls had Joe’s three years ago, and were excited to have it again. But this was their first trip to the 47th and Mission gas station location. Luckily, since we rolled in at about 4:45 local time, there was a minimal line and we were able to snag a table big enough for us all to sit comfortably. Both S and M had pulled pork sandwiches, but C and L decided to split a half slab of ribs! Which actually meant they split half of a half slab and I knocked out the rest after finishing off my Z-Man. All-in-all, it was a fine meal enjoyed by all.
We walked around on the Plaza a little after, the girls got some dessert, and we made a stop at Rally House so the girls could get some gear for the Royals game Sunday. L really wanted a jersey. I was pushing a shirsey, pointing out if she got a t-shirt she’d likely get something else over the weekend. Nope, she wanted a real jersey. Then we had to pick a player. The kid options in light blue were Eric Hosmer, Salvador Perez, and Alex Gordon. She was leaning toward Hosmer until I told her he wouldn’t be a Royal after this season. She debated between Salvy and Alex before picking Alex. I didn’t have the heart to tell her he’s having a terrible year. She loved the jersey and that’s all that really mattered. Then we headed back to the hotel so they could swim for a bit.
Saturday the girls wanted to go to the Nelson Atkins museum. Kind of an odd request, no? Well C and L follow some YouTube family that lives near KC and had visited the glass maze at some point. The girls just made the connection a couple weeks ago, when I was explaining the shuttlecock statues to them, and suddenly they wanted to go to the museum. They thought the maze was pretty cool, didn’t really get the shuttlecocks,[2] and weren’t nearly as impressed by the Asian temple exhibit inside as I was when I was their age and visited on school field trips. Oh well, I was just excited they wanted to go to an art museum. And I think it’s awesome the Nelson is still free. It would be about $50 for me to take them to our local art museum if we don’t go during the four hour free entry window each Thursday.
After the Nelson we met an aunt, uncle, and cousin for lunch at Ponak’s on the Boulevard. We drove them by the Roasterie and Boulevard plants on the way. They thought the plane outside the Roasterie was pretty cool, but didn’t seem as interested in the location where a significant percentage of the beer I drink comes from. They loved Ponak’s, though! “THAT WAS SOOOOO GOOD!” Back in the day I would have put Ponak’s 4th or 5th on my list of favorite spots on the Boulevard. When I told them that, it just confused them.
After that, off to our first big group gathering at our friends the B’s, who moved out to Lake Quivira six months ago. Good times in and around the water well into the evening.
Sunday, we had brunch with a couple of S’s friends from residency and their families. More good food and catching up.
From there it was out to the K for the girls first Major League Baseball game with a group of 20 or so. Thank goodness we picked seats just under the overhang, because we got stuck in a two hour rain delay and only got a little water blown our way. That delay challenged all the kids that were there, especially since they kept the tarp on a good 30 minutes after the rain stopped. But today L told me she liked the delay, because we got to walk around and do some other things during, and it made our stay at the K last longer. But the game kind of sucked. 8–0 losses are tough to sit through regardless of your age and the weather. The girls had fun, though, and no doubt will be telling all their friends here about going to an MLB game.
On our way back to the hotel I stopped and got Planet Sub for dinner. Which meant I had to bore the girls with the story of how I had Yello Sub for the first time in August 1989, ordered a Yello Sub with no Dijon, and other than a brief stretch in the early 00s when I dined there frequently and varied what I ordered, the Yello/Planet sub minus Dijon has been my go-to meal there for nearly 30 years now. Hey, just because they don’t enjoy hearing the story doesn’t mean I’m going to stop telling it! A little more swimming topped off the night.
Our drive home Monday was uneventful. Thankfully all the big slowdowns on I–70 were westbound and we made it home before the evening rush hit in Indy.
As always, it was too quick of a trip. It was great seeing so many people, but the conversations never feel as deep or long as they would be if we didn’t have 150 kids running around and yelling the entire time. The girls had a really good time. M seemed to pick right up with the her two seventh-grade-to-be friends she hadn’t seen in several years. Some of the younger friends followed C around and thought she was the coolest. And L slid right in with the older boys, playing basketball with them[3] and sitting with them at the game Sunday.
For those of you we got to see, thanks for making time to hang out with us. I wish our conversations could have been longer and with fewer interruptions. For those we missed, hopefully it won’t be too long before we make a return visit and we can try again then.
