Eventually we decided to go see "My Fair Lady" at a local theatre. And we had to eat before then. I got like 10 minutes sleep before we had to go eat, not enough for being up like 30 hours with little sleep. So we went up to the top floor of the hotel to "Benton's Steak and Chop House" restaurant. In keeping with the hotel, this was a really nice restaurant with a great view of our part of Kansas City. Up here, looking around, man a lot of buildings were connected with enclosed walk ways, much like in Milwaukee.

I don't know what the hell I had. Big Chris had the Kansas City Strip since we were in Kansas City. Whatever I had it was very good and we had a lot of food as usual. The total meal wasn't quite as expensive as when we went to Mo's in Milwaukee, but then again there were only three of us. This place is more expensive than Mo's overall. The food was good but the steak wasn't quite as good as at Mo's. Not the best steak I've ever had, but close.

Then we drove to the Starlight Theatre (somehow not getting lost even though we had no reliable map, just the faux map in the Kansas City attractions booklet). It's an outdoor theatre which was a bad idea because it was another hot and humid night in the Midwest. Tickets were $30 each and not the greatest seats (what do you expect at the last minute?). Huge number of people there.

The play was performed quite well. The acting was good and the singing was clear. But it was exactly like the movie. I was bored out of my skull after half an hour. Sure the songs are nice but I don't like watching the same thing twice. I just wandered around the place, not like I really wanted to stay sitting there with the not-to-comfortable-seats that all outdoor theatres have.

After the play we drove back. Little Chris had also seen the movie so the play wasn't all that exciting for him. Big Chris hadn't seen the movie and typical of him he didn't appreciate the musical at all. Everything is nit- picking with him: the accents weren't authentic, the costumes were wrong for the period, etc etc. Good grief man! Just enjoy it and get past the imperfections. About here I was getting pretty freaking sick and tired of Van Horn.

Still, we finally made it back and went to sleep immediately. I have rarely or perhaps never been that tired in my life. It's one thing to know that you have to stay up and just powering through it. But I was right there, ready to go to sleep and was yanked back to stay awake for another six hours. Sigh.

So one of the things about hotels is tipping people. I have no idea how much to tip or who to tip. I don't want to look like a schlep so i just tipped everyone $5. Here's another dumb comment from Van Horn. We ate dinner at the Ogalalla steak place and I tipped less than my usual, though still 15% (it just rounded out that way). And Van Horn made this comment and I just looked at him -- you know for a guy that doesn't have any money to spend he's quick to comment on my spending habits.

In any case, we left Kansas City Tuesday morning and drove leisurely to Iowa City, arriving there around 18:00 or so. There's this part of Iowa around Des Moines where the road is red, a brick red but it's asphalt or concrete. It's kind of strange and we talked a bit about why it was that color.

All right, I don't intentionally want to give the impression that I hate Van Horn. It's just that when I'm with someone for a couple of days straight they really start to annoy me. My brother Chris can testify to that as I got quite snippy towards the end of our trip in Memphis. Driving up to Milwaukee wasn't bad since there were lots of people. But now I was just with Chris and Chris and little things were annoying me. I'm sure my brother appreciates that Van Horn was there to take my wrath instead of him.