Kansas: America’s Heartland. And home to one of my undergraduate friends Chris Lansdell, who works as a Marketing Manager for the University of Kansas athletics department in Lawrence, KS. The home of the Jayhawks, KU is a 5-time National Champion and is considered to be one of the nation’s bluebloods of men’s college basketball. As a college sports junkie, I naturally had to visit their home: Allen Fieldhouse, also know as “The Phog”. Of course, as a fan of the Duke Blue Devils, I am quite partial to Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, NC; however, standing on James Naismith Court (named for the inventor of the game of basketball who also happened to start KU’s basketball program) in Allen Fieldhouse was still an awesome experience that every fan of basketball could appreciate.
After a quick tour of campus, we headed down to Massachusetts Ave. in downtown (referred to locally as just “Mass”) to meet up with Ryan Mallat, a Clemson friend who lives just down the road in Kansas City. We had dinner at The Free State Brewing Company, a must-see for all Lawrence visitors, and then paid patronage to a few other local hangouts. Boasting a Jimmy Buffet/Key West theme, Sandbar was definitely Stef’s favorite and the highlight of the night. It was here that we also picked up another Road Warrior passenger – the plastic shark novelty included with Sandbar’s signature drink “Shark Attack”. We have named her Sandy and she now rides on Billie’s front dashboard next to Bella (the GSP). From her prime viewing location, she is ensured a front row seat to all of our remaining road trip adventures. Welcome aboard Sandy!
Planning to leave for Denver early in the morning, we finally headed home to call it a night. Up to this point in the trip, we have been quite fortunate to have not had any major delays due to weather, car trouble, or illness…until now. The weather report for Denver revealed an early snowstorm expected to dump two to three feet of snow in parts of Colorado. Since neither Stefany nor I are particularly adept at driving in snow, we decided to play it safe and stay in Kansas for an extra day. Smart decision? Yes! We woke up to discover that I-70 between the Kansas border and Denver had been closed due to blizzard conditions. So, we found a Panera Bread, ate some soup and caught up on email. We also did a little Halloween costume shopping and then met up with Chris for some Mexican for dinner.Although it seemed as though I-70 might be closed for another day, we awoke the next morning to better weather conditions and open highways; so, we quickly packed up and headed to our next destination: Denver, CO – home of Emily Crowley.
