Don’t Fear the Reaper

Day 28 – St. Louis, MO   

The title of today’s post has nothing at all to do with the trip.  I was talking with Adam Taves yesterday to coordinate our activities for today and he told me that the blog was great, but needed more cowbell.  See, Adam has a sickness and the only cure is more cowbell.  So Adam, here you go – more cowbell. (For those of you who are completely lost, don’t feel bad.  Adam and I have been friends for over 25 years, so we often talk in ways only we can understand.  To get an idea of what we are talking about, go to YouTube and type in “Will Ferrell SNL Cowbell Skit” and you will see.  Then watch it a second and third time.  A good belly laugh is great for the soul.)

Kauffman Stadium, home of the Royals.

Amy and I slept in for the first time in I don’t know how long.  We probably could have woken up to go check out the Negro League Baseball Museum or the American Jazz Museum, both of which I would love to see.  Or headed into downtown KC or over by the Missouri River.  Or even just gone across the street to sign up for tours of Kauffman and Arrowhead.  But honestly, it felt great to sleep and have a relaxing morning.  Plus, it gives us an excuse to come back to KC someday.

The statue of former Chiefs owner and founder of the
AFL, Lamar Hunt. 

Once we finally got moving, we did head over to Kauffman and Arrowhead to see if we could take a look inside.  However, that is only allowed if you pay for the tour, and we weren’t interested in paying for or waiting for a tour so we left.  It was already past noon, so we decided to head for Arthur Bryant’s for lunch.  Arthur Bryant’s is one of the original KC BBQ joints and is on everyone’s “best” list.  There are three locations in KC, so we headed over to the original.  However, when we got there, the line was out the door and onto the sidewalk, so we decided to try another one which the GPS said was only 5 miles away.  But when we got there, we realized it was inside of a riverboat casino, and we had no interest in going in there, so we got back in the car and went all the way over to the location which was on the west side of Kansas City, Kansas.  Of the three, it was the newest and definitely did not have the same ambiance as the first location.  However, it was located in the “Legends” area which also includes the Kansas Motor Speedway, as well as the stadiums for Sporting Kansas City (Major League Soccer) and the Kansas City T-Bones (Independent Minor League baseball), so those were fun to see.    

Amy's pulled pork and sweet potato fries.

For lunch today, Amy decided to go with the pulled pork sandwich and sweet potato fire.  I was going to do a combo pulled pork/burnt ends sandwich, but then I saw a special called the “Pit-pourri”.  This beast had pulled pork and burnt ends, but then added on to it with pulled beef brisket and smoked turkey.  All this was mixed together, slopped onto a couple pieces of white bread, and then I smothered it with the original style BBQ sauce.   Oh yeah, it had fires too, which looked like a huge pile, until you dug deeper o find it was actually just a big pile with more meat underneath.  Amy’s was fantastic; some of the best pulled pork we’ve ever tasted.  Mine was good, but a little salty (and I like salty stuff).  It wasn’t bad, but I wish I had gone with my original idea.  The sweet tea was fantastic.

My "Pit-pourri" with regular fries, pre-drenching in BBQ sauce.

We finished lunch and started to make our way towards St. Louis.  The drive is less than four hours, so after yesterday’s haul, it did not seem like much.  We made it to Adam and Erin’s right around 6 and got a tour of their new place.  Then, while Adam and I discussed the optimal TV size for the living room, the girls went to pick up pizza from a local place.  We ate, played some cards, and watched some Olympics.  It is so nice to be back in a house, and even nicer to be back amongst friends.  Looking forward to a fun day in St. Louie tomorrow.