There's no place like Kansas

Our next stop was Lawrence, Kansas. CP has been obsessed with going to Kansas since we started planning the trip. She found the town of Lawrence in an article about the "Best small communities in America" and it became one of our primary destinations.


There's not much to the town really: no great tourist attractions or particularly important historical significance. It's claim to fame is that it is the home of the University of Kansas (Go Jayhawks!)


We arrived in town around 4 pm, stopping first at a 30 acre off-leash dog park to let Murphy run around. There are two large off-leash parks in Lawrence, along with miles of bike trails and 50 parks. All of these are reasons why it was a great and relaxing stop for us on our trip. We stayed at the local KOA, about two miles from the downtown area surrounding Massachusetts Street, the main drag through Lawrence. We got settled in at the campground, went for a quick swim in the pool and headed into town. We first walked the entire street... a nice area of primarily independent shops and restaurants with an occasional Starbucks, Talbots (of course - effing Talbots - if you recall, they were in Historic Williamsburg too - what the eff is historic about Talbots?) and Gap mixed in.



CP had read about a really neat local hardware store. We went in to buy a fly swatter and a plug-in mouse siren that's supposed to drive away any vermin - except Murphy, of course. It was like stepping back 40 years. There was crap everywhere. No nice aisle 1 through 6 clearly denoting what's for sale in each. If you could find an aisle, nothing stocked on the shelves served any indication of what you'd find on the next shelf. Nails next to coffee pots, squirt guns paired up with shovels. You get the idea. From what we gathered, you need to rely on the store's proprietor to find things? Oh my. After we looked around for a time and stumbled across the items we needed ON OUR OWN, we stood at the front of the store and waited. And waited. To pay. The owner walked by a few times, took down some posters from the front windows, and pretty much ignored us. CP made as much noise as possible to get his attention. Shuffling her items. Coughing. Finally he let us know that the register was in the middle of the store. Of course it was! Right next to the hoses, caulking, and wheel barrows. It felt like small town America. Well, SM was planning on golfing the next day and had the choice between the town's 2 courses. To make small talk as the owner worked out our total - ON PAPER, BY HAND - SM asked which one he preferred. It was the Pandora's Box of questions. Although he had quit the game 10 years before, he promoted each course as if he were on the City of Lawrence's board of golf tourism. We couldn't shake him. SM must have "ended" the conversation four times as he stutter-stepped and stutter-stopped his way to the door. CP was long gone out the door and half way down the block, giggling and shaking her head. In the end... he recommended the Alvamar Golf Course.



To recover from hardware shopping, we headed to the local micro brewery - of course. The place was called the Free State Brewing Company and we hoped to watch the Celtics win the championships. We were in luck - with two seats at the bar and the game on TV (Not enough luck though, as we all know how the game ends).


The next morning, CP got up and biked into town to take a yoga class at the Lawrence center for yoga. (It was a great class). SM took the RV for an oil change and then took Murphy to the other local dog park. After this we met up downtown so Scott could head out to a local golf tournament to benefit the Special Olympics at you guessed it - Alvamar. While SM was hobnobbing with the who's who in Lawrence, CP walked around the town some more and then went and read a book.



SM - Who knew Lawrence, KS on a Friday was a hotbed of golf tournaments? Well, there were no regular tee time openings at either course until 4pm. That just wasn't going to work. I had called and found out that the Alvamar Course was hosting a fundraiser for Special Olympics and luckily, they had an open space. OK - I'm in. I was paired up with three late twenty somethings who were more interested in the free beer cart that was buzzing around the course than golf. Between the three of them, they had played exactly one round of golf this season. Ugh! Once I shook the fact that our team clearly wasn't going to win the tournament, we just had fun. Over the course of the day, I came to find out that the tournament was actually the brain child of a few local Lawrence, KS Special Olympic board members and Lew Perkins, University of Kansas' athletic director. My three golf partners spoke of him like he was the second coming. I guess all of sport in Kansas revolves around the Jayhawks. Lew was recruited to Kansas from UCONN where he was their AD for 30 years. Once he came to town, he bolstered and turned around the Kansas programs. In 2008, they won the NCAA basketball championships - the trophy of which was displayed at hole # 1. Pretty cool. My partners also stressed a recent poll listed Lew as the second most influential, popular, and upstanding athletic program manager in the world - amateur or professional - second only to the manager of Manchester United. A pretty powerful guy...?



Well after 15 holes, the beers had caught up to my partners - I had abstained due to being over-served at the Free State Brewery the prior evening. Lew was at the 16th hole selling "closest to the pin" chances. We got to chatting and he discovered that my partners all knew each other and that I was a late add to their foursome and happened to be on week 2 of a 7-week RV trip. He was beside himself asking me questions of the trip. I guess he kind of took a liking to me. The moment we began talking I could tell he was a Boston guy. That accent just can't be hidden. He asked me where I was from. I said Boston. Then I said Dorchester actually, by way of Scituate. He sarcastically noted that Scituate was no Boston, but a nice Irish Riviera just the same. Snide comment from a Chelsea boy. I felt bad for my partners, but he and I took up all of the five minutes alotted to our team on the hole chatting about Boston.



We finished up the day a respectable one under. Not bad considering... On the way to the parking lot, Lew caught me again. He asked how long I was in town because his foursome was down a guy for a Saturday morning round and wanted me to join. Wow! I was honored. As CP and I had planned on heading to Boulder early the next morning, I explained that to him and respectfully declined. The whole day's experience just confirmed to me that CP and I have been really lucky to have been able to take this special trip. I am constantly amazed by feeling so welcomed by the people we bump into (from a nobody to an important sports figure) and baffled when things like this keep falling into our laps.



After picking SM up from the tournament and hearing him recap the afternoon in excruciating detail, we headed back to town to a delicious dinner at 715, on Massachusetts Street: Housemade bread, salads, seared scallops and shitake mushroom pasta. It was incredible and well priced. Kuddos!


We left Lawrence in the morning, with CP saying "I love you, Lawrence, Kansas. I WILL be back". And SM saying "You're not right".


Next stop Boulder, Colorado!