San Antonio Final Four!

April 02, 2018 by Patricia Farmar

I’m a huge college basketball fan - if you know me you know that! So of course being at a Final Four was high on my bucket list. Over a year ago when I told my son I was retiring at the end of 2017 he made the great decision that to celebrate we would all go to the 2018 Final Four. I was in immediately so this trip was happening whether KU made it or not. But as luck would have it they did make it so BONUS!

Outside the Alamo Dome wearing my lucky shirt!

We started the day having brunch at an awesome place called Snooze. What a great name for a breakfast spot! It is based out of Denver so there are quite a few locations. If you see one I highly recommend it.

Spring breakfast frittata for me - excellent!

Then we headed down to the River Walk. Every school has their hang out bar or restaurant and Rita’s on the Riverwalk is the spot for KU. It couldn’t have been a nicer day and we ran into friends from KC. As you can imagine everyone was in a great mood. We’re in the Final Four and we’re in San Antonio to see it!

We had planned everything for this trip except for one thing - tickets for the game!! But Matt and Tom were very confident and have lot of experience in these situations so we all had faith it would work out. They were tracking ticket prices for days and then minutes as it got closer to game time and they were absolutely correct. We bought tickets an hour before the first tip and got lower level seats for a great price! And all sat together! Awesome job Matt and Tom!

Now we are off to the games!! I could post so many pictures of the walk to the Alamo Dome and inside but I’ll just post this collage and say it was very cool. A huge arena and high energy from the fans, students, band etc. Not the outcome we were hoping for as KU fans but the better team that night definitely won. I could see Charles Barkley at the big desk but couldn’t get close enough for a good picture. It was enough for me just to see him!!

Huge Jumbotron, and the KU team warming up. We still love them - what a great season!!

We stayed till the very end and left with the other 68,000 walking out of the dome. We were hungry and so took the opportunity to walk away from the throngs of fans heading to the River Walk and instead headed to eat at Mi Tierra for some great Mexican food and Margaritas to drown our sorrows. If you’re ever in San Antonio you must make a stop. It’s huge, open 24 hours and is a feast for the eyes.

Just some chicken tacos for me with Spanish rice but delicious!

We are absolutely going to go to the Championship Game Monday night. I came for the tournament and not leaving till I see “One Shining Moment” on the big screen!! Check back for my next post about our day trip to Austin!!

International Women’s Day!

March 09, 2018 by Patricia Farmar

I know I’m a day late in posting this - but I was out celebrating International Women’s Day yesterday!

Blessed to have so many of these women in my life!

As a tribute to women I had a great day in Kansas City eating lunch at a wonderful restaurant owned by a woman and seeing a fascinating printmaking exhibit by a female artist at the Kemper Museum of Modern Art. First the food. I pride myself on keeping up on the restaurant scene in Kansas City - and it has definitely gotten exciting these last few years. So when my friend Cheryl suggested we go to Ragazza for dinner last Saturday I had to admit I had never heard of it. When I found out it wasn’t new I was pretty disappointed in myself, especially after eating there and loving it. You know a place is great when you are still there and thinking about how quickly you can get back to eat there again - and that’s just what I was thinking. So back I went for lunch. It is located in Westport but east of Broadway and just west of Main so not in the area most people typically think of as Westport. Totally reminded me of a restaurant in New York City. Tiny - maybe 10 tables at most - a small bar and a window counter.

That’s Laura the owner with her mom and brothers.

Saturday I had the fettuccine in red sauce with meatballs and today the orecchiette with Italian sausage and kale in broth. Both fantastic!

I was talking to the owner today and she said they have been there for 4 years - my loss. But business is good so they are moving late summer to a bigger location on Main. I really like the tiny location but hopefully the food will stay the same. Definitely worth checking out!! For dinner I suggest a reservation for sure. Cheryl and I were able to get seats at the window counter last Saturday but if you want a table then make a reservation.

Next up the Kemper Museum. If you haven’t been to the Kemper then you are in for a treat. It’s the perfect place to stop if you have 45 minutes or an hour and you want to see something interesting. The museum is in a beautiful building close to the Nelson-Atkins Museum just off the Plaza. It’s much smaller than The Nelson so the galleries change quite often.