But first, a note about my first abandoned book of the year. Boris Fishman’s Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo was on several Best Of lists for 2016, and thus was added to my To Read list. Somewhere along the line, I think I got the wrong idea what it was about. I starting reading it expecting a funny view on life in America from the perspective of Russian immigrants. The immigrant angle was correct, but I was way off on the funny angle. Which isn’t to say it wasn’t good. But when you’re expecting something different, it can be tough to plow through. I lasted about 150 pages but then gave up.
Falling Off the Map – Pico Iyer Kingdoms In The Air – Bob Shacochis
Sandwiched around Rodeo were these two travel books. Iyer wrote his in 1993, and it was based on his travels through several “lonely lands” in the final years of the Cold War. He traveled to countries that were isolated from the rest of the world, whether because of politics, distance, or history, to discover why those countries were different and how the people lived there felt about the gaps between them and the rest of the world. Shacochis’ book is new, but it pulls in essays about travel that span his entire, 40-year writing career. They are more centered on his interactions with the people he’s traveled with, some of whom became great, life-long friends. Both books are fine reads.
As I read both books, I thought about my love for writing about foreign lands. Whether straight history, or more travel-related texts like these, I have always been deeply interested in learning about other locations and cultures. When I was a kid I would devour all international news, was obsessed with maps, and even had a shortwave radio on which I listened to broadcasts from around the globe. Then there’s my interest in languages. I loved Spanish and Italian. I struggled through roughly two months of Russian as a college freshman and dropped it with relief with the Berlin Wall fell. Still, I was fascinated at the idea of learning it. And then there were the classes I took in college: if there was an offering about international politics and relations, the history of other countries, or any other study of non-American things, I was down for it.
And, yet, I’ve never really travelled. I’ve been to resorts in Mexico and the Caribbean a few times. But I’ve never gone to Europe, South America, Australia, or even Canada. Which seems weird for a guy so interested in learning about other places. I can kick ass at trivia games, but have never actually checked out London, Paris, Rome, etc.
My best explanation is that my family simply didn’t travel. My grandparents stayed in their little towns in Kansas, so my parents never took summer trips abroad. If they had dreams of traveling in college, those were dashed when I came along in the summer after my mom’s sophomore year. From then until the mid–80s, there was never the money to travel. Our trips were to central Kansas to visit the grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Even after my mom married my stepdad, and the finances improved, we stayed close to home. They would take weekend trips to hike at parks in Kansas and Missouri.
While I was in college, I toyed with the idea of spending a semester in both Costa Rica and Italy. Each time I mentioned the idea, it was met with skepticism by my parents. Granted, if I wouldn’t have been so erratic academically they might have greeted my request with more enthusiasm. But, despite them being fairly comfortable financially, they were also still recovering from the two years my stepdad didn’t work because he was fighting cancer. The day-to-day expenses were covered, but there was no savings left that could finance their kid to spend three months in another country.
I counter all that with my wife’s family. Her parents both travelled extensively before they got married. Her mom taught in Europe. Her dad was in the Peace Corps. Because they had a huge family together, there were no real family trips for them, either. But traveling was in the blood, and each of the kids traveled either during or immediately after college. One spent a year in Spain in college. Two of my in-laws did the Semester at Sea program as undergrads. One sister-in-law has built her career around traveling all over the globe. A brother-in-law married a woman who was born and raised in Kuwait, so they head to the Middle East fairly regularly.
So far in our girls’ lives we’ve traveled a fair amount around the US. They’ve been to Boston 2–3 times each, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Colorado, and Kansas City. Yes, these are always fun/family trips, but I think we’ve built into them the expectation and desire to always be thinking about what your next trip is. I’m interested to see whether and how that blossoms in them when they get older. Will they want to travel through Europe, spend a semester in another country, or do Semester at Sea? Will they be content to travel to domestic cities and national parks? Or will they be like their dad and stay close to home?
As S and I approach our 15th anniversary[1] we’ve started thinking about what trip we should take to celebrate. Should it be a family trip, or just us? Should we go to a beach somewhere and just relax, or pick a part of Europe to explore? As much as I love spending time with the sand and surf, I’m thinking that might be the year that I finally have to put my passport to use somewhere that’s more than a couple hours away from the US border.
