You either get a fever or you're neurologically diseased: Colorado and Kansas Day 7 and 8 and 9/home

So, these days weren't nothing days by any stretch of the imagination. Day 7 was mostly driving,  it's about a 9 hour drive from the springs to KC. We left fairly early so we'd get in fairly early...I really felt pretty shit the day we drove to KC, but pretty shit in a way that was mostly feeling better? Still assy, but assy in a sexy way. Not sexy. Just normal. 

All I wanted was ramen, so I looked up places in Kansas City where I could find vegan broth and keto friendly toppings. We have given Jinya in KC enough fuckin' chances, it was time to try somewhere new. I found KC Craft Ramen. And it fuckin' delivered.

Look how fucking cute it is in there! Anime was playing on every single TV, and there were figurines EVERYWHERE. Two of our kiddos collect the figurines, Vivi and Laurel. We for sure sent pictures to both of them. 

They seated us outside, which was perfect, since I was sick. 

But we still had a TV! Playing Pokemon! Perfect for Derek!

Their menu was pretty great, and most importantly, they had keto friendly noods for me, and vegan options for me. I was in ramen heaven! 

Gotta get the spicy edamame, obviously. 

So I forgot to ask them to remove the corn from my ramen, but I was still feeling gross, so I indulged in some grain. Delicious. And the cold, crisp green onion shreds on top were a game changer. I crave that shit on everything now. 

Derek got his usual char siu ramen, and while I thought the pork looked like it was lacking color and flavor, he reported that it was amazing. 

After ramen, we went to a card shop and got me something I have been coveting for ages. 

I fucking LOVE playing Magic the Gathering. Love it. One of my clients was a huge fan of playing, as well, and we would sometimes have our outings be going to coffee shops and playing MTG for a few hours. I had largely stopped playing because I had nobody to play with, and I have all of these cards (around 2500 MTG cards from releases before Bloomburrow) just sitting and collecting dust. Some of them are pretty decent value cards, and they're all in great shape. I've been trying to unload them for awhile, though, and while I was glad I got some use out of them for the two years I was at Easterseals, I have just lost steam for playing. Derek has asked me why I don't join any of the various nerd nights in town, and the answer is pretty easy: I'm a girl. My experience with dudes who play MTG is they are not fucking friendly to me, and whenever I beat some dude at a random card night before, they always said I was just lucky, and they're really dismissive. So randos burned me out on drop in games. Derek says the community here seems pretty nice, but eh. I'd rather just get rid of my cards. 

While I am still actively trying to unload my previous MTG cards, in August of 2024 MTG released a set called Bloomburrow, and it's based on pretty much every animal related piece of media I loved as a kid, drawing a LOT from Redwall. I fucking LOVED the Redwall series. I tried reading my favorite one, Mattimeo, to the kids a few years back, but neither of them were interested. When I discovered this MTG offering, I fucking needed it. 

So I started buying commander decks. Play boosters. Pre-packaged decks. I got the pre-release deck. I have been collecting these almost the entire time they've been released, and I love them. I have 67% of the regular issue cards, and 87% of the commander deck issue cards. I have two gorgeous binders (one for commander, one for standard issue, obviously) where my cards are very lovingly sleeved, then tucked away, in order. I keep meaning to put up an Ebay shop with all of my rares and rare foils, because I have a fuck ton of them. I have gotten to a point in my card collecting journey where I "need" the collector booster packs, though. And friends...those cost some cash. 

But I got one. Two, actually. We got two of these for me.

Now, they have since WAY shot up in price...a collector booster box is currently going for 897 on TCGPlayer, and I didn't pay nearly that fucking much for the two the we bought in KC. I bought two for far less than that price, actually. We ALMOST bought a third, and still would have paid less than the price of one currently, but I said that was too extravagant. I'm regretting it now. However, even with two collector booster boxes, I got a LOT of doubles. They're still rare cards, but I ended up being glad I only bought two boxes, because I'm still swimming in doubles...but I DID get some really great cards out of them, rounded out my collection a LOT. 

You can see my binders and my spreadsheets. I'm not fucking around here. 

So I'm at the point in my collecting where I need to just...buy the specific cards, because it isn't economical to buy boosters anymore, and given the current price of collector boosters, it CERTAINLY isn't economical to buy any more of those. I got to take advantage of a fucking AMAZING price window from a guy who didn't really know what he had, and he has since figured it out and raised his prices accordingly. I know this because I went to go buy another box from him our last time in KC ( about a month ago, as of this writing) and his prices currently match the barely under a grand pricing everywhere else. 

UNFORTUNATELY. 

Most of the cards I need now are the rare, pricey ones. I'm not going to mind tossing 20 or so bucks at a card, but some of them are actively in the hundreds. Some of them like this super lucky pull I got:

I screamed when I pulled this, I was so fucking excited. She's currently going for around 300 ungraded, and 5-650 graded. I pulled a few other big ticket cards, but she's my biggest. 

And this is literally what I spent my evening doing. Blissfully opening up MTG booster packs and sorting them into piles when they didn't go into my binders, and updating my lists for my new cards so I can keep track of which ones I have and which ones I need. 

