Thursday, October 27, 2005

Tour de Kansas 2005

Last weekend one of my greatest friends, Tai, got married to Ryan. Tai and Ryan first made out on Halloween three years ago when we were seniors. Ryan was dressed as Pee Wee Herman and Tai a princess. Friends from being teaching assistants together, Tai put some of her princess makeup applicator skills to work and applied blush to Ryan's cheeks to create for him a more authentic Pee Wee ensemble. Four hours later they were making out on the dance floor at one of our college bars. One week later Tai convinced Ryan they should skip all the awkwardness and just date and three years later I found myself journeying through Kansas in their honor.


Tai and I shared a bathroom and close bedroom quarters together for two years in college, along with two other individuals who were confined to the basement. I give her props for always dealing with my loud bedframe hitting the blinds, my frequent moodiness, and her constant upbeat attitude towards things like cleaning the bathroom. She's one of a kind and her wedding was too. Not just that it was unique, but the sheer love that Tai and Ryan as a couple project both to themselves and to their friends and family just blows me away. It was perfect.


Thursday morning "Tour de Kansas" began. I rode that orange line and braved Southwest to Kansas City, Missouri. Checked the heck out of a Sebring at Thrifty (only the best for this girl) and drove out west to Overland Park to have lunch with another college friend, Erin. I ran some last minute wedding errands and then headed back out to the airport to pick up Lisa, one of the basement-dwellers at our house for two years. Lisa is my kindred spirit. She's got the makeup skills of Carmindy on TLC's What Not To Wear but she spends her days disguised as a smarty-pants satellite builder in Albuquerque. She belongs in our city of Chicago, but she's doing important stuff out there in the desert so, you know, I try to put on my eye make-up myself.


So after the airport Lisa and I made our way to city #2, Leavenworth. Not only is this city home of the infamous prison, Leavenworth is also the birthplace of both Melissa Etheridge and Wayne Simien (as the welcome visitors signs so indicate) and also where Lisa was raised by Mama Harriet, a lady with a heart of gold, a passion for Party Lite candles, and a habit of taking in stray Asian exchange students.


The next day we were on the road again. There was a lot more Kansas to be had. Our destination was the wedding locale: Tai's hometown, Hutchinson. A town south of Wichita, Hutchinson is best known for it's local attraction, the Cosmosphere, and as the host city of the Kansas State Fair, where Britney Spears once gave a concert- probably before her "Hit Me Baby One More Time" heyday.


After the wedding we had one last day of meet-and-greets. With a plane to catch back in Kansas City, Missouri, Lisa and I really had to put the Sebring to the test to get it promptly across the state of Kansas. Our first stop on the way back was in Topeka. Ah, the lovely state Capital. The place where I once would make journeys to Sam's Club and where my old trusty Toyota blew out a tire. We were visiting a college friend of Lisa's. An hour later a timer signaled our tryst in Topeka must be over in order to stay on schedule so we headed off to our last destination: the mecca that is Lawrence.


Sigh, beautiful Lawrence, home of the University of Kansas and where I spent a solid four years. Everytime I go back there I realize that Lawrence has a big piece of me. We meet and greeted with Steph over some Quinton's baked potato soup, got to see Steph's lifesblood- the STA Travel kiosk, and take random pictures around campus while it was gloomy and rainy outside. I miss that freaking place.



Here's a picture of our campus. We walk through that large bell tower and down the hill into the football stadium when we graduate. It's superstitious to walk through it before graduation, so we hadn't gotten a chance to get to look around in there until this weekend. It's cool.





And this is a picture of Jayhawk Boulevard, the main street on campus that you walk down to get to class. Love it in the fall.


So all in all it was a very successful trip. We got to the aiport in plenty of time for my flight to be delayed, of course. Great weekend. Sox won the world series last night. Tomorrow I dress like a pseudo Jolly Green Giant. All is well.