A Handful of Dust – David Plowden
I’m constantly reading books about photography, since that’s my current obsession.[2] Normally I won’t include them here, since I doubt they’re of much interest to you – especially the more technical ones. But this one seems to fit the theme of this post. Plowden spent most of his career photographing small, Midwestern towns. In this collection, he revisited towns he photographed in the 70s and 80s to document how they’ve begun to disappear. It’s a gorgeous record of how places like those where my parents grew up, and where I spent my summers as a kid, are slowly receding into the native, prairie grounds. It also makes me think this is a kind of travel I could easily do. There are plenty of shrinking small towns within driving distance of my house.
A good photography book should inspire. This certainly did that.
When we first became parents, we set some limits on ourselves that we thought would benefit our kids. These rules were based on observations of other parents, both adopting elements of parenting we admired and rejecting those we thought were inappropriate. One rule was that we would never take our kids out of school for an extended period to take a family vacation.
We violated that rule four years ago when we went to Disney. We justified that by telling ourselves M was only in second grade, C only in kindergarten, and L still in preschool: we weren’t setting them too far back. And this was a one-time trip anyway.
Well, we did it again. We spent last week in Florida, first spending two-plus days in Orlando then two-and-change near Jacksonville. This time we felt some guilt. So much so we tried to keep the trip a semi-secret at school. But more about that later.
We had some solid justification for the trip again this time. S’s dad and step-mom purchased a home south of Jacksonville late last year. They spent some time down there after closing, but officially made the move south after Christmas. We wanted to go visit them. However, S has to work the week of St. P’s spring break this year.
We decided that since our trip to Disney in the slow times of January was so successful four years ago, we would make a jaunt down to Universal Studios to do the Harry Potter thing and then go check out the in-laws’ new place. We figured it was early enough in the semester that the girls wouldn’t get too far behind in school and would have plenty of time to make up for missed assignments and tests. Plus, they all got really good grades last quarter, so we felt they could handle the catch-up process if we gave them plenty of help.
We flew to Orlando Tuesday. We stayed at the Hard Rock hotel right at Universal. The girls thought the hotel in general, and our room in specific, was really cool with all the rock memorabilia decorations. Even though we had to tell them who most of the artists that had their costumes, records, or guitars displayed were. We didn’t have park tickets that day, so we spent the afternoon at the pool. It was sunny, 75-ish, and a perfectly fine day for us Midwesterners.
Wednesday was our first of two days at the park. We got in right at 9:00 and high tailed it back to the Diagon Alley Harry Potter section. I had done a binge viewing of the movies the previous week to augment my reading of the books late last year, so I was well-steeped in the visuals of the series. I have to admit, all the Harry Potter stuff was amazing. The rides were super cool.[1] The buildings are amazing. The marketing is, of course, way over the top. But I also give them credit for really bringing the series to life. Everything that was sold in the books and movies can be purchased in the park. For a premium, of course. But that’s half the fun, right? We got C and L robes before we went – C is a Hufflepuff and L is a Gryffindor – and all three girls got the interactive wands that allow you to do various “spells” around the Potter areas. Those are kind of tricky, but once they figured out where to point them, I think they enjoyed having them over the basic wands. M got a Ravenclaw shirt because she’s too cool for a robe.
C especially loved it. She had been watching YouTube videos by people who had visited the parks for weeks. Car rides to practices and games before we left usually meant she was reciting the list of all the things you can do and see at Universal. She really was in heaven.
And it was fun to watch M loosen up, have fun, and act like a kid again. She is often way too cool or disinterested in what the rest of the family is doing. But she walked around with a big grin on her face most of the time, too.
We took the Hogwarts Express over to the other park, which held the Hogsmeade side of things. Again, so much fun. The parks weren’t overrun the two days we were there, but the Potter areas were by far the busiest sections. Just a big, fat reminder of how popular the series was and still is.
While L wasn’t down with the fast rides, M and C loved them. We did Escape From Gringotts twice, and the Forbidden Journey ride three times over our two days. And M, C, and I did the Flight of the Hippogriff roller coaster ride. It’s a compact, quick roller coaster, but still not a kiddie ride. I sat alone in front of them. For the entire 30 seconds or so the ride lasts, the girls totally played to type. M screamed at the top of her lungs. Happy screams, but still high-pitched wails. And C just laughed her ass off the entire time. They weren’t quite ready to do any of the big, scary roller coasters like the Dragon Challenge or The Incredible Hulk. Not sure they ever will be, to be honest.
