KC Wrapup

Kansas City was a blast. Cost a bundle though. $25 for ticket, $25 for hotel, $60 in my share of gas, and $70 in food and beer (including the beer bought ahead of time). Nearly $200 for a road trip. Usually not too bad for a weekend trip to a soccer game, but I had really hoped for the trip to be cheaper. I was gone from yesterday morning until this evening, but I feel like I've been gone much longer. A lot happened and the drive today took a lot out of me.

When Andy and I finally got to KC, the rest of the group had just finished eating at Oklahoma Joe's and bought liquor at the liquor store next door. We finally caught up with them at the hotel, but we were hungry. We figured out where they would be at the tailgate, and headed out to get some food. We went to Arthur Bryant's for BBQ, which was a little disappointing after all the hype. It was a little on the dry side, although the BBQ sauce on the table was good. My favorite was the Sweet and Spicy. The fact that they served it on Wonderbread was a little underwhelming; the piece of bread under my meat was a mushy blob when I got down to it and it was sort of gross. The pieces on the side that I used to make sandwiches weren't bad, though. Just needed more.

After eating we headed to the tailgate, riding a shuttle bus with some surprisingly gangsta looking guys and found the van with our group. It was cold and rainy, and although I was wearing four layers (long sleeve T-shirt, jacket, raincoat, and Rainbow KC Wiz jersey on top,) I was still quite cold while standing around waiting for the game. I drank beer to warm up, although holding the ice-cold beer in my hands didn't initially make things better. I was cursing not bringing gloves, and irritated that I had left my earmuffs at the hotel. We did a lot of "Nessy" jokes, including throwing our hands up in the air and screeching. The screeching started to deteriorate (as it hurt our throats) over time and eventually I think we just looked like we were making fun of retarded people. But we enjoyed ourselves.

The game itself was okay; the rain finally stopped just before kickoff, which helped, and we stood and shouted the whole game. We sang Billy Idol songs at the KC keeper who looked to have the 80s songster's hair, and continued with the Nessy stuff too. At one point, Paul started a "Gimme an E! Gimme a B! Gimme an O!" chant, which he laughed too hard at to finish, so Tim finished with L and A (Ebola.) This was hilarious at the time, although I don't recall how we got onto the theme of diseases.

After the game, much of the group was interested in watching the Gay Porn of a UFC fight at Hooters, but Andy and I were not. Although they ended up at Applebees since Hooters was packed, we walked across the street to Granite City which was less crowded and much calmer after shouting for two hours plus. We had a beer or two and Andy got a sandwich before Rich and Charlie showed up, making fun of us for wearing "the same shirt." Andy was wearing a 1913 USA jacket, and I was wearing a travel jacket. His is red. Mine is blue. The most similar thing about them is that they both have USA crests on them, although they are clearly part of the same "collection." I think they were just a little bit drunk already. After the fight was over and the rest of the group came to get Rich and Charlie (and after Charlie squirted lemon in Andy's eye) we headed back to the hotel where we spent another while in Matt and Brian's room talking and generally making fools of ourselves. You can see on my twitter feed a number of the things said (hashtag #overheardinkc).

This morning I woke up at seven (as usual) and no one else was up yet. Most of them didn't even begin to rise until closer to 10:00, which was when we were supposed to leave. We ended up getting to a breakfast spot around 11:00, and waiting to be seated for a good while. The food was pretty good, although I regretted getting eggs and bacon instead of an omelet, but it was my first time eating grits. They were a bit bland, but certainly edible enough.

Andy and I got on the road around 12:30 and basically drove straight through, stopping two or three times for bathroom, gas and snacks. Got home around 6:30 and managed to see Nathaniel before he went to bed. He wasn't too impressed, though. I guess I wasn't gone long enough, or I'm just not important enough to be missed. He was cute playing and crawling, though. I missed him a lot, especially when at a restaurant there was a little boy about two years old talking with his dad.

I'm exhausted, though, and I think I'm going to head to bed now (8:45) because although I got four and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep for the first time in a while, it was also *all* of the sleep I managed to get this weekend, and I am going to need to be well rested if I'm going to try to let Stephanie sleep upstairs a couple of nights so that she can get caught up on sleep herself.

I might later on give better details on some of the food, and I do intend to upload a few pictures, but for now, good night.