I am sitting in a motel room in Columbia, MO after a brilliant day spent among friends on the Lake of the Ozarks after launching a rented pontoon from Osage Beach. The gentle hum of the air conditioner is the only sound as the floor sways underneath me; having spent all day on the water has given me a bad case of sea legs.
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO
Reflecting back on this day, I must admit that my life is a constant reminder to be as open minded as possible, for I have a dark secret: I was not looking forward to this trip.
A bit of history since readers may not be familiar with my admittedly oddball life: I don’t really get out much. I got married and had kids early, and never had much money. I’ve traveled for business many times, mostly to Washington DC, and I have spent some time in Los Angeles as a reporter. What I lack in breadth of travel experience, I try to make up for in depth; when I go somewhere I strive to experience it as deeply as I can given my usually limited time and resources. I try to meet locals, find places off the beaten path, and attempt to immerse myself in local culture so that when I return to my beautiful Detroit, I can look back and say “I am now familiar with _____.” And mean it.
That said, under normal circumstances I would be thrilled at the opportunity to travel anywhere. This trip, however, was not taken under normal circumstances.
When I was first told about the trip, Greg “Fatcat” Jones sent me pictures of Lake of the Ozarks and Party Cove (link is not family friendly!), and talked about what a huge party it was and how wild it got. Now, you may be shocked to hear this, but I don’t really consider that “my scene”. It seemed like a girls-gone-wild-on-a-lake, and I just don’t see myself being a part of that culture. I missed that part of my youth–while my friends were going on spring break in Mexico and Florida, I was already talking about getting married. That, however, was not the only reason I wasn’t really excited about going.
Business is not so good right now. Money is tight, and my business partner and I are broker than we’ve ever been. That is not a good sign for travel. “No matter,” said my friends. “We’ve got your ticket covered.” It is brilliant to have friends that will cover your ass in times of need, and I’ve definitely got no shortage of those, but still; you don’t want to travel with no money at all. You need things like toothpaste, and sometimes you want a pack of gum or a bottle of tea or something.
An email appeared in my inbox. Flight confirmed. Ticket arranged. I was going to Missouri.
Anxiety increased as the date got closer. It was not looking good for money. It is not an easy thing to say to someone who just bought you a plane ticket, “Hey man, sorry you guys spent money on a plane ticket for me, but I still can’t go. I’m flat broke!” however, I had to say it.
I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was going no matter what.
Columbia – 2009.07.17
Eric Ryder and I boarded a DC9-50 at Detroit Metro Airport and winged off to St. Louis. Once in Missouri, a rental car awaited us and we started off through the stretch between St. Louis and Columbia. The group was assembling in Columbia at James “TiberiusLazarus” Jennings’ house. During the drive, I spent some time on Icrontic’s IRC channel, chatting with other Missourians about things to see and do. Mostly, it was them making fun of the rural nature of the stretches between cities. Between Twitter status updates and IRC posts, people began to see what was going on. Robert “Doc” Frazier, who lives in Iowa, decided on a whim to drive four hours to hang out with us. Other more local Icrontians came out of the woodwork. Icrontic in their stretch of the woods? Sure, they’ll come out.
That’s the nature of this community; people travel around the country, and it becomes something akin to the Longest and Most Destructive Party Ever Held, as described by Douglas Adams. It never really seems to end, per se, so much as it just lurches around from place to place, picking up people here and there, and dropping off others. During July, the party just so happened to lurch from Michigan to Missouri, with nothing so much as a bit of downtime for naps and recharging in the weeks between the Expo Icrontic and this trip.
We got settled into Jimmy’s house and then headed out for dinner at a hibachi-style Japanese steakhouse called Kobe. We ended the evening at a local brewery called Flat Branch, where we enjoyed the delightfully cool weather sitting around a lovely outdoor patio and had a variety of wonderful beers.
Kansas City – 2009.07.18
The Freight House BBQ
As it stood, this particular epoch of the Neverending Party picked up a few stragglers from around the (relatively) local area, and we meandered towards Kansas City. Why Kansas City? Because we wanted to try authentic KC barbecue, and hopefully visit Boulevard Brewing. Never let it be said that we are above travelling far for a good meal and good beer. We’re not.
We took a little detour because I-70 was a little backed up, and ended up taking a break in a tiny town called Rocheport. It was perfect small-town Americana; a general store, an antique store, flowers on the sidewalk, covered porches, white picket fences, and a single stoplight. We exited our car to stretch and the first thing I heard were two women speaking… Mandarin Chinese? It put a smile on my face even as we looked for a place to purchase a pack of gum and a Pepsi before we got back on the road.
Once in KC, we met up with some more Icrontians, and settled on a place called Fiorella’s Jack Stack BBQ “Freight House” in the Crossroads Art District. Much to our delight, we were informed that in addition to delicious food, they were featuring an unreleased Boulevard beer which had no name; it was simply “tank seven”, a summer Saison that immediately took over as the best Saison I’ve ever tasted, and making my short list of favorite beers. It was truly sublime. The food was incredibly well prepared, the pork delicately fell off the bone, the beef was lightly marbled, perfectly cooked, and delicious, and they had some unique BBQ items such as lamb ribs and barbecued chicken chili. It was a slow and savory meal, enjoyed with friends and helped along by a friendly staff. All in all, a perfect KC BBQ experience.
