Thanksgiving in Kansas City - November 2012

For Thanksgiving this year I went with Nancy to Kansas City where her daughter lives.  I had never been to that part of the world before and I admit I didn't know much about it.   When I asked people what to do they everyone said Eat Barbecue and Listen to Music.   I did experience the barbecue, but alas no music this time.

Flying at Thanksgiving is always a difficult procedure - the busiest travel season of the year.   Nevertheless, the outbound journey was quite relaxed and I even managed to arrive earlier than expected on Wednesday evening.  

Thanksgiving morning, we all did a 5K run - Nancy, daughters Erica and Arden and Joey Erica’s fiance.  It was a small race compared to Sacramento’s mighty Run To Feed the Hungry (3rd largest in the nation) but it was fun and just what we needed to make us feel good about all the excessive eating.

For Thanksgiving Dinner we prepared the usual fare - turkey, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, the works.  In Arden’s apartment, we were a little deficient in cooking utensils, but we managed to pull it off and I made a good job of massacring the turkey with a small and not very sharp knife.

That evening we walked around a nearby section of town. This area known as the Country Club Plaza is the home of one of the first suburban shopping centers in the US.  It is quite the work of art with lots of beautiful Spanish style ornate buildings - lots of hand painted tile, lots of towers.  That night the streets were thronged for the ceremonial “lighting of the lights”.   All a bit anticlimactic really - thousands of people waiting for a few lights to be turned on.   Those mid-westerners are easily impressed.

Country Club Plaza

Country Club Plaza - all lit up!

Friday came with a blast of cold air - it was in the 60’s on Thursday and then on Friday it was down in the 30’s - that is quite the steep cooling trend.  We made a quick visit to the Kemper Museum of Modern Art.   A nice museum, not very large, and free entry to all.   Then it was off to sample the famed Kansas City Barbecue.  One of the best places in town apparently is Oklahoma Joe’s - it was listed by Anthony Bourdain’s as one of the top 13 places to eat before you die, albeit at number 13 in that list. The place is in a strip mall in a converted gas station and, of course, we weren’t the only ones wanting to eat there - there was a line out of the door.  Our patience paid off with a wonderful selection of barbecue meats. Not something that I would want to eat all the time, but on this occasion, it was mouth-wateringly wonderful.

We then took a tour of the downtown area and wandered around in the older parts of town.  There are some remarkable buildings in KC.  Lots of great architecture - most of it old from the early 1900’s I would imagine, but then some great modern buildings too like the concert hall (the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts).  It looks like the older parts of downtown are being gentrified as they are in a lot of cities now and loft conversions were everywhere.   Everyone wants to live in a “loft” these days.

In the late afternoon we took a quick tour around the Nelson Atkins museum.   This is a larger museum/art gallery and, like the Kemper, totally free.   It stands in a large park and it has an old section and a more modern wing.   The modern wing is clad in this translucent skin and as night falls it looks quite amazing with the glowing light from the interior illuminating the building.

The Nelson Atkins Museum at dusk

The next morning Nancy wanted a photograph of the family for her Christmas Card so we were again off to the Nelson Atkins museum area to capture the perfect shot.  I must have taken 300 or so photographs of everyone in various poses and positions around the museum.  It was cold and it was windy so as the day progressed people’s patience was running short and their noses were getting redder.   I learned how difficult it was to get four people looking good for a photograph at the same time.  Particularly when three of them were women.  The guy Joey was just fine in every shot, but it was rare to get all the women happy with their faces or hair or posture at the same time.

One of the many photos

Later that day we toured the Union Station - like all the old railway stations this was an impressive structure.  It must have been a wonderful place when people traveled by train in large numbers.   Now of course there aren’t many travelers and it houses a few restaurants and shops.  There is a sad little waiting room off to the side for what remains of train travel in the US today.    

The Union Station was the site of the infamous Kansas City Massacre where 5 people were killed in an attempt to free a criminal in custody.  There is a memorial plaque outside the station and the scars on the entrance wall are allegedly bullet holes from the event.  If you read the details here you see it was a bit of a botched job by the FBI.

Union Station and Downtown Kansas City

On Sunday we did a couple more museums.   The first was the World War 1 Museum.  A monument and unexpectedly good museum telling the story more from the American viewpoint.  A great guided tour too and I even felt I learned a lot (e.g. I didn’t know that Germany approached Mexico to join in and attack the USA.   Pretty bold move on Germany’s part).

The second museum was the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, just 10 miles up the road from Kansas City.  That was my first visit to a Presidential Library and I was suitably impressed.   The whole span of Truman’s life was laid out.   He made some tough decisions during his presidency and he set the ball rolling for a more interventionist USA.   It was fascinating to imagine Truman returning from Washington to live in little old Independence Missouri.  It is not a very impressive town - bit of a dump really.

