Originally posted on “Is It Sports?” This is Part 4 of Ryan and his friend Joel’s Spring Break road trip through the great plains
Day 4 – Brookings, SD – Overland Park, KS
There is a guy, a man we have dubbed “the Master”, who uses campus library computers for less than pure purposes. He’s not exactly discreet in his dirty undertakings, otherwise Joel, several others and I would not have picked up on this. Needless to say, when we got to Omaha and needed to sign up for our tournament pools, we felt a little dirty using the computers at Creighton University.
Ever since we picked up two copies of the USA Today, we had been bantering back and forth through southeastern South Dakota and northeastern Iowa, even stopping in virtually the middle of nowhere to fill in the brackets. How could anyone take Louisville with the performance they showed against Memphis? How was Washington a 1 seed? How did the Big 10 get 5 teams in? Of course, these questions were swiftly answered. Francisco Garcia made one dumb mistake, Washington didn’t deserve the 1 seed and the Big 10 got 5 teams in because they deserved it.
Eventually, we escaped death in the streets of downtown Omaha and made it to Creighton. The school, as with the city, was entirely under construction, and we parked, unsure of whether or not the car would be covered in concrete when we came back. The good news was, Creighton fit with North Dakota St. and South Dakota St., in that they weren’t nearly as attractive as Purdue, though we looked around at the trees as if we saw the oldest tree on earth. The bad news was, we had to trudge uphill to get to the library. After some directions received in the Union (the library was in the biggest building on campus) we found our computers. We looked around nervously and quickly, quietly, checked our e-mail. We quickly found out everything we needed, and scurried out of there, trying not to make eye contact.
The next few hours were pretty non-descript, except we got lost and ended up on the bad side of Omaha; we later determined there wasn’t a good side. Again, Missouri was pretty dull, except for the fact that the entire state was ON FIRE. Smoke billowed from a grass fire that had absolutely no fire breaks or anything. For all intents and purposes, this thing was out of control. We couldn’t see anything in front of us and it smelled terrible. More, even than in western Wisconsin, it felt like we were driving one of the deepest parts of hell.
We eventually made it to Kansas City and drove to the Kansas side. We rolled into the town of Overland Park, the town with the highest per capita amount of Larry King fans (Overland Park, Kansas, hello!). Speaking of per capita, I think the average net worth of the denizens was half a trillion. Those were some huge houses in town there. Clearly a wealthy suburb, and the hotels reflected it. We ended up staying at a Comfort Inn with a steeple and pillars. A room there would have ran around a hundred bucks, but through some sweet talk and puppy dog eyes, we ended up with a twenty percent discount.
We were definitely outclassed at this place. I rode up the elevator (they had an elevator!) with a couple of guys who were in town on a business conference. I had a big laundry bag with all my clothes and toiletries. Fairly awkward.
We strolled into the nicest hotel room of the trip. It had a refrigerator. Office chairs. A lamp with internet access. The service there was excellent as well. We were looking for a good local Kansas City style restaurant. The deskman responded, “Well, most people would recommend restaurant X, but I wouldn’t. Well, you might like it if you like expensive food that tastes like crap.” Too bad the Mets didn’t get this kind of advice before they signed Cliff Floyd. Some people would recommend Cliff Floyd. You might like him if you like expensive players that play like crap. To be fair, I guess the Mets do have a tradition of expensive players that play like crap.
That’s about all I got for day 4. We’ll see when I get around to Day 5. – Ryan
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