The next morning, we had some business to attend to at the National Archives. I've been chronicling my grandfather's life, starting with my search for his soup, here and here, and I'm just about caught up in my blogging to get to the next couple of parts, and here is where that rubber meets the road. 

So.

Derek and I went and got coffee from a local roaster, it was magnificent, and headed off to The National Archives. I will not be writing terribly in depth about this in here, for this blog it will suffice to say that we spent about an hour at the National Archives, and the trip didn't bare much fruit, but it wasn't a total loss. 

After the national archives, I asked Derek to stop by the book library, and while it was sadly closed, being able to stop by was enough. I've always wanted to see it!

And after that, I felt like raw ass and told Derek I just wanted to go have more ramen and go back to the hotel. Which is exactly what we did. I won't share the ramen photos, we each had the same thing (except Derek got popcorn this time as a hospitable offering), and then we went to bed. We had a fairly big day ahead of us the next day, though it was going to be mostly driving. 

We woke up at a decent time, packed our shit into the car, and headed out to the Kansas City Zoo. We had high hopes for this zoo, and it...it let us down. While I was on the tail end of my illness, Derek was pulling into the beginning of his, so we were both not in a great headspace, but really the only nice part was the aquarium, and I started crying over the octopus. It makes me so sad that we gawk at these intelligent, amazing beings and they're prisoners. All of zoos make me think about that, but octopus really get me. Monkeys, as well. But we didn't go to the monkey section of the zoo, we left after the aquarium. What a fucking downer. 

And then we drove home. 

Phew. There we go. We have since gone BACK to pick up Vivian, went BACK to KC craft ramen with her, have taken a trip to Iowa, and are planning a trip to Vegas next year, and I am just now fucking finishing this blog. Incredible. 

You either get a fever or you're neurologically diseased: Colorado and Kansas Day 6

Well, friends, when I tell you I woke up this morning feeling like completely swampy chode, I mean it. 

Derek and I went to the zoo, and I took a LOT of photos, but I was so fucking blasted that they're just not worth posting any of them. Plus like, zoo photos from trips were cool in the 40s when photos were still a novelty. Now they're just kinda sad. I DID see a peacock having a deep moment of either personal awakening or Narcissus-like appreciation? In my video I described him as discovering the id. Not worth posting, though. 

I completely lost my cool about 2 hours into being at the zoo. I didn't fucking feel well, I was cranky and tired, I was hungry, I just wanted some soup and a nap. Derek agreed it was fine to leave, we've patroned the zoo dozens of times, and while the weather was glorious, if you've seen the moose hut once you've seen it once. 

We went back to the car, I found a Thai place close to the hotel, and we headed there for the soup I needed, tom kha. 

And they had a vegan menu just for me!!!

Fuck yeah, everything's comin' up Millhouse! AND they started us off with a gorgeous thin broth:

I'm assuming it was vegan, I'm not going to ask any questions. And I wasn't really in the mood that day. I kept my mask on, only pulling it down between bites, because I was pretty obviously ill. I know germs still spread that way, I did my best. I did ask to take everything back to the hotel, but Derek wanted to eat in the restaurant and then I selfishly couldn't help myself. I was hungry. 

Tom kha, tofu satay, and fried kabocha squash are exactly what I didn't know I needed. Derek ordered his usual Thai orders:

Pad thai, and green curry. 

We ate our lunch, and I wanted to go take a nap, but I told Derek I wanted to go hiking after napping. Which...come on. I was at the beginning of an illness and I'm all, "TAKE ME TO THE ROCKS!" with the same ferocity as dainty Victorian women pining for the seaside. 

When I woke up, I was ready to go. I felt like shit, I was ready to fucking go, a weird combination of things. But Derek didn't wake up enough to go. So after an hour of waiting and throwing an ill girl temper tantrum, I took myself. 

Back to the Twins hike! It isn't a long hike, which was perfect, because I felt like shit, I just wanted to be around rocks. 

We meet again, ominous sky. But I was pretty determined to finish the hike this time, because this was my third time here. I JUST WANTED TO FINISH THE FUCKING HIKE. 

I did it! I made it! And I forgot I felt like shit for awhile while I was up in the rocks. But I remembered on the way down. 

This was our last night in the springs, so when I got back to the hotel, Derek got up, I changed, and we went to get Vivi for going to dinner. We went back to the same Thai restaurant, took Vivi with us to go grab snacks for the road, then...I made Derek go to the best quick Mexican eats in the fuckin' city. 

Oh. Fuck. We had a place down the street from our house that we called Greasy with the most affection, it was not said to be insulting. While Mackenzie's was Derek's date litmus test, mine was Greasy. 

There are places like this all over town, but this...this is the best one. 

The BEST sauces and sides. The best in town. 

UGNNNGGFFFHHH. I rarely feel envious of eating meat, but this time...this time I wish I could have.

And then we dropped Vivi off at her dad's, went back to the hotel, and got ready to leave in the morning. 

