Kansas City Recap Part 1

Last week I traveled to Kansas City for work.  Let me tell you, middle America takes FOREVER to get to! There was only 1 direct flight to Kansas City, with two options: you could choose to leave at 10:30 AM or 5:30 PM.  And on United..UGH. I prefer American where I have status!

Anyways, I packed up my Travel Pro roller bag and my Lo & Sons OMG bag and headed off to the air port. 3 HOURS LATER my flight finally arrived, nothing like leaving at almost 2 PM when your flight should have already arrived to KC.  Ugh. But, I have the most amazing carry on bags ever, so at least I travel in STYLE!

So anyways, I finally got to the Westin and there's a waterfall!!!  WTF? I don't know, but okay...sounds good to me!

It was almost 8 PM when I finally arrived, so it was getting dark. But we were hungry and we were headed out to eat BBQ! When in KC, you MUST MUST MUST eat BBQ!

The train station was BEAUTIFUL, especially at night. The colors and this larger than life American Flag were breathtaking.

We found it!!!!! We found it!!!!  Only THE best BBQ in KC. Can you tell I'm excited?!?!?!

I even had a local brewery, Boulevard beer. MMM....  

Just LOOK at the size of those onion rings!!

OMGEEEEEEEE this BBQ was SO good!!! I could have eaten there every single day....oh wait, I did. I had it 3 times in the 3 days I was there. What can I say?  It was THAT GOOD.

Walking Across the USA

HOLY COW!!!! The other day I got a notification of this milestone! I wear a Jawbone UP 24 on my wrist daily so it tracks my steps and my sleep.  I think I've had my band for 3 years now maybe, and its taken this long to accumulate enough steps to walk across the USA!!! 8 MILLION STEPS BABY!!

Hannah's Visit! Sunday Recap

I am actually really impressed with ourselves that we didn't go hard core on Saturday evening (as opposed to Friday evening) and we controlled ourselves.  We had a peaceful evening and woke up refreshed and ready to start the day!

We started off the morning by walking down to the Ferry Building to grab some Blue Bottle Coffee. This coffee is REALLY REALLY GOOD but I normally surpass it during my jaunts to the Ferry Building because the lines are REALLY REALLY L-O-N-G!!  Especially Saturday mornings during the Farmer's Market.  Ugh. So literally the last time I went was the last time Hannah visited me last year.

Oh well, but we stood in the moderately shorter line Sunday morning. And I actually purchased two drinks...hey, if I'm going to stand in THAT line, I might as well get two!

I got this lattee...

And a cold brew!

As you can see, there is a lot to choose from!  We took our coffee and ventured outside to watch the ferries come and go.  When we got our fill, we headed home to be zombies on the couch.  Several hours later we finally got our act together to embrace the day.

We headed to The View, the bar at the top of the Mariott marquee hotel.  I pretty much bring everyone here, on a clear day you can see all of the city! It really is beautiful up there.

Hannah drinking her cocktail

Me!

We rode a cable car up California to the top of the hill

This is Grace cathedral, at the top of the hill!

Bi-Rite Creamery

I FINALLY MADE IT TO BI-RITE CREAMERY!!!! No seriously, its taken me a year to get there. There's alwaysa line at least a block and a half long. I could never find anyone that would stand in line iwth me.  Today's line wasn't too bad because it wasn't too hot out, actually it was pretty chilly.

I was so excited about this!

  

According to their website: 

We make all of our ice cream by hand, in small batches, on 18th Street–right in the heart of San Francisco’s historic Mission District. In the bakery adjoining our ice cream kitchen, we make everything that goes into our ice cream, whether it’s brownies, peanut brittle, marshmallows, or the snickerdoodles for Ricanelas! We have lots of homemade toppings to jazz up your ice cream, including almond toffee, graham crackers, and spiced pecans–to name just a few of the most popular.

Can you tell I'm excited?!?!?!

Today's flavors of choice.  All of the flavors are listed here.

I got the Mint Chocolate and TCHO chocolate ice cream. OH.M.GEEEEEE it was so good!!!!

Hannah's Vist! Saturday Recap.

Saturday morning began with a ferocious hangover for the both of us. Apparently having 2 STRONG cocktails and a bottle of wine a piece equates to a VERY MASSIVE HANGOVER. For some reason her alarm went off at 7:15 in the morning and I couldn’t go back to sleep. This is a STARK change from when I used to sleep and sleep and she would be us for hours while we were in London.  Oh how times have changed!!

I had planned a morning of visiting the Ferry Building, perusing the local farmers market down the street and a spin class to top it off. Well, things just didn’t end up that way. We were DYING on the couch but we pulled our shit together to get to spin class just in time to get Hannah set up on her bike at Wheelhouse.  Let me tell you, exercise is THE BEST to get rid of hangovers. There were several times I thought I might vomit on my bike, but Carl (the cutest gay instructor with a British accent) beat it out of us!  The theme ride was Christina Aguilera and there were several times you could see him mouthing along the words, it was ADORABLE.  Anyways, we finally finished our class and exited the building. Hannah had a great time, but was having a hard time walking (which is totally normal the first few times!).  We headed home to clean up and then headed out to our scheduled brunch at Foreign Cinema.  

The food was phenomenal (as per usual) at FC, but the services was BEYOND under par.  We waited forever for our waiter and our food.  Oh well, you win some and you lose some, right? 

We decided for our next adventure, we'd go near Fort Mason and visit the Wave Organ.  The concept was developed by Peter Richards and was installed in collaboration with sculptor and master stone mason George Gonzalesuilt in conjunction with the Exloratorium in 1986.  The Wave Organ is a wave-activated acoustic sculpture located on a jetty in the San Francisco Bay. You have to go WAAAAAAAYYYY around the bay to the jetty but walking ALL.THE.WAY.AROUND the bay and past the yacht club to the jetty.  

But with these views, it really wasn't a bad trip!!!  It doesn't matter, every time I see the Golden Gate Bridge, I'm still amazed!

I wish it wasn't quite so sunny because this picture would have been great!

Oh hey there Alcatraz.  You look great tonight! 

I don't know what we were expecting, but we really thought it would be a bit better. About 20 minutes into it, we finally figure out that only a few of the little sound things (pictured above) actually makes sounds. Its just really just a slightly louder sound of a wave.

Kind of a waste of time, but at least I was with this girl!!

At least the view was spectacular!

We headed home from there and became comatose on the couch.  We did cap the evening off with more wine and a home-made pizza!  Pizza dough topped with marinara, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, rosemary, basil, garlic and red peppers made for an AMAZING pizza!! All in all, a great night with Hannah Marshall!