KANSAS CITY : there + back.
my bosses got married over the weekend. which sounds a little strange, but that's nothing compared to the way it sounded when i tried to explain the dynamic in the office when they were still just dating. there was always that unspoken reaction of "oh that could be a potentially disastrous situation."
i didn't know them before they started dating, and i didn't watch it grow from nothing to something, so i guess i may be a little biased, but no. i never saw potentially disastrous. to me, they always made sense.
they were married in kansas city, where she is from. so my co-workers and i (plus a girlfriend) road-tripped out there early saturday morning. we rented a car, split the costs, and made a few memories along the way. it was a GOOD TIME, if you know what i mean.
(it's just that the company is called good time inc, and that pun will never not be funny.)
none of us really thought that far in advance. which is to say, we all piled into the car at 6am and none of us knew what address to put in the gps. we knew it would take eight-ish hours, but there was no real mapped out plan. (talk about potentially disastrous.)
we stopped at a starbucks outside st. louis and realized, illinois! you pass through illinois to get to kansas city! we're good at geography. (the boys up front who were driving+navigating were all, "oh you didn't know?" but when you sit in the back where the seats recline, you don't pay attention to road signs.) i don't know that any of us realized, or fully processed, that we'd even pass through st. louis either. because, look! there's the arch! i snapped that photo from the back seat, by stretching my arm to the windshield, and then cropped. a lot.
we arrived in kansas city, had a minute to explore the place we were staying (we did airbnb, which means you stay at someone else's house and looking in their closets and in the fridge and through their record collection is a given), got all fancied up, and made it to the wedding with plenty of time to spare. high fives to us for sort of winging everything and being exactly on time.
the wedding was beautiful and the bride looked GOREGOUS and the groom danced so hard he split his pants. but no surprise there, as he's been wearing a wrist brace for the past three months because of an injury he got from ...dancing. (not kidding.)
it's interesting going to a wedding where you can count on one hand the number of people you know. it's a little like a mini adventure (speaking as an introvert), but it's also loads of fun, once you've had a few cocktails and why not let that dance train bring you back out onto the dance floor into a group of people you've never met before?
the next day, we made our way back to nashville but not without stopping in st. louis to enjoy the best bbq in the country (in 2012), or so says ...whoever hands out those types of awards. we found it by googling our food options in st. louis and it was for sure worth the wait.
but since there was a wait, we weren't sure if going to the arch was still on the table. we thought maybe we could just drive close to it, get a good shot, and keep moving. but the road was closed and we somehow ended up in the parking garage instead. so we got out, because why not?
and then we went inside to see how much it was to the top, because apparently going to the top a thing you can do. (!!) the price was right, and why not?
super neat, but also kind of freaky because you're basically like leaning over the edge and looking straight down, and i'm a little afraid of heights even if there are windows and walls completely closing you in.
and then, you know, after a day full of because-we-can delays, we finally made it back to nashville.
the end.