Kansas City

On Wednesday we drove 285 miles from St. Louis to KC with Robin as co-pilot. Our first task was to pickup my brother Scott at Kansas City International Airport. I decided to rent a car at the airport, use it to run around KC and have Robin return it when he caught his flight back to California at KCI. We discovered that Missouri is not real big on signage. Usually the direction signs said “You Just Passed Your Exit” or something to that effect. We finally found the Enterprise Rental Facility at KCI and the folks there were friendly and helpful and gave us a nice car. Scott took the Rental Shuttle from the terminal to the rental facility and we picked him up. We left the airport and headed to Basswood RV Park, located under the flight path of KCI. It turned out this did not matter. We got to Basswood and after a very efficient check-in process (NOT) we were led to our site by an extremely jolly employee (NOT). We had time to get Shirley all set up for the night then we headed to Kauffman Stadium, home of the KC Royals. After one or two missed signs, we got to the Stadium, got parked, and bought tickets for some very nice seats.

Kauffman Stadium is an older park but very well maintained. The playing field appears small but is 385’ down the lines and 400’ to straightaway center field. The capacity is 39,000 but looks smaller. The overall feel of the park is very comfortable and has to rank in the top six or seven nicest parks. I wanted a picture of Scott and Robin with the field in the background and I asked Lindsay Usher to pose with them. She consented and really adds some class to the picture. I found out her last name was not Usher. I saw “Usher” on the back of her shirt and thought it was her name like on the ballplayers shirts. Come to find out, it was her job title.

The only drawback at Kauffman was the food selection. Scott is a vegetarian and we thought there might be a salad available. Wrongo dongo, if it ain’t beef, it ain’t at Kauffman. He finally found a pizza and when he asked for cheese-only topping, the counterman thought he was either from another planet or California. The video scoreboard was crystal clear and was the best signage we saw in western Missouri.

The game was very well played. The Angels and Royals went back and forth with aggressive base running, well placed hits, and good fielding plays. The one bad fielding play was when Torii Hunter of the Angels played shallow when David DeJesus was up. DeJesus is in the Royals all-time top ten for doubles and triples and one might suspect he can put the ball to the wall. He did and the Royals scored two runs on a triple hit over Hunter’s head. The final score was 6-3 Royals.

We headed back to Basswood RV Park and only missed one sign on our return. We got to the park and made preparations for bed. A previous camper had left a big log smoldering in a fire pit and the smoke was being blown right into poor old Shirley. Being the good firefighter that I am, I mopped up the log very handily. This was an unnecessary action. So now you are wondering why the flight path of a big ol’ jet liner (thank you, Steve Miller) and the smoking log didn’t matter. Shortly after we got in our separate beds, nature put on a show. The lightning flashed, the thunder drowned out the sound of the jets, and the pounding rain flooded the fire pit. The show went on all night and it was well after wakey time when it quit.