Saturday, March 14, 2009
Wichita
We had another quick trip—this time to Wichita Kansas. I’m always surprised by how far west and south Kansas is. For some reason, in my mind I always put Kansas in the middle of the country (maybe between Iowa and Missouri). When we picked up our rental car, it had Oklahoma licenses on it and I thought “Wow, that’s from a long ways away”, but Wichita is very close to the Oklahoma border.
One bad thing about this trip is that we moved every single night—which means we were packing and unpacking constantly. We flew in to Wichita and went to our hotel and checked in. That evening we went to a BBQ place called “Hog Wild”. It was really good! Have I ever mentioned that I love good BBQ!
The next day, we packed up and went 50 miles north to the Crosswinds Conference Center in Hesston. This was a really neat place with a beautiful staircase from the lobby to the second floor where the conference rooms were located. The sleeping rooms were pretty barren—two twin beds with plastic mattress covers, one desk and chair, bathroom and a separate shower room. Of course no TV or internet connection in the sleeping rooms, although there was internet in the lobby. I guess it’s a Christian camp—there was an outdoor pool and sports fields. Our meals were provided by the center and they were really ‘home cooking’. A couple little old ladies were the cooks and servers.
After the conference was over, we drove back to Wichita and checked back into the same hotel we stayed in on Thursday night. We happened to see an advertisement for a dinner theatre production of ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’, so we called and got tickets. The dinner was a buffet that included hominy (which isn’t too exciting) and ham, plus lots of other good stuff. Then some servers came though with the dessert cart—where you could ‘purchase’ a dessert. The servers were very clear that there was a charge.
The show was really a lot of fun, but the theatre was very cold—we wished we had brought along our jackets, so we could bundle up. Instead, we tried to cover as much as possible with our cloth napkins!
We didn’t fly home until 5 pm on Sunday, so we spent some time in our room working and then wandered around Wichita—and took in the Shepplers Western Store—although we didn’t find anything that we absolutely had to have.
Back home again around midnight!
One bad thing about this trip is that we moved every single night—which means we were packing and unpacking constantly. We flew in to Wichita and went to our hotel and checked in. That evening we went to a BBQ place called “Hog Wild”. It was really good! Have I ever mentioned that I love good BBQ!
The next day, we packed up and went 50 miles north to the Crosswinds Conference Center in Hesston. This was a really neat place with a beautiful staircase from the lobby to the second floor where the conference rooms were located. The sleeping rooms were pretty barren—two twin beds with plastic mattress covers, one desk and chair, bathroom and a separate shower room. Of course no TV or internet connection in the sleeping rooms, although there was internet in the lobby. I guess it’s a Christian camp—there was an outdoor pool and sports fields. Our meals were provided by the center and they were really ‘home cooking’. A couple little old ladies were the cooks and servers.After the conference was over, we drove back to Wichita and checked back into the same hotel we stayed in on Thursday night. We happened to see an advertisement for a dinner theatre production of ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’, so we called and got tickets. The dinner was a buffet that included hominy (which isn’t too exciting) and ham, plus lots of other good stuff. Then some servers came though with the dessert cart—where you could ‘purchase’ a dessert. The servers were very clear that there was a charge.
The show was really a lot of fun, but the theatre was very cold—we wished we had brought along our jackets, so we could bundle up. Instead, we tried to cover as much as possible with our cloth napkins!We didn’t fly home until 5 pm on Sunday, so we spent some time in our room working and then wandered around Wichita—and took in the Shepplers Western Store—although we didn’t find anything that we absolutely had to have.
Back home again around midnight!
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Down South, ya'll
The first week of February found us headed for Jackson, MS. This was a pretty uneventful trip even though it included my birthday and Valentine’s Day. The weather was very warm—although rainy, but I was inside most of the time—judging Hallmark Award entries. I even judged most evenings, although we did go out to Cock of the Walk for catfish on my birthday. A restaurant called Shapleys—which has the best Filet Mignon that I have ever had, is right across from the hotel, so we went there on Friday evening. Otherwise we ate breakfast and a light supper at the hotel every day.
One neat thing was we got a Hyundai for our rental and Bob noticed it only had 11 miles on it—that must be the trip odometer—nope, it was a brand new car—it even still had that new car smell. Saturday was Valentines Day and that’s when we flew home. We did have enough time in the cities so Ross and Richard could pick us up for lunch at TGI Fridays. One of their new dishes was Macaroni and Cheese—not like the boxed Kraft kinds, but four cheeses on penne. It was really good. All four of us split a vanilla bean cheese cake. Then it was home to the cold again.
