Good Evening Friends – Really I promise I’m going to get better at this blogging business and start doing more frequent posts, I promise!  Of course Eddie is not impressed, but generally he dislikes anything that pulls my focus away from him. 

Not impressed.

This past weekend I made a trip to Kansas City and was able to spend some quality time with my Kansas City Family.  Prior to moving to Dallas, and my sister’s spare bedroom, I had lived in the Kansas City area for 12 years, and I have been fortunate to have established some very strong friendships.  I hadn’t been back to KC since my move to do anything fun and hadn’t seen my very best friends – Rick & Jerry, Nell, Sabrina, and my friends from the Elite 11 Pace Group.  As an added bonus this was the weekend of the Kansas City Marathon and one of my favorite times of year in Kansas City!

So after consulting with Rick, we decided he would pick me up at the airport on Thursday morning and we would make a quick trip to Silver Dollar City in Branson… yes, Branson.  Rick & Jerry love Roller Coasters and they’ve sucked me into the thrill and SDC just happens to have the only wooden roller coaster that inverts you twice – Outlaw Run– and IT IS AWESOME! And if you’ve never experienced the cheesiness that is SDC you really are missing out.  How can you not love handcrafts, glass blowing, candlemaking, hill billys and all that goes along with life in the Ozarks.  This might surprise some of you but I LOVE IT!

So Rick and I have been friends for about 9 years now, and I would have to say that he’s probably the nearest thing to a soul mate that I have.  Sadly he’s just not that into me, but I love his other half Jerry too.  I can go months without seeing Rick and/or Jerry and when we get back together its like we’ve never been apart.  Rick tolerates my running (ignoring all my facebook posts that are running related), but he was there at the finish line for my very first marathon!  And I try to accept his love of the Royals and all things baseball related, (but I love hotdogs and beer so that’s not too difficult).  He also appreciates the Captain and Tennille, Love Will Keep Us Together!  So anyway, I was not surprised that when Rick picked me up on Thursday morning that all of the following occurred 1)He was late (but so was I in a way), 2)We had to go to his church to take care of a few things and 3)he still needed to pack.  Of course is would not be uncommon for me to pull the very same thing with him 🙂 

Sadly we are both unhealthy, workaholics so we both spent way too much time emailing, texting and talking to work…

But we did ride Outlaw Run, Fire in the Hole (my very firs coaster,) Wildfire, and Powder Keg; before consuming a funnel cake and buying out the candy store.

Thursday night we kept it classy and hung out in our hotel room, the Branson Hotel; drank moonshine and beer and ate pizza and most of the candy we purchased at Brown’s Candy shop.  Did I mention that I was planning to un a 1/2 Marathon on Saturday?  And just in case you missed the memo I can open a bottle of beer with the side of my fist.  I think I learned that skill back in my days at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra or it might have been at Oklahoma City University – but either way it comes in handy when you have a 6 pack of pop tops and no bottle opener!

Friday morning we headed back out to SDC, but it was crowded and Outlaw Run was down so we decided to get our Old Timey Picture taken!  I have it on tin type and everything. I am so sorry that I didn’t scan the picture in and I don’t have the password for the website to share – but we dressed as bandits and had guns! 

Then after a little more shopping, it was time to hit the road as Rick had to work a wedding at his church, he’s the wedding coordinator, and I had an appointment with the bar at Bluestem, and our friend Sabrina aka Sadrinka. The lounge at Bluestem is one of my all time favorite place and really whats wrong with eating Shrimp and Grits, this delightful Smore concoction and drinking some red wine the night before a race?

Stay tuned for part 2 – the race and more roller coasters!