You Can't See Brooklyn From Here

Tonight we are in Manhattan, Kansas, home of the K-State Wildcats, and a whopping 158 miles from where we started this morning.

Today was a "workday" for both of us.  Donna is evaluating some manufacturing software at her job, and it just so happens that one of the major manufacturing players already using it is Harley-Davidson.  The rep sees Donna's Harley stuff in her office and asks if she would like him to set up a meeting with the engineers who run it in the plant in York and see it in action?  Well, we're going on vacation, so "no."  But if you could work out Kansas City next week, well, that would be great!

Done.  So, we rode our Sportsters back to the place they were born for an 8:00 with John Willis, who led us to his office and on a personalized tour through the plant and the various work cells.  We were 100 feet from the 2012 models, which are top-secret until the official release on Friday, but we couldn't convince him that we had no use for the inside info, and certainly would never put anything like that on the web!  So, no sneak preview.

After that, we headed the 10 miles to the MetLife Kansas City office for a long-overdue visit with some folks I work with but haven't seen in a long time.  From there, we went to lunch at the BBQ joint I wanted to have dinner at the night before, which is a really neat biker-themed place full of Orange County Choppers, antiques, and, oh yeah, great Kansas City Barbeque.  http://www.backfirebarbeque.com/

By now it's after 1:00, we are exactly 10 miles west of where we started, and it's 100 degrees again.  Not wanting a repeat of yesterday, we agreed on a reasonable goal that we could make in a couple hours, and here we are in Manhattan.

That worked out great - the ride here was hell and couldn't end quickly enough.  We dragged our asses into town, crawled into a Wendy's and ordered a Frosty and a gallon of lemonade, and booked in at the Comfort Suites right next door while we were sitting there.  So we were in the pool by 4.  Once our core temperatures stabilized, we were able to get gas, a turkey baster, replacements for a broken pair of sunglasses and an empty bottle of cherry vodka, all within a 3-block radius, and then walk for a BBQ and a beer.  A happy ending in KevAndDonna land.

I'll tell you about the turkey baster and why it's part of our packing list some other time, but it was the one thing we forgot this time, we just didn't get to procuring one yet, and I was about 2 minutes from desperately needing it today.  So we were getting one, one way or another, and with the heat it was nice that the Wal-Mart was right across the street.

Tomorrow will be funny.  And hot.