The Good Life In Kansas City

Finally, Granny And Marlena

It's 7:20 and I have been up for an hour, enjoying a coffee and quiet, reading on my computer, happy not to have to drive anywhere today.  Everyone else is sleeping in on a partly cloudy 48º morning here in Lee's Summit, a suburb of KC.  

Morning In Missouri

Coffee With My Pal, Bella

We left Dallas yesterday just before 8:00, drove to the major highway north, # 75, six lanes of aggressive drivers, stayed with it for 30 miles of Dallas suburbs until we reached some semblance of the Texas countryside.  And before I knew it, we were in Oklahoma, another state of flatlands and a few hills.  

Road Tripping Detours

We deliberately avoided the major highways and took #69 through Oklahoma, a divided highway that went north through a number of small towns, slowing us down, but still better than a big freeway.  We then took #44 to Joplin, MO, and it was then a straight two-hour shot north to Kansas City.  We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, our new go-to snack, stopped a couple of times, once for a Wendy's.  Our GPS predicted we would arrive at my son Tom's at 4:05 but we were a bit later, at 4:30 because of a detour. 

Mary, Tom, And Bella

It was wonderful to see Tom, Mary, and their 18-year-old daughter, Marlena, after 18 months of quarantine. They are all doing well, have their shots, and like us, are starting to slowly get their lives back to normal.  Today is an exciting day for Marlena, her senior prom, or a semblance of one with some care spent for safe distancing at the dance. I forgot to mention that Bella, their dog, was ecstatic to see us, remembering us from years past. 

We sat around catching up on the past year, planning our first get-together this summer at the lake.  Tom had bought five pounds of mussels for appetizers, so I cleaned half of them while he made a wine/garlic and shallots for Moules Mariniere.  We dumped them in the pan with the wine sauce, simmered for three minutes until they were open, and enjoyed them with pita bread.  They were great, making us wonder why we never have them at the lake. 

For dinner we had steelhead trout, a fish we have never eaten and we liked it better than salmon and hope to get it back at Chautauqua if available.  We had rice and a salad to complement our fish, just right after our mussels.  We did not finish until 8:00 and debated what to watch on TV, not wanting a movie, so we settled on The Great English Baking Show, not Tommy's favorite as you can see although the rest of us really liked it.  We watched one episode and we were all ready for bed after a long day on the road.

Enjoying The Great English Baking Show?