Jules and Alex are reunited again! Though Alex has returned from the Alaskan wilderness, new and different adventures are waiting in the Big City. We have taken it upon ourselves to be more sophisticated in our adventuring which has led us to explore the arts.
The location of our first adventure was Shawnee Mission Park which is usually the site of some of our best outdoor adventures in Kansas City. However, on Labor Day we went to the park to attend a free concert by the Kansas City Symphony at the open air theater. It was an absolutely glorious evening and we even got to see part of the sunset. We joined hundreds of other patrons of the arts (I guess instead of fans people who like the arts are patrons) sitting on blankets listening to strains of Tchaikovsky floating through the air. Another highlight to this concert was that a few of the selections were movie scores such as the Death March from Star Wars or the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean. Finally, the other reason why this was so wonderful was the entire concert lasted less than an hour- the perfect length since we enjoyed the performance but it wasn't too long (We enjoy fine art to a certain extent but also have our limits.)
Our next outing was to the Plaza Art Fair. Each year hundreds of artists set up booths in the Plaza to display their art and everyone and their dogs (literally) enjoys wandering around the Plaza being artsy (we pretended). Again it was a beautiful fall Saturday morning (I think the weather has a big part in dictate how much we enjoy these events) as we strolled along discussing our favorite pieces. There was some outstanding photography and paintings as well as some “art” that we weren’t quite sure what it was or what a person would do with it. After fighting the crowds and walking around we were inspired by the art to go back to our quiet apartment, eat lunch, and take a nap. The other adventure associated with going to the Plaza Art Fair was driving there. Alex loves city driving anyway but decided to take on the challenge to driving to the Plaza, navigating the one-way or closed streets, the hordes of cars and pedestrians, and parking in a parking garage (this was better than the thought of attempting to parallel park).
On a much less (I really mean very much less) sophisticated scale, Alex had the pleasure of working at the Kansas Speedway parking cars for the NASCAR event. It was a fundraiser for her physical therapy class and required getting up at 4:30am on Saturday and Sunday to attempt to tell NASCAR fans how to drive and where to park. The highlights of the day was getting to go stargazing and watch sunrise at the same time. Over 130,000 fans were expected to attend the race on Sunday. I noted quite a difference between crazed NASCAR fans and the patrons of the arts. After standing for nine hours out in the clouds of dust and getting my first sunburn of the year I decided that there is a good reason why I am spending so much of my time going to school just for the fact that hopefully I won’t have to park cars for a living. Although it was slightly enjoyable to tell semis were to park or tell an RV they need to move just because I had the authority of wearing an orange vest and waving my handy orange parking flag.
Finally, we celebrated Columbus Day with a party. (Basically this part is included in this blog just so the title can be an alliteration.) We had enchiladas, chips and salsa, and mango fruit drink. We listened to salsa music via Pandora radio. (Pandora makes perfect dinner music or sound tracks for any occasion much easier now). Now I realize some of you might be wondering why we were celebrating a holiday remembering an Italian by eating Spanish food instead of spaghetti. The main reason is because enchiladas were already on the menu and spaghetti wasn’t (I don’t deviate from what is planned to be spontaneous even in the event of a celebration). Also, Columbus sailed for the King of Spain so it still works (kind of) and we got to have a good time without being bothered by the minor details such as nationality.