The first thing you can’t help but notice is the huge installation in the atrium that takes up an entire wall. It is by Firelei Baez entitled To Access The Places That Lie Beyond. This painting was specifically commissioned for The Kemper and is set in northern Haiti. It has lots of symbolism from the conflicted history and current political context between Haiti and the US.

Firelei Baez - To Access The Places That Lie Beyond.

The female printmaking artist that drew me to the museum is Cuban artist Belkis Ayon (1967-1999).

Ayon was recognized by the international art world and critics for the technical mastery of her prints and the singularity of her theme. Her consistent theme was about The Abakua Secret Society. I had never heard of this but was fascinated with what I read. This society was brought to Cuba in the early 1900’s by African slaves from Nigeria. It is a brotherhood created by men for men. It stigmatized and segregated women and still exists in Cuba today with over 21,000 members. It is based on a legend that involves a princess finding a sacred fish with supernatural powers, that ends up getting killed and replaced by a goat.

The artist Belkis Ayon commuted suicide for unknown reasons when she was 32.

Her pieces are really dark but I found them so interesting and really haunting. Most of the pieces are quite large - I would say almost life size. And because they are prints they are pieced together to create the total image.

Resurrection, 1998 collagraph in 9 parts.

There is also another exhibit by a female that is much lighter so thought I would post a few of those to lift the somber mood. Patty Carroll is a local photographer that does these beautiful still life digital prints - a mood elevator!

I am spending a few weeks here in Kansas City between trips, and its fun to get out and spend a day seeing the city as if I was visiting it. Like most medium to large cities there is so much to see, eat and do, and it’s easy to get in a rut and just do the same old thing. Don’t do it!! Life is short - get out and enjoy! Happiness is a choice I try and make everyday.

Side note: Did you notice the blog looks a little different? There is now an archive tab that allows you to see all the posts in chronological order. This should make it a lot easier to find a post about a specific place if you are say heading to NYC and want to see what I did when I was there. Check it out!!

Bucket list trip coming soon - check back!

Marco Island Florida

February 24, 2018 by Patricia Farmar

Time to check out another spot so I headed south to Marco Island. It was only about a 30 minute drive from Naples - and it is an island! You drive over a long bridge and you’re there! I was only there for a day so I don’t claim to be an expert - but it had a really different feel to me then Naples. Still very pretty but more down to earth. I had heard they have a fabulous Farmer’s Market on Wednesday and since it was Wednesday I decided to make that my first stop. Big mistake!!! It was wonderful and I wanted to buy everything! Fantastic produce, beautiful flowers, handmade crafts, music, food to eat and more.

I had to try a beignet and it was delicious! The smell from the Tomato Lady stand made my mouth water and they were making huge skillets of paella.

I kept reminding myself I was leaving the next day!! But it was all so tempting.

I ended up buying some homemade granola that is fantastic. Then I had to haul it home in my suitcase but it was worth it!

My next stop was the beach. One big difference between Naples and Marco Island is access to the beach. The beaches in both places are public - but it’s very easy to get on the beach in Naples and not so easy in Marco Island. The beach in Marco is lined with hotels, resorts and condo’s and you can’t get to the beach through them. So I drove all the way to one end and was able to enter through Tigertail Beach. You pay $8 to park for the day and that seemed like a pretty good deal. The beach was beautiful, and so many shells! In fact it hurt my feet to walk on them because instead of sand you are basically walking on all shells. I had brought a plastic cup from the hotel to pick up a few shells and very quickly the cup was overflowing with beautiful and perfect shells.

These are the shells I brought home. So pretty!!

I walked a couple of miles down the beach. It was such a beautiful day and there were people fishing right from the beach. I asked them if they really were going to catch fish so close to the beach and they said of course! So people were swimming and people were fishing in the same spot. The water was super clear and pretty warm.

As I was walking down the beach wading in and out of the water I saw a starfish!! It was in the water but I reached down and grabbed it and placed it on the sand to take a picture. Then I put it right back in the water. I figured that would be better karma since it was alive. I sure hope it’s not like a baby bird that once it’s touched by a human it’s ostracized by it’s peers!!

After walking for a couple of hours I decided I needed some food. A beignet only sticks with you so long. So I headed down to the marina and a place called Mangos that a friend recommended. It did not disappoint. Great food and friendly people.

After my leisurely very late lunch I headed back to Naples to pack. The next day I needed to drive back across Alligator Alley to Fort Lauderdale and fly home. The weather was fantastic the entire time I was there. Missing the ice storm in Kansas City was a bonus. I highly recommend Florida in February!

