People keep asking us ‘how was the drive to kansas city?’…well, we flew so that’s not too interesting. then we get asked ‘did you have a good time?…Oh Yeah! We started out thinking it would be fun to check out the Royal and we had some miles saved so why not? Then, we kind of figured why not cook? Luckily, the Slabs offered to let us borrow a Lang (very critical), tent, tables and chairs. We then figured out what we really needed to have with us and sent one extra large bin of stuff with i smell smoke as they were driving. Next, we sent Terrence on his most important mission he had undertaken as part of the squad - to get important supplies. Then, Bren, JT and I packed one bag each and a soft cooler of meat and headed to St. Louis.
We arrived and found T’s car and went to the local grocery store. We ended up splitting up and looking for food, but we ended up getting duplicate items and having trouble finding each other. Then, we got our act together and finished off the list. We got a bunch of booze including 32 oz cans of miller products. Slept at T’s and made the 4 hour trek to Kansas City in the morning. We probably made it 10 miles (if that) and HAD to stop at Sonic, the greatest fast food joint of all time (except maybe In and Out burger). Drive was good except T’s car really shakes…it was fine. We arrived at the Royal and didn’t really check in, just assumed we’d find our place amongst 500 teams. And actually, we did immediately, only because we had an amazing spot right near the front of the place. We had a sweet spot. We got hooked up.
The AR is HUGE, immense, insane! We settled in on Friday, set up our stuff and waited for T and Chrissy to arrive with our cold beer. The set up was easy since we didn’t have too much stuff. One thing we did have was bales of hay. We were sent an order form ahead of time (the Royal is very organized like that) and among the things you could order were ice, charcoal, crown and bull pins, and hay. So of course, we had to have some. We decided to use it make sort of a low wall in the corner of our site; since we were on the end of our ’street’, it worked out well. JT even ended up setting up his tent directly on top of a bunch of bales so as not to have to set up and sleep on concrete. We walked around and checked out all the amazing teams who were competing. There are two sides of the place and we were on the side with all the ’serious’ teams who were gearing up to compete in the Invitational. There were so many great teams in the house, too many to even mention!
We settled in, started drinking, kept drinking…it got dark and we decided it was time to venture to the Dark Side. First of all, it was shocking how many people were in attendance of the event and even more crazy how big the parties were. Although this is a barbecue competition, I think the parties might be a bigger deal for many teams. We had a normal 20 x 25 ft site, but some sites were up to 5500 sq feet. Like I said, Huge. So there were a number of parties throughout the event, with tents, bars, live bands and people having a great time. We even saw one that had two floors. They actually have a party of the year contest. It was nuts.
Since we weren’t cooking that night; we drank our share and had a blast. Went to a pot luck dinner hosted by the Slabs. We watched the Red Sox beat the Angels in game 2 of the ALDS with iQue. And met a bunch of fantastic people.
Saturday we thought we’d cook in the side dish categories, we weren’t doing anything else…beans (people seemed to like), potatoes (breakfast potato skins - yum), vegetable (corn cakes with salsa - we like them) and desert. Oh desert, I’ll never do that again. We did a pound cake with chocolate mousse and almond whipped cream. For fun, I made it in the mold of one of the plastic helmuts Steve (iss) wears. Ha. It was tasty enough for me. However, as soon as I saw what other people were turning in, I wanted to dump mine in the trash. People go ALL OUT on the desert, completely over the top. I wish I was judging that category. So, probably won’t bother next time. Overall, we did fairly good on the side dishes.
We really wanted a shower and T & Chrissy had a hotel room…so we walked to it, up a gigantic hill, it was stupid, as if we weren’t tired enough. The shower was great though. Kind of kept Sat. night low key as we wanted to focus on the food. Things were fairly smooth and the night and morning went well. We had practiced the day before on the turn ins which was helpful since it was at least a 5 minute walk. Then comes crunch time…the chicken was good, not great. However, the ribs were fantastic. We were pretty psyched with them. The pork was not too bad, probably not our best. We had one brisket we overcooked and that was the very tasty one. The second one was not too bad either. We were fairly satisfied with the food.
The awards ceremony was certainly unlike anything we’ve ever been too, it was indoors where they must hold the rodeo as the floor was dirt. There was a huge stage, floor seating and bleacher seating. We were up in the bleachers. They call to 20 places for the BBQ events. We took 11th place in Ribs and were so excited to get the call. It was nice to be recognized. There were so many amazing teams competing.
We packed up and headed back to St. Louis for one more night at T’s place. We had an unforgettable experience at the American Royal and we are looking forward to the chance to go back. -JB
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