Girlcation 2008

Rachel, Nancy, and I had a fantabulous time in Kansas City this year for Girlcation 2008!

Tuesday - Nancy and I flew from Dallas to Kansas City to meet Rachel there. We were pretty disappointed when we got on the plane and every single window AND aisle seat was taken. This meant we couldn't sit together and we had to squeeze between strangers! Turns out, we sat across the aisle from each other, each of us next to moms and babies. About half-way through the trip, the mom I was sitting next to asked me which school district I worked in, then she said, "Are you Cindy? Do you make those cute crafts? I think you made a notebook for me!" ...... What a small world! I was actually sitting next to one of our Speech Therapists and her precious little girl. In all the trip went really quickly and our luggage made it with us, so all was good.

When Rachel arrived at the airport, we went and checked in our nice hotel, then went in search of food. We lucked into quite a deal at Applebee's. Since it was already 10:30pm, we opted to go the "lite" route and order a whole table full of appetizers - deep fried, ooey-gooey-cheesey, and totally yummilicious! Apparently sometime after the dinner hour, Applebee's puts their appetizers on for half-price, so it was by far the cheapest meal of the week!

Wednesday - When Rachel first broached the subject of Bodies Revealed, I told her it sounded like either one of those real dead bodies, skinless, etc. exhibits OR a strip show. Either way, sounded good! I don't think the term I should use is actually "enjoy", but I'm glad we went to see this exhibit. It was really quite interesting - not gross at all. The most "disturbing" thing was how the knee caps on all the bodies weren't attached and they just kinda flopped forward. Intersting. The exhibit was in the Kansas City Union Station, which is a beautiful building with all sorts of shopping a restaurants. We then walked across the street over to the Crown Center where there was more shopping and restaurants. The highlight of that trip was touring the Hallmark Visitor's Center where we saw greeting cards being made, got to see some Hallmark commercials (they ALL make me cry!), and even got to see an actual Emmy Award from one of the Hallmark movies.
That evening we went to see Hancock (lucked out again to find out that movies were only $5 Monday-Thursday at the theater right around the corner from the hotel). Hancock was interesting - it wasn't what I was expecting, but I'm glad I saw it. I prefer Will Smith in his funnier roles - not as much of a fan of the drunk and completely out-of-sorts fellow!

Thursday - We had a sort of slow start, but by noon we were well on our way to see the Arabia, which is a sunken steamboat that has been uncovered in a cornfield several years ago. It was really interesting to hear the story of how it was uncovered and all of the belongings recovered. From there, we went to Arthur Bryant's BBQ. This was just about the best bbq I've ever had. Too bad they were such piddly little helpings! (Actually, the guy practically had to use two hands to pick up all the brisket that he piled on the Wonderbread sandwich!) Delicious! I also enjoyed checking out all the pictures on the wall of the famous people who had eaten there.
Thursday evening we tried the movies again - this time a better choice - Get Smart! Steve Carrell just cracks me up!



Friday - After two nights of movies, we decided to do something cultural and we visited the fantastic Nelson-Atkins Art Museum. We were there for over three hours, but apparently missed more than half of the exhibits! My favorite collection was the Impressionists collection. I've always loved Monet. I was shocked at how large it actually is - it's 14 feet wide!




One of the "exhibits" I would have loved to see was the Sculpture Garden - apparently it was spread out over a very large area. We did see the giant shuttlecocks, which were very cute lying out on the lawn.
Friday evening we went and had a fancy-shmancy meal at Houlihans. I enjoyed that Kansas City beef (thanks Rob, for the great work you do with cow feed!) and topped off the meal with dessert. Rachel and Nancy had pecan pie (and were shocked to find out that I had never had it before) and I had lemon meringue pie (never had the cow slobber stuff either ... fortunately it was easily removed from the deliciousness of the lemon pie!) We returned to the hotel and watched a couple of movies we rented. Definitely, Maybe was not-so-hot, but Charlie Wilson's War was pretty entertaining.

Saturday - We woke up to glorious rain and much cooler temps. We can't complain about the weather, because it never got out of the 80's, but on Saturday with the cool rain, it was 64 degrees! Fabulous!!!
We had the obligatory Mexican food meal (yeah ... On the Border rocks!) and then shopped around at a couple of fun little shops before heading off to the airport for our late afternoon flight back to Texas (the pilot announced the temp in Texas - 99 degrees!)

In all, it was a great Girlcation - as Nancy pointed out, possibly our most successful ever! We are hoping to go to Austin/San Antonio next year for Girlcation 2009. Maybe we'll visit the Alamo!