Because I Learned a Thing or Two

We went to Kansas City on a Friday. By Saturday I learned a thing or two.

 

And yes, we sang this song enough times that we both have decided that we have to watch Oklahoma! sometime in the near future. I mean, it is one of the best sequences in the whole shebang.

 

Bird and I went to Kansas City for Labor Day weekend to hang out with his good friend and fraternity brother Jay and his wife Jinal, and to see my cousin Sarah and her boys (sadly, her husband Johnny had to work while we were visiting with Sarah and her crew). Along the way we also got to hang out with Shaun and Jenny, another fraternity brother and his fiancee, and Topper and Cody, two other Pi Kapps who happened to be around.

 

We like to pack in the fun.

 

After a lovely drive through Kansas's rolling Flint Hills (I DEFY you to find anything hilly about eastern Kansas as you're driving eastbound--you could actually see the hills on the westbound journey), we made our way through Kansas City proper to Jay and Jinal's apartment. We ate dinner at a lovely sports-themed restaurant/bar and then decided to go surprise Shaun at his house. He answered the door in his boxers. Ever the gracious host, he invited us in, showed us around, and then he and Jenny had to leave to pick up his brother from the airport. We stayed, and apparently Shaun was secretly glad that we had stayed until they returned. We got hugs.

 

The next morning Jay took us over to the Liberty Memorial and World War I Museum. IT WAS AMAZING. One of the best museums I've ever been to. They give you a two day admission pass and you can really use it! We got to the museum around 10:30 or 11, walked around the main galleries for about 2 and 1/2 hours, and probably could have spent a lot more time looking at the amazing collection of artifacts, the great explanations of events, objects, people, and timelines, and the recreations of the trenches. The museum really showed what a global conflice World War I was--much moreso than I even realized. It's exhibits didn't really even talk about the United States (although they did have a timeline of what was going on in the US during different portions of the war) until physically halfway through the museum or more, just as it was during the great war. While the photographs were not graphic in showing the horrors of war, they message was clear: this war was completely devastating, not just to a generation of Europeans, but to those who came after them and to the world. This concept was shown in the materials of war and the items used to protect people from those implements. And of course, we found Will Rogers. Oklahoma's favorite son follows us everywhere, and it's awesome :-)

 

We left the World War I museum, knowing we would have to come back to finish the tour (and hit the gift shop!!) the next day. We had a date with Boulevard. The Boulevard Brewery, that is.

 

To be continued...