A couple of miscellaneous musings:

* I think GPS is the greatest invention of the 20th century. The fact that you can go almost anywhere in the world now and simply type an address into your phone and have someone tell you how to get there never ceases to amaze me. So every time I use it I want to silently thank the person who invented it, so I decided to look up who that was. Unfortunately there is no absolutely clear answer. There are 3 different men that are credited with creating the technology that got us to the point where we can put satellites into space that give us the information. So thank you to Roger Easton, Ivan Getting and Bradford Parkinson. Thanks to them today there are 31 operational GPS satellites orbiting the earth affecting every aspect of our life.

* Travel requires stamina and energy. The most important quality I have is my good health, and I am very grateful for that. There are so many times that I am reminded of this - especially when lots of walking is required to see something or get somewhere when parking or access is limited. Do everything in your power to get and stay healthy. There will come a day when you can’t do things so delay that as long as you can by making the effort now. It’s worth it!

* Packing to travel is challenging! I am committed to never taking more than a carry-on no matter how long I will be away. It’s just too hard to lug a large suitcase around with you, and really how many times do you return with half or more of your suitcase untouched? Shoes are the biggest problem - at least for women. They just take up too much room! And why do we need so many different styles? A good pair to walk in is the most important. The rest is just icing on the cake. Make every space count. A great website that I use for good tips and products is ebags.com. I’m working on the perfect packing list and will post soon!

My next trip is something totally different! A total bucket list item and I can’t wait!! Check back soon!

Naples Florida

February 23, 2018 by Patricia Farmar

I survived the drive across Alligator Alley! Highway 75 connects Fort Lauderdale to Naples by taking you straight across the Everglades. And that is apparently where the alligators live. The question came up as to what is the difference between the alligator and the crocodile. The quick answer is that all alligators are crocodiles but not all crocodiles are alligators! Crocodile is the family and alligator is a species within that family. Alligators have U shaped mouths and crocodiles have pointed ones - but south Florida is one of the few places in the world that has both! Sorry to report it was a pretty disappointing drive across. I saw a lot of birds but no gators - maybe because there are tall wire fences with barbed wire across the top to prohibit access? There is nothing the entire way across which is about an hour and a half drive. Not even a gas station. There are signs before getting on that advise you to have a full tank of gas - and I did!

This was my first time in Naples and it is really a pretty place. VERY upscale! I think it is to the gulf side what Palm Beach is to the Atlantic side. It’s most famous landmark is the Naples Pier, so that needed to be my first stop. It was built in 1888 so I can’t even imagine how many hurricanes it has survived. The latest one that hit this past fall Irma did some damage that is currently being repaired, but you can still walk halfway down. And it’s free! They used to allow fishing off it but no longer. It is also a wonderful place to see the sunset, so I saw the sunrise in Delray Beach and the sunset in Naples in the same day - pretty cool!

Later in the day is also a great time to see dolphins from the pier, and I was lucky enough to see them. They were actually really close to shore - maybe 50 feet from the beach?

The old downtown area of Naples is filled with expensive stores, art galleries and wonderful bars and restaurants. It is beautifully landscaped and maintained and surrounded by lavish huge old and new mansions - some on the gulf and some on the surrounding streets.

I loved the pretty colors of the buildings, yello, pink, blue, greeen and even lavender. Lots of palm trees and flowers.

I turned to my trusty Trip Advisor information and found that The Botanical Garden was highly recommended. So on Day two I decided to start my day there. I’m not a huge plant and flower person but I thought it was wonderful. They have a special exhibit right now of 10 life-size animatronic dinosaurs displayed around the gardens and the kids (and adults) were loving them. They moved, roared and even spit water if you weren’t careful. They have 5 different main gardens - Children’s, Brazilian, Caribbean, Florida and Asian. And other gardens that showcase certain things like orchids. The whole complex is surrounded by different lakes that you can walk around and observe birds and other wild life.

These signs definitely got my attention!! Luckily they didn’t present a problem for me.

Top right is called the Citipati. Close enough to Patti for me that I thought it was the cutest!

One night I had dinner at The Bevy. It was really hopping especially for a Monday night. I had a kale salad and grilled salmon and it was delicious.