The other ride that was a big hit was the Jurassic Park River Adventure ride. The last drop is a doozy. It’s probably good L didn’t see how steep it was before we got her on or she would have never gone. I don’t know that she loved it, but she also had a look of "Well, that was kind of fun“ after.
As with Disney four years ago, we struck gold in terms of crowds. We rarely had to wait more than 10 minutes to ride anything. We pulled out our Express Passes a couple times, but they weren’t absolutely necessary. On several rides Thursday, after we navigated the lengthy wait corrals, we walked right up to a waiting car and strapped in.
One thing I thought was really interesting about our visit was how much Portuguese I heard. I bet a third of the people there were from Brazil. I suppose it is their summer break, and late January is a pretty lean time for Americans to visit. But it still seemed odd to hear that language be so dominant.
Wednesday night we ate in one of the restaurants in the hotel. During our meal, someone in a full-sized Homer Simpson costume made the rounds of all the tables. The girls loved it, but we also had to explain who he was, what his name was, etc. The same person returned moments later in a Bart costume and we had to do the same explanations again. We thought that was pretty funny. I wouldn’t be upset if they wanted to start watching The Simpsons, something I stopped doing in ’91 or so.
Both days we returned to the hotel for an hour or so at the pool in the heat of the afternoon. It was 75–80ish, so perfect.
Friday we rented a car and drove the 2.5 hours up to Ponte Vedra where my in-laws are now living. They’re in a brand-new place in a nice community. It had begun to cool off that day, but was still sunny and pleasant upon our arrival. We took a drive to a beach that was not too far away. It was far too chilly to get into the water, but we walked around, the girls looked for shells, and we saw a guy fishing who reeled in a stingray, which the girls thought was amazing.
Saturday was cloudy and chilly so it became a mostly family-time day. We watched E.T., which the girls had seen a few years ago, but they enjoyed even more this time since we had gone on the E.T. ride at Universal.
Sunday we had an uneventful flight home, and arrived to spitting snow and temps below 30.
Oh, there was one last highlight of the trip. As we walked to baggage claim, we heard some kind of chanting. S, seeing a group of high school or college kids in letter jackets, said, “Is that cheerleaders?” As soon as she said that, I figured out what it was. “No, those are protesters.”
We took the escalator down to the claim area and several hundred people had gathered to protest President Trump’s immigration executive order. While we waited for our bags, we explained to the girls what was going on, and how even though we as a family are not fans of Trump, we thought the biggest takeaway should be this wasn’t a protest against a person, but rather against a bad policy and for protecting the rights of innocent people. I think they kind of enjoyed all the chanting. Their first political protest!
S and I enjoyed the folks who sat by us in the Jacksonville airport, who loudly proclaimed their support of Trump in Florida, stewing next to us as they waited for their bags.
It was a very good week. I won’t say it was a desperately needed break, as the holidays aren’t that far in the past and January has been warm and rainy for the most part. But it was still good to get away. We’re used to going somewhere in late March/early April and then spring quickly arriving after. Now we have a long slog before we get to the warmer, longer days. I guess that’s my only regret of the trip: we were diligent with the sunscreen and not outside long enough to really look like we spent nearly a week in Florida. A little more of a tan would have been nice.
Between a short first week of the quarter, MLK day, and our trip, the girls have not had a five-day school week yet this year. Until this week, that is. Spoiled rotten, those girls are.
Oh yeah, about school. When we booked the trip last fall, we told the girls not to mention that we were going to Universal around school. They promised not to. In my first library shift of the new year, the librarian said to me, “So, I hear you’re going to Universal!” “Who told you that?” I asked. “Oh, L told me all about it.” Jeez.
The week before we went, I was in the library again. As I was signing out in the office, I told the ladies up there we were going to be out of town for a few days and asked if I needed to send an email in each day, or if a note at the beginning of the week was enough to excuse the girls. One of the ladies immediately blurted out, “Are you going to Disney?!?!” Not in an accusing or negative way, but like she was totally excited for us. I admitted we were going to Universal. So the word was out. At basketball practice, girls from the other St. P’s teams would harass me about wanting to go with us to Harry Potter World.
