Mortaine’s Blog

Well, today was the “Day with Mom” on my trip to Missouri.

So, here’s what we planned to do today:

• Hang out together.
• Maybe go to this winery I saw signs for somewhere near Kansas City (K.C.)
• Go to lunch at a Thai restaurant.
• (Just me) Go to the Meetup in K.C.

Before we left, I looked up the Thai restaurant and Meetup online. Meetup was cancelled, so we didn’t need to deal with getting to that anymore. Well, ok. So, one less thing to deal with. I did get the address for the “Tasty Thai” restaurant from BigBook, complete with map.

So first, we headed out for the winery, with plans to stop and get capuccino at the gas station nearby. This was a total bust– the capuccino sucked. It was basically over-sweetened flavored coffee. Ewww. At least I didn’t pay more than $1 for it. Ugh! It was so horrible, we eventually stopped and poured it out.

Next, we drove south for over an hour to see if we could find the winery. We eventaully were heading out of Lee’s Summit, still without locating the sign. After deciding that, really, wineries weren’t all that exciting, and we were just driving towards it because it was something to go to, we turned around.

So, we turned around. I had read in the K.C. Tourism guide that the K.C. Royals were playing Oakland from the 26th through the 28th. Typically, baseball is played in three-game series, so it should follow that they should be playing on the 27th. I mentioned this to Mom, and said “Gee, I wonder where the stadium is?”

“Right here,” she replied. Sure enough, we were at highway 70 and Blue Ridge Cutoff, where the Chiefs (football) and the Royals (baseball, National League) play. Mom explained that Kansas City is so Chiefs-crazy, they don’t care at all about the Royals, so we could almost certainly get tickets. The calendar said that the games were at 1:05, and it was 12:50 when we stopped. Well, Kauffmann Stadium was a ghost town when we got there, and it turned out the game was at 7:05, according to the box office sign.

OK, so we had about 6 hours to kill, right? Next stop: Thai food.

Now, the “Tasty Thai” restaurant is listed at 6509 North Camden Avenue in Kansas City (don’t go there, by the way). When I get home, I will be sure to post photos of 6509 N. Camden Ave. It is certainly not a Thai food restaurant. I don’t know what the good folks at that house thought when I rolled down the window and snapped a photo, but I’m sure they were just a little disturbed!

Anyway, on to lunch. We were getting progressively more hungry, as the search for 6509 took an extra half hour, and getting up there was also time-consuming. We stopped at a conveniently-located Chinese food restaurant, a buffet, and had a lovely lunch.

After lunch, on to Goodwill (for sweatshirts to wear in case it got cold at the game), and then Sam’s Club for some things Mom needed, and a SmartMedia card that I required (I was down to 7 photos in my camera).

Next stop: the Casino! K.C. has “riverboat” gambling, which means anything from a floating hotel/casino to something standing in about 2 feet of water. At this point, I think they just let you build a casino anywhere within a certain distance of the riverbank.

Well, Mom played slots all night and came out $13 ahead. I played carps first and was up $50, then down $25 when I switched to Blackjack. Ultimately, I ended the evning ahead by $1. I felt just like Microsoft (which has beat projected earnings by $1 every quarter for the last serveral years– and we don’t think they’re cooking the books?)

We got to the stadium at about 6:30 and went to buy our tickets. Club cox seats for $22, to see the Royals play the A’s at 7:05. We were right between home and first base. It was great! Not field level, but then we didn’t make fools of ourselves by ducking the foul balls.

The game was OK. The Royals aren’t really a first-rate team, and so it was little surprise that they scored 6 runs, one in each inning starting in the 3rd. In the 8th inning, though, the Royalls rallied– and hard! They scored a double, which was pretty phnomenal for this team that just kept striking and flying out.

So, the game was fabulous– lots of beer, yelling, screaming, food that was bad for us, and FUN! The best part was the fact that going to the game was pretty much spontaneous, so it was extra special. I’m really glad I had that– a really fun, spontaneous, and totally fun day with my mom.