Note: This post was shaping up at over 2,000 words, which is just CRAZY PANTS. I think that’s longer than most of my college English homework assignments. As such, I’ve split it into two posts. So you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see if we made it out of the mine alive (spoiler: we totally did.)

There are times is your life when you are asked questions to which there is only one correct answer. If someone, say, asks if you would like whipped cream on top, you say “yes”, regardless of what you’ve ordered. Really, there is never a time when “no” would be an appropriate response.

So naturally, when I was in Kansas a few weeks back, and Jason (my friend Christine‘s husband) asked me if I wanted to go to the Kansas Underground Salt Museum, I knew I had but one answer.

“UM, YES,” I said enthusiastically, and it was only after the words left my mouth that I realized I wasn’t entirely sure what an Underground Salt Museum was. I understood the individual elements involved, but was unclear on how they worked together. In this respect, it is not dissimilar to my understanding of the Spanish-American War. Or deep-fried ice cream (how does it not melt?). Anyway, I’m sure you’ll agree: both of those things would be improved with whipped cream.

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“We’re taking you to the Keeper of the Plains,” I was told, and there was little elaboration after that.

“Okay,” I said. “And the Keeper of the Plains is …?”

“You’ll see.” I must hand it to my friends. They know how to create suspense.

It turned out to be a 44-foot-tall statue of a Native American man standing at the crux of the Big and Little Arkansas (pronounced “Our Kansas”, for the record) Rivers in downtown Wichita.  A raised hatchet in one arm, its headdress and fringed pants seeming to blow in the wind, the statue looms tall over the nearby bridges and park that offer views of it and the river. It is a tranquil place, but as a white American woman from a devoutly-PC part of the country, I found myself looking around and thinking, “This is cool, right? We aren’t offending anyone?”

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My family members do not always understand me. I feel like a foreign exchange student in their homes – I’m most definitely welcome, but damn it, I’m strange. My accent is funny. I don’t eat pasta daily. I don’t have several gallons of sauce sitting in my freezer, in the event that we might have unexpected company. I purchase pre-made gnocchi, and I don’t drink wine out of a box.

And most significantly, I like sweets. This is perhaps one of the biggest things that separates me from 80% of my blood relations. They are perfectly content to go days, if not weeks or lifetimes, without anything that even remotely resembles sugar. I’ll never forget the time my aunt once told me not to frost a cake that I had made.

“You know,” she said, gently, “because some people don’t like frosting.”

“Bwa-whaaaaa?” was all I was able to sputter out before promptly fainting. She might as well have asked me not to bake the cake, too, so ridiculous was her request. (When I came to, I frosted it anyway.)

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I feel sorry for people who have normal friends.

I’m sure befriending normal people has its merits. It must be nice to go out to a restaurant without having to apologize to the family next to you for what transpires at your table. And having someone dependable who can pick you up from the airport because they are not, at the age of 40, stoned out of their gourd and watching The Transporter 3 (in this PURELY HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION), would probably save you a bit in cabfare.

But, damn, it must be boring. No giggling until you are doubled-over, breathlessly gasping, “I’m going to pee!” No late night invites to drag shows starring people who were invited to your wedding. No immature, tired innuendos when one of you is eating pie. How sad.

I prefer my company to be just slightly unhinged. Not terribly so, mind you (keep your moon-landing deniers – I’ve no interest in them). But if you tell me your new hobby, is, say, painting tiny little leather-clad gimps into beautiful landscapes, or force me to spend half an hour on the floor of my home while you gently perform sacral realignment on me (which involves barely touching my scalp), or decide that even though we’ve just eaten lunch, some Chick-fil-A  sounds like a really good idea, well, we are probably going to be friends.

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I’m not done talking about ice cream.

I know, I know – you think I’d have gotten it out of my system after the thousand odd words I dedicated to it last week, right? But you’d also probably presume that at some point, I’d also have gotten tired of eating all these sweets, much less writing about them.

And yet, I haven’t. My passions clearly die hard.

I don't remember what was going on here, but I suspect it was adorable.

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Rand and I were meandering around Vancouver a few weeks back (I had dragged him out there on one of the few weekends he was not on the road so that I could attend a travel conference. RECIPROCITY FOR THE WIN!) and we kept seeing things which cracked us up.

Now, mind you, I don’t know if the average person would have found this stuff funny. But Rand and I did. We laughed. A lot. We took ridiculous photos. I realize that some folks dream of traveling the world with Anthony Bourdain or Rick Steves, but I don’t think I could find a better travel partner than Rand. Because who else would giggle maniacally with me in the middle of a street, until it’s not so much giggles but just shaking, soundless fits?

Like I said: I doubt most people would have found this stuff funny. But Rand and I did. And hopefully you will, too. Enjoy.

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Like, for the weekend?

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This is the graffiti that started all the silliness. I think it’s the combo of the “OMG” and the notion that Jesus is back. Like he returned from college or something.

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Hey Sarah.

How’s it going? I know, I know – you’re probably still mad at me about that Halloween costume from a few years ago, right? But come on. It was a really good costume, and I’m cursed with not really looking like anyone famous, so this was my one chance, you know? Plus, everyone dressed up as you that year.

I'm rocking a button that says, "I can see Russia from my house."

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 (Note: Some of the events in this post have been dramatized slightly in order to highlight how little I know of Boston, and to further ridicule Rob. Enjoy.)

There is a time in every travel blogger’s life when she is tested. She will find herself with a group of friends in a town that is not her own, and someone will turn to her and say, “You know this city, right? So, what’s there to do around here?”

From that point, she has several options.

1. Crying.
2. Pointing across the street confidently while saying, “I would definitely go there!” When everyone turns to look, she runs frantically away, screaming, “SUCKERS!”
3. Genuinely wracking her brain for every single place that would be remotely interesting, and hastily regurgitating whatever she can remember from the bastion of “that sounds mostly right” that is Wikipedia.
4. Start making shit up.

Ever the multi-tasker, I went with a combination of options 3 and 4.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

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