A long time friend and former coworker of mine name King Kuhl retired about a week ago. He was having a retirement party in Davenport, Iowa this past Saturday and I was invited. He and I go way back and have had a lot of great laughs over the years, so there was no way I was going to miss this party.
Upon looking for flights to the "Quad Cities", I realize this was not going to be a quick and cheap weekend. Flights were going to be around $500 round trip and I'd have to make some stops and catch connecting flights along the way. Then I realized my friend K9 was going to be driving to the party from Milwaukee, I worked it out so I could catch a ride with him. So early in the morning on Saturday, March 5th, I headed to Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport to hop on a plane headed for Milwaukee.
This was my first time flying since COVID. During that time, I had gone about 2 years without stepping foot into an airport or on an airplane. Arriving at BWI, the first thing I noticed is that my former off site parking spot, Bullseye Parking, had closed. Bummed, I looked to another off site parking lot nearby and found Parking Spot West. They provide the same car to terminal service that Bullseye did and it worked pretty well.
Another change that happened during COVID was that I let my TSA PreCheck status expire. It expired in December 2020. I didn't want to go through the process of renewing it and paying the fees without knowing when I'd fly again. About a month or two after it expired, my employer with the Federal government informed me that we could use the number on the back of our Common Access Card (CAC) in place of the PreCheck Known Traveler ID. For some reason it didn't work and I was unable to take advantage of the PreCheck pass through security. So I had to go through the process of taking my shoes off, pulling my laptop, tablet and CPAP machine out of my luggage, and getting a thorough check. It wasn't bad, but it reminded me why I paid for PreCheck for so may years.
On the day I was flying out, BWI was a madhouse. I think it was a mix of college kids going on Spring Break and a bunch of others flying through Baltimore to get to a lacrosse tournament. There were TONS of kids with lacrosse hoodies and jackets on in there. However, it was a good day to fly and it looked like most flights were getting out on time.
A quick flight from BWI to Milwaukee only took a little over two hours in the air. I got to sit next to a gun shooting Sconie on the plane who was headed there from NYC to attend a funeral. With no one in between us, the conversation was fun and the flight went quick.
When I arrived at Milwaukee, I got off the plane and headed right to the pickup area where my friend K9 was waiting for me. We headed off quickly as we wanted to spend as much time in Davenport with our friends as we could.
The ride to Davenport was great. K9 and I had so much fun catching up on old times, telling stories of old days, and even taking in a few sights.
The first thing we noticed was that there was a bunch of people on bridge overpasses as we got onto I-90 / I-39 in Beloit, Wisconsin and all the way until we picked up I-80 in Rochelle, Illinois. It took us a bit to realize what was going on, but we were driving just minutes ahead of the Freedom Convoy headed towards Washington, DC.
Whatever your political feeling about this may be, it was fun seeing so many people out on a nice day, waiving USA flags and waiving at vehicles driving down the road. We must have seen people varying from 5 or 6 to over 500 over a course of 30 or so bridges along the way. It was a lot of fun. K9 and I would honk and waive at them at every bridge we came to.
As we got into the afternoon, we decided we needed to get some food and we decided to stop in Dixon, Illinois. I didn't realize until we started to go there, but Dixon is the childhood hometown of former President Ronald Reagan. I'm a HUGE Reagan fan and regard him as one of the greatest presidents of all time. So I made sure we swung by his childhood home so I could look at it and take some pictures. However, first we needed to eat so we went to Arthur's Garden Deli. I've never heard of it, but we saw a sign for it as we pulled into Dixon, I looked at the reviews, they were great and we decided to go.
The place was neat and there was a pretty decent line to order. That made me think we made the right choice in finding a place to eat. Once I ordered, I got a #1 – WORK OF ART (Sub with Ham, Chicken, Beef, Swiss, Cheddar & Provolone) with a veggie pasta salad and spicy dill pickle chips. The meal was AMAZING!!!!! I really couldn't get enough.
After filling up on that amazing sub, we went up the street to visit Ronald Reagan's Childhood Home. Unfortunately, due to it being winter, the visitors center and house were closed to visitors. However, we had a great time looking at the building and walking around a park next to the house in President Reagan's honor.
Once back on the road, we only had about an hour to go to get to Davenport. The ride was fairly uneventful except for a wreck in which a tractor trailer carrying water snapped in half along the side of the interstate.
Arriving in Davenport, we went right to Kuhl's house. A group of us hung out in his driveway drinking beer and having some good laughs before we went to the hotel to check in and then the party.
The retirement party was held at a large indoor complex that houses a sporting facility, as well as bowling alley, escape rooms, golf driving simulators, and arcade. The place was called the
TBK Bank Sports Complex and it was awesome!!!
Everything about the party was great. I got to see a bunch of friends, enjoy $20 pitchers of Toppling Goliath Pseudo Sue, and share some great laughs. My friends K9, Scarlett, and the others did a great job roasting Kuhl.
After the dinner and roasting, we headed down to bowl. Then the fun began.
At one point, while everyone was bowling, the phones of all 20 meteorologists there started to ring. We all looked down. We were in a Tornado Warning at our location. Minutes later, we were told to evacuate the bowling alley and go to an interior location of the facility.
What a way for a Meteorologist in Charge to go out at his retirement party with a tornado nearby!
Of course, I had to go outside and see what I could see (which happened to be a whole lot of rain, lightning, and tornado sirens). The tornado warning definitely added some excitement to the evening.
Once the tornado warning was over, we were allowed to go back and bowl some more. While there, K9 stole some barely consumed pizza that was left behind by others who departed during the tornado action. The group of us couldn't stop cracking up.
After bowling, we ended the long day next door at the Foundry Food and Tap. The beer was great, but we had been drinking all day. So most of us took it easy before calling it a night around 1:30am.
All in all, it was well worth my time to head out for this party and to see so many of my friends who I haven't seen in years. I miss all my friends at the National Weather Service and it was so good to just chill out, have many beers, even more laughs, and even get some severe weather action in.
