Bloggers Daniella Maney, ‘20 and Mark McPhillips, ‘20 embarked on a road trip this summer with their friend Samuel Piller, ‘20 before coming back to Conn. We will publish a series of posts about what they experienced along the way.... (Read Post 1)

I started my day at 9:30 a.m. (which feels both early and late) by running circles around the parking lot of the La Quinta Hotel. 

Samuel and I planned to jump start our day by burning off some of the fast food that we have eaten on our trip so we headed down to the small La Quinta hotel gym. The gym had four machines inside a small glass room. One man was already using the elliptical machine, and another was on the stationary bike. One of the treadmills was broken and Samuel had already started to run on the second so I decided to take laps around the small parking lot. Some kids relaxing in the pool stared at me as I struggled to jog around my industrial setting in the heart of Wichita, Kansas, next to the Wichita Airport. Samuel and I walked back to our room and flung our legs up as we laid down, draining the lactic acid from our legs while Mark looked on laughing. We took turns showering and I found a breakfast spot on my phone called the Doo Dah Diner, a very homey diner in Wichita. When we arrived they seated us at the counter right in front of the kitchen action. Everything that was being cooked looked amazing, especially the daily special: a sloppy joe with homemade hash browns topped with mac and cheese. Naturally one of us had to order this and that someone was Samuel. I got the corned beef hash, a dish that is admittedly not very good looking but is a family favorite, and Mark got the eggs benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce. Our food was amazing, almost as good as the food that Mark's friend Sophie made us back in Chicago. After filling ourselves to the brim, we headed back on the road to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Once we were well on our way to Oklahoma City we realized that we forgot to get postcards for Kansas. We are collecting postcards from every state we visit so we turned around and drove 30 minutes to the closest town, but we had no luck. Mark and I left disappointed but hopeful that Oklahoma City might have a Kansas postcard. Unfortunately, none were found so if anyone reading this is from Kansas please help us fill the gap in our collection. I drove through OKC (home of the Thunder) and we decided to stop at the Botanical Gardens. I LOVED the Botanical Gardens. There were koi fish jumping out of the water and ducks floating around and climbing up underwater ladders to get back on land. After some much-needed fresh air and flowers and animals, we got back into the car and headed to the Howard Johnson Hotel. We arrived before 10 p.m., which was a big feat for us. This meant we had time to watch a movie, “Children of the Corn,” before falling asleep.

Panhandle State’s Fresh Cooked Advice/Facts

1) Fields and food portions get bigger the more southwest you travel.

2) I want to live somewhere with a botanical garden.

3) Samuel, Mark and I would all be great at working at a diner.

4) Old horror movies set in rural areas are creepier and more realistic after driving through towns that look exactly like the background.

5) When semi trucks pass by on the highway sometimes the wind from their car shakes ours.

Pictured below: Mark sad about leaving Kansas. 

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