Day 5 - Chill Out

The new soundtrack for our lives. Today (Wednesday), we listened to it on repeat for a good 4 or 5 hours. Somehow, we had either missed or ignored the announcement of this CD (a compilation of some of our favorite artists, including the inimitable Don and Lori Chaffer, singing songs inspired by a new "translation" of the Psalms) so we picked it up after the show last night and asked Don and Brandon to sign it. Susi's message from Don is "enjoy the drive" while mine is simply "road trip" which totally makes me grin with happiness. When we were asking Brandon to sign them, he got a bit distracted and asked me what he had written on mine. I tilted my head and squinted a bit and then hesitantly responded "Best Wishes?" It was actually his name, but whatever! As we were talking with him I asked if he had any advice on how to get his wife's old CDs that no one ever sells on eBay, because they all love them too much. He said they only had about 6 copies left and wouldn't be reprinting, but we could ask her ourselves. When we did, she offered to mail us a burned copy, which is the coolest thing in the world! So hopefully when I get home there will be a package awaiting me from Christena Graves.

Since Danielle was at work, this was a great day for us just to chill around her house. We had planned to meet her at her office for lunch, but changed it to dinner after work instead. We made coffee (hee), and after asking the dog to PLEASE go potty about a million times, were able to relax out in the shade of the back deck. Danielle had wireless and a washing machine, so we could take care of everything we needed.

Susi made a friend who also enjoyed War & Peace; I knocked out a chapter or two of the summer reading I have for school and we posted some of the previous few days. Thanks, Dani, for letting us hang out while you were at work. It was a much needed rest.

We met up with Danielle after she finished meeting all her deadlines for the day, and decided to only take one car out on the town to simplify matters a bit. Since my car didn't have a sticker for her company, we left hers and took mine. Of course, mine was full of all our junk. Seriously full. Susi happily volunteered to climb in the back (thank goodness she's not claustrophobic!) and snapped pictures the whole way out the back window.


In light of a stressful work day (for Danielle), and "boy troubles", we went with an Irish pub with rooftop seating for dinner in this cool area of KCMO called "The Plaza". It was great to sit back, feel the breeze above the city and look out over the town. After dinner, Danielle showed us around town. At one point, she mentioned that we were very close to the New Earth, made famous (at least to us) by being the site of the recording of the greatest live album of all time, and possibly, our favorite Waterdeep album. Both Susi and I were getting excited, just thinking about grabbing coffee at the New Earth, but as we drove further Danielle reminded us that it closed earlier this year. We eventually found the site of the late, great New Earth, a church basement, and lamented its passing. Sadness.


After picking Danielle's car back up at the office, she led us home by the route she usually takes. Kansas City is half in Kansas and half in Missouri, and in this section the dividing line is a road (named, accurately enough, State Line Road). We had talked to Don about this the previous night, and he had been joking around about how if you swerved into oncoming traffic, you could could say, "I'm in Kansas... now I'm in Missouri... now I'm in Kansas." We're a bit susceptible to the power of suggestion! It seemed like a good way to end the day, since traffic was minimal.
Tomorrow: back on the road! Colorado, here we come!

Love,
susi&sara