But the girls’ teachers were all great. They each got a lot of work to bring home and knock out so they wouldn’t be too far behind. Again, I think it really helps that they all get good grades and are well-behaved. And that we don’t do this often. Because we all know there are some families that do this on a fairly regular basis.
We spent the final weeks of January 2013 and 2017 in Florida, going to amusement parks. Not sure we have it in us for January 2021, when we’ll have a sophomore, an eighth grader, and a sixth grader. But you never know.
Amazingly L does not like rides that go fast, are dark, or that she thinks might flip her upside down. In every other aspect she’s the most daring kid in the family, but not when it comes to rides. She was not a fan of the Escape From Gringotts ride. And I had to walk out of the Forbidden Journey ride with her because she was having a meltdown. ↩
We had a nice weekend up in Chicago, the Mrs. and me. The occasion was for her to attend a conference for work, something we did for the first time a year ago when we went to Arizona. Amazingly, this was the first time I’ve been to Chicago in 15 years, since I ran the marathon in 2001. We’re three hours away! What’s wrong with us?
This time around we road-tripped it, dropping the girls off at school right at 7:30 Friday then getting on I–65 for the trip north. Clear roads and the time change put us in our hotel before 10 AM local, so S only missed a couple of the morning presentations. When she booked our room a couple months back, she had requested an early check-in time so I would be able to get into our room right away. With the hotel being filled with conference attendees, we figured that wouldn’t be a problem, something the person she booked with confirmed. On Friday, though, they threw a twist at us when we were checking in. They were working on the room we booked, but it might be a little bit before we could get in. However, if we upgraded, we could get in right away.
How convenient…for them!
We upgraded. Not sure how much nicer the room we ended up in was than the room we had originally booked, but the view was nice. We were staying at the Swissotel, right in the Loop, and as the picture below shows, we had a very nice view of Navy Pier.
She headed downstairs and after getting all our stuff unpacked, I grabbed my camera, bundled up, and headed out to find lunch. I stress bundled up because, after a long and very warm fall, it finally turned cold over the last 7–10 days, as many of you have also experienced. It was only in the mid–20s, with the wind whipping off the lake. First time I’d worn my heavy coat this season, and I had to add a scarf, gloves, and hat as well. I planned on cruising around a little before I found lunch, but after just 20 minutes I had to pop into a sandwich shop to eat and warm up. I crossed over to Millennium Park next and got some obligatory photos of the Cloud Gate sculpture, a few of the big Christmas tree, then decided it was time to hustle back to the hotel, where I spent most of the afternoon watching old ACC Tournament games on ESPN Classic.
A friend of mine from St. P’s grew up in Chicago and still goes up there a lot for work. He’s also a bit of a foodie/beer snob, and gave me a long list of places that were options for food over the weekend. For dinner Friday, we selected Howells & Hood, in the Tribune building. It was a 10-minute walk, and a rather nice one in the early-evening rush of downtown foot traffic. We had a very enjoyable dinner and then headed home. I don’t think the temp dropped more than a few degrees while we were inside, but it felt terribly cold. We acted like big babies and whined the entire walk home.
Saturday I got out a couple times while S was in sessions. The morning was insanely cold. I spent maybe 15 minutes outside before deciding it was stupid to be outside and went back to the room. A few hours later I decided to walk up Michigan Avenue, though the main shopping district. That was pretty cool. The streets were packed, there was plenty of Christmas cheer in the air, and the tighter quarters meant it didn’t feel nearly as cold. I walked all the way down to Bloomingdales and went inside to check out the huge tree and the even bigger line to see Santa, before heading back for the hotel.
S was done mid-afternoon and we ventured out for a late lunch. We went to a spot I had found online called the Broken English Taco Bar. It was a quirky little spot that had great margaritas, guacamole, and a page full of taco options. We shared a couple kinds, went over to Millennium Park for a pic at the Cloud Gate, and then hustled home as the wind had kicked in and the temperature had dropped again. My camera had stopped working because the cold was sucking the life out of the battery.
Now the big turd in our weekend plans was an approaching winter storm. The forecast had finally settled on Chicago and northern Indiana getting as much as 10” of snow by Sunday night. This was problematic because we were driving home Sunday. The city got a couple inches Saturday night, but the roads seemed clear. S went off to her morning session Sunday and we planned on getting out of town by 11:00, just before the next round was supposed to start. Thinking it would be tough to go through check-out, get our vehicle, etc., she bounced a little earlier and we were on the road by 9:30. It was wet and slushy and dark most of the way home. We hit one spot where I felt the tires slip a little, but once we hit Lafayette, it was over freezing and the precipitation eased up.
