The Royal!

It is Sunday night, and we have just returned from Kansas City. We went down down for the American Royal, "the World Series of American Barbecue". We had a fun, but extremely short weekend trip. We drove down Friday night. Once work was done, we were packed, and we were actually on the road, it was about 6:30. After a dinner stop in Northern Missouri, we rolled into Kansas City at 10 o'clock. As we approached the skyline of downtown over the Missouri River, a huge firework display began! It was the nightly fireworks at the American Royal. The fireworks continued as we made our way through the freeways of downtown and past the American Royal grounds.

Saturday morning, we made our way to the City Market on the riverfront below downtown. It is a huge, wonderful mix of permanent market buildings and a Saturday morning Farmer' Market. It is a really, really good farmer's market.

The City Market had a hilarious kid's band playing. Sarah was very amused.

Asher loved the band too, and we are still singing one of their songs. Asher also loved the huge Asian market with many tanks of live fish, lobsters, clams, and crabs. That is a very rare sight in the Midwest!

At lunchtime, we drove to Kansas City, Kansas for a visit to my very favorite restaurant, Oklahoma Joe's. I can't say enough how good their BBQ is!

A good BBQ judge never shows how much he is enjoying the food

Saturday afternoon was included a trip to a massive BBQ super store, where the assortment of sauces, rubs, smokers, BBQ tools and cooking wood had me wandering around, not knowing where to start. It was at that point that I hit BBQ overload. In the evening, we went out to "The Legends", an outdoor mall out by the Kansas Speedway. We planned to go to a dinosaur-themed restaurant that we tried to visit in April, only to have Asher panic at the sight of the realistic T-Rex inside. This time, Asher was excited. He kept saying that he knew the dinosaur would be big, but it was only pretend and it couldn't hurt him. We strutted in with full confidence, only to have Asher absolutely melt down when the T-Rex opened his mouth and showed his teeth. Maybe next trip.

The dinosaurs outside the restaurant are only skeletons.

Asher loved the big fountain at the Legends

This morning, we headed down to the American Royal, the biggest BBQ contest of all, so that I could judge. The Sunday contest, the open, is huge, with several hundred BBQ teams from all over the country. The contest is down on the site of the old Kansas City Stockyards, and the teams were set up on acre after acre of parking lots. It is impossible to show how huge it is, but here are some pics.

With several hundred teams, they also needed several hundred judges. The judging tables filled a large expo hall. I was asked to serve as a table captain, as well as a judge. This meant I had to do two seperate jobs at the same time. It was fast-paced and kind of exhausting. The BBQ was good. Some was just OK and some was phenomenal. Even with that many people, the whole judging operation went smoothly. It was fun to be part of.

Meanwhile, Sarah went to Zona Rosa (shopping and another fun fountain), and to the Crayola Cafe for lunch.

After the judging was over, Sarah and Asher picked me up, and we headed back north.