Going to Kansas City? Plan to bring your own fire log...

I'm back folks from the waiting place...it seems to be where I go quite often. In case you didn't know it, if you store your photos on Picasa and if you ever send web albums online(especially a wedding album with 500 photos), and then have a blog and post photos you eventually run out of photo space. It was quite a surprise and quite frustrating when I started trying to post my photos after our trip last weekend to Kansas City. So....that was the reason for the delay. But I'm back with room to spare now!!

For Christmas Steve had surprised me with tickets for a Rascal Flatts concert. He made reservations at a great Marriott that even had a fireplace in the room. Steve knows how much I LOVE a fireplace, since we don't have one at home.

Our weekend approached with a lot of excitement and anticipation. This happens folks as you get older and you don't have stuff every weekend to look forward to. It was really special because he had taken so much time to plan things out.

When we checked in and went to our room, we were so pleased to see how nice it was. However, we couldn't see any wood or any way to use the fireplace. I called the front desk and the young man told me that they use the fireplace logs but "unfortunately we are out of those for the weekend." What???? Are you kidding me???? I told him that simply was not going to do. Little did he know at this point what a be-yotch he had gotten hold of. I told him they were selling them all over town and I wanted them to find some for us. He said he'd call me right back. Which he did....and they had FOUND SOME in the back. Imagine that! So, dear Steve headed down to the front desk to pick one up for us to "build" a fire later that night after we had gone out for dinner. He came back a few minutes later with the fire log with a funny look on his face. He said "You're not going to believe this, but they are charging our room $5 for this log and they will for every log we use this weekend."

Well, that wasn't on their website anywhere about being charged for the firelogs and it wasn't on anything on the check-in information. I was furious!

I decided to call the 1-800 number for Marriott customer service and found a lady that was just as shocked as I was that they would even think of doing that! She called the front desk and had the charge reversed and sent an email to the manager to make sure the charge for a firelog on Saturday was taken care of. Done. Or so I thought.

We head off to Grinder's Pizza, which Steve and I found on the website for Guy's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" show on the Food Network. It was downtown and definitely not a place I would have gone looking for a restaurant, but it was terrific!!! Steve had their hot wings and we both ordered pizza. Some of the best we've ever had for sure. The atmosphere was fun and relaxing so we enjoyed our first night out on the town in Kansas City. Grinders Pizza in downtown Kansas City.


Snow and a little ice - the famous shoe photos.
Steve enjoying his hot wings on our game table that kept lighting up randomly all night long.

Who is that cute couple? I think they coordinated their clothes too.

The next morning we went out for some shopping and sight seeing.

Of course lunch was planned at the Cheesecake Factory.

Yummy! I can gain weight just looking at this dessert case!

Banana cheesecake and Blueberry cheesecake....could not be eaten all at once.

Had to take leftovers home.

Visited the museum for a Steamboat called the Arabia that went down in the Missouri River in 1863 with 200 TONS of stuff on it and then over the years was covered up with 45 feet of farmland when the river changed it's course years later. It was fascinating and really worth the visit. They even still had the pickles in the jars and perfume in bottles from it. Most of the goods were headed to the general stores that were planning to sell these things to the people moving out west at the time.

The jars of pickles.

Many of the tools look just like ones they use now.

perfume bottles.

After a busy afternoon, we came back to the hotel to get ready for the concert. I decided to go by the front desk to pick up my "fireplace log" so we would have it when we got back from the concert. I went to the front desk and told her who I was and what I needed. The young girl smiled sweetly and said "We have a new policy now....you get your first log free and each one after that will be a $5 charge to your room." I asked for the manager. After convincing her that she could give it to me for free or I could start making phone calls again, she removed the charge. Unfortunately, though, it did not leave me with a feeling of having WON the battle. It was such an unfair one to begin with!!! Why have a fireplace in a hotel room that people cannot use? Why should a customer pay the rates that you pay extra for a room with a fireplace that you cannot use? And to think that a few days ago, they were foolish enough to send me a customer satisfaction survey from their home office. Oh boy.

Those of you that know Steve and how he spends a lot of time thinking about how to get the best deal, will appreciate the fact that he thought taking a taxi would be cheaper than parking our car at the Sprint Center. Well, no it wasn't. Especially when I think they took us on a tour of the sights of Kansas City both there and back. But, oh well!

Jessica Simpson was the opening act for Rascal Flatts. We actually thought something was wrong with the sound system because we couldn't understand a lot of her words of her songs. But that cleared up with the boys came out to sing. She is one gorgeous gal though. No doubt about it.

The entire Rascal Flatts concert was amazing - from the moment they appeared and all through until there final encore - their stage extended out and lit up like the video on the stage behind them. I was so happy that I was able to ignore the four little obnoxious pre-teen girls sitting - no that would be standing - through the entire concert from Jessica Simpson on. They even called people that weren't there and sang to them along with their songs. No one believes me that I said nothing to them all night long, but I didn't!

This is an overview of the inside of the Sprint Center - our seats were down below. We were lucky to have great seats.

This was a cool thing they did while everyone waited - you sent a text message in to count as a vote to get to meet Rascal Flatts. My message showed up but I could never catch a photo of it. It said, of course, "The best husband ever gave me these tickets for Christmas - we drove from Arkansas and love Rascal Flatts!"

After our $15 taxi ride home, we set that fireplace log to blazing and enjoyed the end of a wonderful day.

Sunday we had brunch at the hotel (hoping they had not hired a sniper just yet to take me out or that they might have poisoned some of my food on the buffet line). After checking out, we headed to Arthur Bryant's for Barbecue. It is world famous, but we were still too full, so we got it to go.

There were photos all over the place of famous people that had eaten there. Never mind that Sarah Palin ate there last fall....I bought it anyway.

"That's what I'm doing these days" Thank you Rascal and thank you Steve!!!