So a fine weekend in Chi-town. I could have used about 10 more degrees of heat so I could have explored more. As we were driving out of the city, I realized I didn’t even make it near any L tracks, which are an area I wanted to get some pictures. But we decided we need to take the girls up and stay in the city sometime when it’s warm, so we can get out and do stuff.
Once, summer trips to Kansas City were the norm for me. Just about every summer I would sneak away for a weekend that, famously, included the four B’s: baseball, Boulevard beer, barbecue, and buddies.[1] But as the girls got a little older, it became more difficult to get away. Buying a lake house where we spent most of our summer weekends added another layer of difficulty to making that trip during school vacation. It had been four years since I made a summer trip to KC that revolved around baseball!
Luckily I broke that streak this past weekend.
Despite the long slump, this trip had a familiar rhythm to it. Fly in Friday on the early, direct flight. Pick up a car and start driving around. Go to the Plaza. Drive by some of my other favorite spots and see what’s changed, what’s the same. I usually snap some pics while doing my wanderings, but this is the first time I’ve come back since I started taking photography semi-seriously. I added in a trip to the Liberty Memorial this time around where I got a few decent shots. It was a weird day for pics: overcast days are often good for pics because you don’t get blinded by the summer sun, but the clouds Friday morning were really thick and I struggled to get good color in many of my shots. Oh well.
Obligatory downtown KC pic
I made a stop at the Boulevard Brewery. Stupidly I didn’t think to reserve a time for a tour a few weeks back before they filled up. I’ve heard you can often slip into already booked groups if you just show up, but I went about 40 minutes before my lunch plans kicked in, so didn’t have time for that. I just bought a sweet shirt instead.
Lunch at Charbar, one of the new barbecue places in town. It was really good. While meeting the folks I was eating with, I randomly ran into another good friend I hadn’t seen in years. In the first few years after I moved to Indy, when I would go back to KC I would always be looking around, expecting to run into someone I used to work with, lived near, or hung out with. This is probably the first time that’s ever happened!
Friday night was Royals game #1, a fellas’ night out. We had good seats, the Royals had a lead going into the 4th, and life was good. Then Minnesota tied it and heavy rains moved in. We hustled to our car and departed for the Peanut, as the radar showed storms stacked up halfway across Kansas. That was a wise move, as play didn’t begin again until nearly midnight. And then they had to play into the 11th inning before the Royals got their sixth-straight victory.
Saturday I met my uncle at Oklahoma Joe’s[2]. I was at Joe’s a couple years ago, when we brought the girls back. But this was my first Z-man sandwich in probably 5–6 years. It was delicious.
An obligatory trip to the Kansas Sampler for buying the girls some KU gear and myself another Royals shirt followed.
Saturday night was our big evening at the K. Seven families were represented in some form, along with a whole gaggle of kids. There was tailgating, football throwing, wisecracking, and reminiscing. Our seats were way up in the view level, an area of the K I hadn’t sat in since 2001 or 2002. But they were just fine to catch up with folks and watch a 10–0 Royals win.
Then I was on the noon, direct flight back to Indy on Sunday, where the delightful weather that reached Kansas City on Saturday morning had just rolled into town. There’s a hint of fall in the air, which made this trip the perfect capper to a pretty good summer.
For my obligatory “what did it mean to me” part of this post, Kansas City started to feel foreign to me awhile back. There were just too many changes, whether it was my friends moving and adding to their families or making other major life changes, or things like the Power & Light district or other physical changes to the area, for the city to feel fresh to me. But still there’s a lot of familiarity there for me. I think I find my footing pretty quickly even with all those changes.
I’m definitely not a local anymore when I visit. Yet there’s still a part of me that feels more at home in KC than Indy. I guess I lived there (mostly) for 23 years and this is just year 13 in Indy. Perhaps that feeling will flip someday.
It was great to see all of you who stop by here on occasion and made time to meet for lunch, or at the K.
Buddies being a gender-neutral term in this case. ↩
I know what it’s called now. I’m still calling it OK Joe’s! ↩
