November 20, 2025

Thursday

San Carlos, CA > Kansas City, MO

Good morning to all! Today starts our next adventure, or more appropriately adventures. We are off this morning for Kansas City to spend time with Rochelle, Harry IV, Harry V, Grace, Oliver, George and the two dogs. From the date you can probably summarize that we are also here for Thanksgiving, and you would be correct.

On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving we leave for Santiago, Chile and then on to Antarctica. We will be sailing on a new cruise line, at least for us, called Silver Sea. After talking to many fellow Regent passengers and a few prior Silver Sea’s passengers they two cruise lines seem to offer the same level of luxury. But we will find out. They ship we will be on is the Silver Sea Endeavor which was built in 2021. The smallest ship we will have been on so far with a maximum of 220 guests.

We will return to Kansas City on December 15th after the cruise and stay here for Christmas. We will return to California for four days to swap out clothing, we’re moving from summer in the southern hemisphere, but it is still very cold in Antarctica where it will be -1C (30F) to 4C (40F). It can get up to 10C (50F) on occasion. Jordan on the other hand will be a bit warmer [3C (38F) to 14C (54F)], and Egypt still a little warmer [9C (48F) to 20C (68F)], however Italy will fall back to cold [-1C (30F) to 7C (45F)]. OK, so Jordan and Egypt will be warmer, but Italia, in the middle of winter, will be as cold a Antartica is in the middle of its summer.

Jordan & Egypt are in January, then we return to Italy where Harry V will be doing his junior semester broad the SDA Bocconi School of Management, Bocconi University, POLIMI Graduate School of Management (part of Politecnico di Milano) and la Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Pietro went to school here. Oh, yes, Harry V is going with us to Jordan and Egypt.

All of that is in the future, what about today? Well, the day began with my watch telling me it was time to wake up at 04:40. It is one of the very few days I probably could have slept in. It is like when you make a canasta of Kings using a wild card because you don’t think you will get the seventh king to make the canasta, and then in your very next draw you draw a king. Not sure why that happens, but it seems to happen a lot. However, much like life, if you don’t make that canasta of kings, you’ll never get another one.

We had both packed the night before and laid out our clothing for this morning. Brush the teeth, comb the hair, throw on the clothes, and put the PJs into the suitcase and zip it up. We have a Blacklane car waiting for us outside at 05:00. It is dark, cold and raining lightly. Our flight is from Oakland International Airport, which is usually about an hour drive from San Carlos.

The flight is on Southwest Airlines, and it departs ay 07:50. So a 05:00 pick up makes some sense. It was a very quick ride to Oakland. A majority of the traffic seemed to be going in the opposite direction. We arrived at Terminal 2 in Oakland just after it had gone 05:30, a very quick ride indeed.

Check-in was a breeze. We printed our luggage tags and headed to the bag drop. While we knew we were close on the weight issue, we had used Mary’s little portable luggage weighting device, we were about to find out if we managed the weight of the bags properly. It turned out the portable scale isn’t quite as accurate as it should be, or the scale at the airport is off. Arguing with the person ding the weigh in won’t help, but Mary’s bag is a pound and a half over the fifty-pound limit, mine was four-tenths of a pound over. The person at the counter said she would let is slide. Maybe she knows which scale is more accurate?

Security was also amazingly easy this time of the day. We were TSA Pre-check anyway, which generally makes it easier. After security we walked directly to our gate, #26. Found some seats and then went to Peet’s near the gate for morning coffee. We still had an hour and a half before boarding was to begin. That hour and a half passed fairly quickly and before we knew it it was time to stand in line to board. We are A08 and A09, so boarding early. We knew we would get seats together and probably the window and isle which we prefer.

Once settled in we both nodded off to sleep. I woke up about two hours into the flight. Mary was still sleeping when I woke up. The games on my phone kept me entertained for the remainder of the flight. It was raining when we landed in Kansas City. Like the king in canasta, we were on time, at a time where being on time doesn’t really have in advantage.

The AirB&B we rented, through Vrbo, has a check-in time of 16:00. We managed to get them to allow check-in at 15:00. However, our flight arrived at 13:00. It is no more than forty-five minutes from the airport to the plaza where our rented apartment is. That is ok because Southwest is notoriously slow getting the bags to baggage claim. Well, again, like the kings previously alluded to, today the managed to get the bags to baggage claim in record time.

A car was arranged to pick us up at 14:15. The car company, Prestige, had a lot of trouble with that since we did tell them we were arriving at 13:00. We explained that the apartment we rented had a check-in of 15:00 and arriving there early would mean standing out in front of the apartment building in the rain. It would be easier and dryer to stay inside the airport where it was warmer and dryer. Eventually they got it.

Lisa, the driver, arrived on time at 14:15. We had taken seats near the baggage carousel to wait. It had only been about forty minutes of waiting until Lisa showed up. We quickly made our way out the large black Escalade which Lisa was driving. The timing was perfect we arrived at the front door of the Whitehall Apartment building at the corner of Oak and Emanuel Cleaver II Blvd. just as it went 15:00. A few push buttons on the front door entry and we were inside.

We are staying in Apartment 2A on the second floor. This apartment building, actually now condos, is an historic building built in 1926. It is an eight-story building with 48 units. Its location at 323 Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard and Oak Street is a really great location. Just a few blocks off of the plaza shopping and dining area, not far from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and overlooking their Southmoreland and Frank A. Theis Parks is great. It is also about eight-tenths of a kilometer (half mile) to Harry IV and Rochelle’s house.

We settled into the apartment. It is actually pretty good sized for two people. One large main room which serves as the kitchen, living and dinning room. Full sized refrigerator, dishwasher, stove top and oven, microwave, coffee maker, dining table, couch, coffee table, TV and a counter for preparing food and dinning. The bedroom is small but how much beyond sleeping do you need? There is a small bathroom with a tub/shower combination, and a washer and dryer. The only thing missing is somewhere to put you clothing. There is one luggage rack and a few shelves. It is just enough for us, but then we both have one suitcase which had cold weather clothing which we won’t unpack.

Once settled in we offered to have dinner with George, but he wanted to nap. Sp we walked down to the plaza and the Cheesecake Factory and had dinner. Mary had a salad, and I chose the chicken pot stickers. After dinner we took an Uber to Harry V and Rochelle’s house to meet up with George. We are going to the Football Awards Ceremony at Pembroke High School with George.

George drove us over to Pembroke and we walked into the hall for the Awards Ceremony just before it began. Both George and Oliver got varsity letters tonight. Good for a sophomore! After the ceremony we went to Costantino‘s Brookside Market and get a few things for the apartment – milk, yogurt, berries, etc. Then George drove us back to the apartment.

We parted company and went inside. Once inside we unpacked the groceries and got ready for bed. A quick cup of tea and then it was off to bed. All in all a good day, especially for a travel day.

Buonanotte and ciao,

Enrico and Maria