DK My Way: Travel Daze

Packed and ready to roll out.

Thursday I needed to be ready to roll with Tony by 11:00am when he and I agreed he should swing by to pick me and my stuff up. Thursday morning when I awoke at 5:30am I did not have a thing packed.

Yeah.....that's an issue. 

So, I get the kids off to school and say goodbye to Mrs. Guitar Ted as she leaves for work, and I get cracking. I had a mental checklist of things I was going to take, so it went smoothly, and in the end, I even had time to run to the bank and sit on the porch with a cup of coffee and watch the local city maintenance guys chop down a three story tall cottonwood that had gotten damaged in a recent storm.

Tony rolled up and we were off with fair skies and a hope for good times ahead. Things were going smoothly when suddenly Tony mentioned food and we were sliding over to the gravel parking area next to a food truck in a tiny village called Albion Iowa. I looked and it was a pork and tenderloin affair. We both got the tenderloin without the bun and a coleslaw side with a drink. Holy smokes! Was that ever a good bit of meat. Just shows that you never know where you might find a good meal.

Someone had an accident which bottle necked I-435. We were stopped at this point.

If there were some way to get to Emporia efficiently from where we live without going near Kansas City, we would do that. But unfortunately, we ended up mired in traffic in KC, and of course, it was during rush hour. Oh well......

That was a mere blemish on what otherwise was a fun, decent trip down to Emporia. We got our room secured at Emporia State University, and we went there to check in first off. Last year the air conditioning was broken, and the stay was, well......miserable. This time, as we went into the residence hall, Tony remarked that the air was working. That was a good sign but when we opened the door to room 712 of the South Residence Hall, boy howdy!

It may not look like much, but for what we needed, it was perfect.

 We opened that door and it felt like a walk in cooler. Awesome! We actually had to turn the A/C down a bit, it was so cold. Cheers to the Emporia State Maintenance/HVAC crew! They had the air crankin' all weekend and it was much appreciated. Next order of business was to get something to eat. We went to the Radius Brewing Company, which also has really great, inexpensive food, and top notch service. The Black IPA was really killer, and a beer and my soup and sandwich was under $12.00. Crazy.

After this we went to Mulready's Pub and sat and sampled some more different IPA's before heading back to our personal walk in cooler that just happened to be a bedroom and went to sleep. We had a full day on Friday to do all sorts of things and we were really looking forward to meeting our friends.

Next: DK My Way: Gravel Family Reunion