We spent a couple more hours wandering the art district, hung out at a bar called The Cashew, visited a working ceramic gallery, and goofed around at Union Station before we headed back out towards Columbia. After a brief stop in downtown Columbia for ice cream, we ended the evening back at Jimmy’s place, making three gallons of Mojitos for the lake trip the next day.
Lake of the Ozarks – 2009.07.19
We rose early, and had a quick breakfast on the hood of our rental car. We made our way to the Jefferson City post office to meet up with the other half of our party. Once assembled, we headed out to Osage Beach to the pontoon rental place.
This is where my anxiety kicked in. It was going down. I’m not an outdoorsy person, I’m not a wild party person, I’m not a beautiful person. I was about to be thrown way out of my element.
A beautiful day on the water
I often joke that I revel in nudging people out of their comfort zones, that I enjoy stirring the pot a bit and causing chaos. How interesting then that the tables were turned and I was about to find myself on the receiving end of that very philosophy. Heart in stomach, I headed to the dock with Doc Frazier and Captain Rich. We set out peacefully enough, and made our way to the public dock to pick up the others. We arrived and loaded up the boat with the party supplies and then set off for real.
We made our way to a small, relatively empty cove where we turned the motor off. At first I didn’t think I’d be swimming, or even taking my shirt off, but the tone was set by others braver than me. I suppose this was a concrete manifestation of all this high-minded crap I talk about all the time. “Cultural immersion”? Ha! It’s all good in theory, but when everyone is looking at you to Do As The Romans, you really have no choice if you want to not be seen as a downer or an oddball.
As I jumped off the boat and the cool water sloughed over me, it brought me back to a younger time when I was a water-rat. For one moment the world went silent. No longer was I hundreds of miles from home, at a party I wasn’t looking forward to, with people I barely knew. The solitude of the underwater world became the instant now, the only moment, and all of existence. I have always felt a deep connection to the water, at a spiritual level, and it had been lost in the wash of the years that have passed by since the last time I had the chance to be in a body of water that wasn’t a city pool.
My reverie ended as I came up for air; when I looked around, my friends were with me in the water. I knew everything was going to be okay.
We eventually moved the boat to find other party-goers. We linked up with a floating caravan, met with a bunch of friendly strangers, and had a wild and rousing good time without too much debauchery. It was explained to the first-timers that it “usually gets much crazier than this,” and that they were sorry it was “so slow,” but in retrospect, I think it was a gentle and perfect introduction to the lake party lifestyle. There was drinking, there was dancing, there were topless women, but it was all good natured without the frenzied intensity that the ringmasters of the Party Cove circus seem to want to convey. The day ended peacefully, and I spent fifteen minutes alone with the Captain as we took the boat back to the rental place, chatting about life, fatherhood, and marriage.
The rest of the day was relatively blurred by a touch of sunstroke, a touch of sea-sway, and coming down off the high of the entire day. When I finally found a moment’s peace at a lonely Waffle House over a bowl of grits, I began to compose the outline of this story in my head.
St. Louis – 2009.07.20
Eric and I had a chance to sleep in a bit, as we didn’t have to fly back to Detroit until 5pm. We began the day by meeting up with Jimmy and Doc at another Waffle House. We had breakfast and said our goodbyes before heading back to St. Louis.
Our plan was to visit the Gateway Arch and go up to the top. I called about availability and the clerk told me there were plenty of spots today. When we arrived and walked up to the ticket booth, she told us that the first spots available were at 3pm, which was too late for us to go. Unfortunately, we were stuck at the bottom and had to content ourselves with marveling at the vastness of the steel Arch from the ground.
The Gateway Arch is one of those things that has to be seen to be believed. It was never on my radar as far as places I felt I had to visit in my lifetime; it was always sort of just “there” in the nationalistic part of my brain. It’s a great national monument—I knew this on some level—but I was just sort of ambivalent about it. Had I known how impressive it was, I would have been more eager to see it.
We got some good photos in and then looked for a place to eat lunch before we headed back to the airport. I used Yelp to search for “unique restaurants” and ended up finding a very highly rated Vietnamese place called Pho Grand; with the number of positive reviews, it couldn’t be all bad.
The trip to Pho Grand took us off the freeways and into the heart of some St. Louis neighborhoods, which is where I like to be. The district that the restaurant was in is one of very diverse ethnic shops and restaurants. In three blocks I saw Vietnamese, Thai, Afghan, African, Lebanese, Japanese, and Greek businesses. The Afghan restaurant intrigued me since I have never had Afghan food, but Eric didn’t want to chance it, so we went with the known quantity. The Pho was delicious, and Eric had a chicken stir fry that he was delighted with.
As a final Missouri send off, we could have done far worse. The rest of the day was a blur of driving, flying, and fatigue.
Now that I’ve had a couple of days to reflect, I would say that my mind and eyes have been opened a little bit. I was thrown for a loop, exposed to things I never thought I’d participate in, and had a little bit of culture shock of my own—the very thing I encourage others to do. They say payback is a bitch, but my experience this weekend has been that payback rules.
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