You either get a fever or you're neurologically diseased: Colorado and Kansas trip day 5

While this was a pretty light day, it was still such a weird time weather wise, and that trend really stayed fairly true the entire time we were in the Springs. 

Derek and I had really wanted to do a few hikes while we were in the springs, but every time the weather looked alright, we got rained out. 

Every.

Fucking. 

Time. 

I woke up feeling a bit assier than I had the day before, so it didn't quite bother me as much that we kept getting thwarted by weather. I opted to just grab a Red Bull for my morning caffeine, so I was as raring to go as a buddingly ill person could be. We tried the Twins hike again:

Oh come on. 

It looks so fucking ominous over there, but then looking ahead on the trail, we saw this:

We decided to believe the blue sky. 

We chose poorly. 

We got back into the car just as the rain really fucking crashed the party. Colorado thunderstorms are gorgeous, but I don't like being outside when they're happening, I prefer to engage from a distance. 

By the time we got through GoG, the rain had stopped. Thwarted momentarily but not permanently, Derek and I decided to go try another fast hike. 

Pulpit Rock, baby! An enduring favorite, though not one I like to do in the summer. This is a spring or fall hike, because it's pretty exposed throughout, and while I love the sun, I also love to control my exposure to it. 

We were wary of the clouds, but Derek and I are pretty fast hikers when we have to be. So we hustled our way along. 

But uh oh...

Which way do we go????? 

We split up to see where we'd meet. And uh...while we did meet up, we have no idea where we met up? We didn't track it, so there goes that bit of science. 

It looks like a gorgeous day! Those clouds look fluffy and playful, not ominous! Derek and I got a little too confident and started ambling, just enjoying being in the warm together. And making friends!!

Definitely not a fan of mine. But I'm not a fan of gigantic things that loom over me and call me chonky, either. 

The clouds started to threaten a lot more than the blue sky in my photos would have you imagine, and I wanted to get back to the car with such quickness that I didn't even want to take a photo of the clouds rolling over us. And it's a good thing, too, because the moment we got to the trailhead, it started POURING. Just absolutely dumping on us. We drove back to the hotel to rest up for our date.

The first dressy, grown ups with disposable income date that Derek and I went on was to Mackenzie's Chop House. Derek explained to me that this was his litmus test for whether a woman was worth his time to date...seeing how she behaved in an upper echelon restaurant. Nevermind that this is super fucking classist, and super fucking sexist, and overall shitty...Derek still loves this place, and we've kind of made it a ritual to head there when we're in the Springs together. 

I do gripe to Derek that he just...doesn't set up touchstone dates for us? It's always me who says hey, we need a moment to reconnect, I feel disconnected, let's go have a weekend together, or let's go have a lunch together where the specific intention is being together and connecting. When we take trips, I plan what we do. I ask Derek and he's always like, I dunno. It's exhausting, I just kind of want to be doted on in every way once and awhile? But I'm pretty sure I planned our dinner to Mackenzie's. We hadn't done anything for our anniversary earlier in the year (nine years LEGALLY married), we were in the area, this seemed like a good thing to do. 

If you've never been, Mackenzie's is the kind of place that I think people would describe  as having "old world charm"? It's what I thought of while we waited for our table, but I admit to not really knowing what the fuck that means. 

                                                         

Old? 

We got called to our table, and I fucking swear we get sat in the same fucking booth every time we go there. Almost like Brennan's in New Orleans. Same fucking table every time. It's delightful? Weird? A secret third thing?

Well. There's an area of the menu that I can order from!! 

This is my meal, I call this...I'm sad. 

I did end up having a bite of bread. I couldn't help it, it was so inviting and crusty and warm and I was immediately bummed out I couldn't hoover the entire fucking basket. I did tell our server that I am a vegetarian and keto, so I would either be annoyingly full of questions about ingredients, or annoyingly not ordering food. Turns out I was both!

When we visited Maui, Derek and I stopped at a cafe in Paia that served blistered shishitos as an appetizer. While they were like playing roulette, we both loved them, and I kind of always order them if they're a menu item any place I go. So these balsamic glazed shishitos with grilled watermelon sounded a bit too rich for my blood...and they were...but I still wanted to try them. They were DELICIOUS. 

For my main event, I ordered a bunch of appetizers. Those broccoli look unfuckingcooked, and they weren't zhuzhed at all, and it seemed outrageous to pay Mackenzie's prices for five fucking pieces of bland ass broccoli. But they were pretty tasty with the caramelized onions on them, and the carrots and asparagus were decent enough. The star of the meal was Derek's steak. I don't miss steak the way Derek wishes I missed steak. 

I can definitely live without steak. He gripes at me a lot for not eating meat, since I'm anemic and my extremities are fuckin' ALWAYS cold, but I'm solid. I'll stick to my bland broccoli for iron. 

We didn't get a dessert, there wouldn't have been a point since I can't eat sugar. And that was pretty much it. We left the restaurant and headed back to the hotel to loaf for the rest of the evening. 

I was starting to feel pretty fucking assy by this point in the trip. My throat was agitated, my chest was heavy, I had a pesky headache and I was just generally tired. Few things bother me like being ill on a trip.