Alex and I got up at 8:15 to get ready to head to the airport. We did some last minute packing and cleaning before our Uber driver arrived at 9 am on the dot. Luiz, who we learned is from Brazil, was a really polite guy and got us to the airport at 9:45, which left us plenty of time before our 11:30 am flight. Alex and I both had checked in the night before. Somehow Alex’s TSA pre-approved status also applied to me, probably because we booked on the same reservation even though that kinda doesn’t make sense. So we sauntered through security in 5 minutes and got to the gate shortly after 10. I got a cheeky breakfast at Starbucks, we hung out and used the 30 minute free wifi, and boarded our first plane.

We were late to board the plane, finally sitting down around 11:30 am which was our scheduled departure time. I was a row behind Alex, so the guy sitting next to him was nice enough to switch with us. Sort of a bad move because we’re too big as it is, let alone next to each other, but it was good enough. Once the plane took off Alex listened to music and napped. I read some articles in the Delta magazine and CRUSHED the Kenken puzzle. We landed safely in Atlanta at 1:30 pm, waited the standard 264 hours for all the other passengers in front of us to get their bags and get off the plane, took the tram thing to the other terminal, and reached the gate for the next plane 20 minutes before we were meant to board.

Alex’s parents had bought us Strombolis, so we had those for lunch and I also got the most expensive and mildly adequate smoothie ever. We had to eat quickly in order to board on time. We left Atlanta around 3 on a much newer and nice Delta plane. I watched ¾ of Foxcatcher, and Alex watched most of Hot Tub Time Machine 2. We landed in Kansas City, Missouri a little after 4. It’s a small airport, so all we had to do was walk outside and wait to be picked up by the great Cory Nelson. He got us after we waited for 5 minutes in his dad’s big red pickup truck – welcome to Kansas. Danny Gill was supposed to arrive around 3:45 pm from DC. Long story short – Gill had the worst travel experience in the whole world and his flight got cancelled. He went back to his apartment to wait 4^th in line on standby for the next flight.

Cory took us to his grandmother’s house in Merriam, Kansas for the first stop of the historic Kansas / Missouri tour. His grandmother, Nadine, and dad, Dale, were super friendly and already knew a lot about us because of Cory. Nadine was a school nurse for a long time, so we bonded over education. We swapped the truck for Cory’s black Scion and continued our driving tour. One highlight was driving through the Plaza, which according to Cory was the 1^st outdoor shopping mall in America. We got to Cory’s apartment, which is in downtown KC, around 6:30. We parked and then walked around downtown before heading up to his apartment.

We didn’t spend much time at his place before heading out to dinner at Q39, an up and coming BBQ place whose chefs have won a lot of awards in various BBQ competitions. I got ribs, pulled pork with delicious BBQ sauce, mac and cheese, corn bread, BBQ beans, and apple cole slaw, which I can say confidently is the best cole slaw I’ve had. Atmosphere and food were awesome. After dinner, Alex, Cory, his girlfriend Megan, and I went back to their apartment to park the car in order to walk to First Friday. First Friday was only a couple blocks away from their place, with a ton of food trucks and outside musicians / performers. Some of Cory and Megan’s friends met up with us, but they didn’t really care about us so they ditched us at some point. We eventually made ou way to Tapcade, an arcade with a bunch of old arcade games. Cory and I both ordered dirty Shirley’s, but I got screwed over when I got a smaller glass with no cherries. We played a couple video games and went back to get Cory’s car to head to his mom’s house.

We got back to mom’s house in Overland Park, Kansas around midnight or so. Cory’s dogs greeted us – so friendly! We watched some of Back to the Future, played Heads Up, planned our worst and best case scenarios for Gill’s flight status, and went to sleep around 1:30 am. Let’s go Kansas!!