Nancy, Harry Truman, Arden

I left Nancy on Sunday evening to return home.  Alas it was not a smooth trip - delayed flight out of Kansas City, late arrival in SFO, missed connection to Sacramento, night in the airport, fog delayed departure from SFO to Sacramento the next day.   I haven’t had a bad travel experience like that for some time.

Again, there are more photos here.

Formula One Grand Prix - Austin, Tx - November 2012

The weekend of 17, 18 November was the penultimate F-1 Grand Prix of 2012 held in Austin, Texas.   My friend Dave who lives in Austin had secured some tickets and since I had always wanted to go to an F-1 event I splurged on a weekend pass for the three days (Friday practice, Saturday practice and qualifying, and the race on Sunday).   

View of Track from the top of the tower

This was the first time Formula 1 had been back to America since Indianapolis in 2007 and the Austin people had built a fine new track just for the event - the Circuit of the Americas.   It was all very impressive, though I gather there had been all sorts of complications along the way to completing the project and it was touch and go whether things would go ahead for a while.   They pulled it all together in the end and from what I could see they did a fine job.

My outbound trip was not that smooth, I missed a connection in Denver that necessitated a diversion through Houston and a late arrival in Austin.  As a result I missed the Friday practice session.  Nevertheless I did get into Austin on Friday night and had the pleasure of seeing the finishing touches being applied to my friend Dave’s new house on Lake Travis.   It was the first night they had stayed in the house and things were a hive of activity getting ready for guests on that first night.

On Saturday morning we went out to the track for the qualifying sessions.  Dave had a friend who put together a bus to take about 25 of us out to the track.  That was the nice and relaxing way to do it and we didn’t have to worry about driving and parking.  

Looking down to Pit Lane from Turn 1

The track itself was quite impressive and so were the crowds. Formula 1 has some hard core fans that pay some serious money to visit these events.   I avoided paying $50 for a Red Bull T shirt, or $150 for a slicker Ferrari shirt.  As you can imagine all the concessions were seriously overpriced.  I did shell out $35 to get to the top of the tower in the middle of the track.  It provides a nice view of the entire course and the surrounding area.  

We parked ourselves at Turn 1 for the first qualifying.   An impressive tight turn at the top of a hill where they slow from 200 Km/hr to next to nothing (or so it seems) to make the corner.  For the second and third qualifying sessions I went to our seats in the Grandstand area - across from the pits and on a high speed straightaway

Its all very exciting stuff - the kind that makes shivers go down your spine - the speed, the noise, the technology.... wonderful stuff.  Of course, I soon realized I had no clue which car was which - all the Red Bulls and Toro Rossos looked the same, I couldn’t even differentiate the Ferraris.   I had to brush up on the car’s livery and then figure out that a color coding on the camera on top of the car identifies the different drivers on the same team.  

Qualifying looked a piece of cake for Vettel and the Red Bulls, though Hamilton did squeeze in between Vettel and Webber for second place on the starting grid.

That night we were joined by a couple more old friends from the late 70’s when we were all working together in Sacramento.   We had Dave Close (our host), Dave Vaughan (from Sacramento), Mike Meadows (from Houston), Geoff Stephenson (now in Austin) and myself - five old geezers reminiscing about the old days and the good times we had.

Dave Close, Mike Meadows, Dave Vaughan

For Sunday’s race we again went out by bus.  The traffic was quite bad getting in.   They haven’t built any infrastructure like new roads to the track as yet.

It was amazing to see we had protesters picketing outside of the entrance.  The infamous Westboro Baptist Church had decided that the worshippers of F1 race car drivers are evil and will go to hell.  They had all sorts of hateful placards on the road to the track.   Still I suppose that’s better than what they are more notorious for - the picketing of US soldiers funerals.

One of the Red Bulls - Vettel or Webber

The race itself was pretty exciting - the noise alone was amazing.   Ear plugs are essential.  While we did have good seats, across from the pit lane, we didn’t get to see much beyond cars flying by. There was little to no overtaking on our stretch.   The 3 second tire changes in the pits in front of us were impressive to watch however.

Vettel flying by our seats

Vettel and Hamilton were in a battle throughout the race and Hamilton just managed to squeeze by the German about ⅔ through the race.   He then held the lead to the finish.  Alonso was a distant third, keeping the championship alive for the last race next week in Brazil.

My final challenge of the weekend was to find my ride to the airport.   Since it was expected to be a slow exit and since the bus was not going to the airport, I had arranged for another friend to take me there.  All well and good, but where was this person - he wasn’t sitting with us and there were 120,000 people there all rushing for the same exits.  Cell service was so overloaded calls were not going through, texts were taking ages to get through.   I had abandoned the bus way out and now couldn’t find my friend.  That caused me some anxiety, until we finally made phone contact and were able to guide each other to a rendezvous.

All in all a great weekend.  And while watching a race on the TV is the best way of seeing everything and receiving expert commentary, being there was pretty exciting. 

As usual here are some more photos.