I got a great suggestion to try Captain and Krewe for the Blackened Grouper sandwich. I did and I will now dream about it. It was fantastic! The grouper is fresh everyday. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Totally worth driving across the state to eat it!

It’s also a fish market but doesn’t smell fishy at all. Everything about the sandwich was perfection.

I finished with one perfect scoop of toasted coconut gelato from Barbatella on 3rd St.

Next up......Marco Island!

“You must go on adventures to find out where you truly belong.” Sue Fitzmaurice

Delray Beach

February 21, 2018 by Patricia Farmar

I’ve been so busy having fun here in Florida I haven’t had time to blog - but going to start correcting that right now! The main reason that brought us to Florida was to run in the A1A Marathon/Half Marathon - so we have been busy getting prepared for that - in addition to enjoying the beautiful area and weather. Running this race has been a goal of Kristen because her parents have been coming to the Delray Beach area since she was a little girl, so it’s a second home to her. Her parents purchased a beautiful condo in Delray Beach a number of years ago, and it’s literally right on the beach. So how lucky that she invited Deidre, Harriett and I to join her and we jumped at the chance.

Delray Beach is straight up A1A from Fort Lauderdale. It takes about 30 minutes depending on traffic - which is usually terrible but always pretty. If you continue going north on A1A it winds along the ocean and takes you up through more beautiful beach towns including Palm Beach - very swanky! That’s as far north as we drove and the homes along the way are enormous massive estates with spectacular landscaping and the ocean as their backyard. We had our own personal guide because Kristen knows the area like the back of her hand - so all of our meals were wonderful!

Two great places for breakfast/brunch. The first was in the adorable downtown Delray Beach called Boheme Bistro.

Latte’s all around and Brie Omelets - Yumm!

The second brunch was at Dune Deck in the beach town of Lantana - just a little north of Delray Beach and literally right on the ocean. One of Kristen’s favorite spots and we can all understand why. It’s pretty large but was packed. Our timing was great because we only had to wait a few minutes for a table. Then a tough decision as to what to order.

I picked the veggie omelet and the other ladies all went with the cinnamon raisin french toast. My omelet was great but I couldn’t help but have meal envy when the french toast appeared.

We ate dinner one night at a fun spot in Lantana called The Old Key Lime House. We sat outside at a great table right on the water but it was so dark I didn’t get any pictures. I had delicious grilled fish taco’s and of course key lime pie! We also went to an Italian place in Delray Beach the night before the race to carb load but I can’t remember the name - sorry!!

On Friday afternoon we headed down to the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center to pick up our race packets and visit the Expo. The Expo was excellent! Lots of great snacks and drinks to sample and cool running gear to purchase.

I checked and my name was on the big board so it was official - I HAD to run!!

We did our last training run on Saturday morning - just 3 miles since the day before you don’t want to wear out your legs.

Wearing our Team W3 shirts for good luck!! Harriett, Deidre, me and Kristen. Lucky to call these ladies friends and fellow runners.

Sunday was all about the race. We had to be up at 3 AM. That was kind of rough but we had to leave at 4 AM so that we could get to the start, park and be ready to run at 6 AM. Because of the heat and humidity the race started really early and we didn’t want to be stressing about being late. We made it with no problems and were ready to go. Full disclosure - I was running the half but the other 3 were doing the full. Everyone did awesome and felt good about what they had accomplished.

Definitely the award for most unique and creative medal!!!

When we got back to the condo we had a great surprise. Kristen’s awesome neighbors Cindy and Kiv had left us two bottles of wine chilling with a congratulations note - how great is that??!!

And you can bet we opened one immediately!! Thanks Cindy and Kiv!!!

We continued the celebration by heading to the beach. Of all the things we did in Delray we were all in agreement that being on the beach was the best part. We were able to relax and enjoy the weather and pick up some cool shells to bring home to remind us of the fun we had.

Kristen pointed out to us what to avoid on the beach. The Portuguese man o’war!! In fact the beach club next to the condo flies a special flag when there are more then usual to watch out for, and we saw some when we were there.

That’s no plastic bag - it’s the man o’war!!!

We got up early to watch the sunrise on our last morning there. Compared to getting up at 3 AM it was easy - and totally worth it!

Thanks for hosting us Kristen!! We had a fantastic perfect time! I dropped the ladies at the airport and headed across Alligator Alley to spend a few days on the gulf side exploring Naples and Marco island. Check back in for that!!