Pre KC Marathon and a Disappointing Sandwich

This evening I'm typing from the floor of a dimly-lit, bathroom-adjacent corner of my hotel room. We're in Kansas City. Tomorrow, Julie will be running her first marathon since Greg's arrival (outsider hint: Greg is our kid). Plan A was to run a different, flatter marathon last weekend, but yacking stomach illness pushed her back to Plan B - Kansas City.

Greg gives Julie some pointers on gel timing strategies.

Julie's marathon journey a neat story. Instead of talking about that, I need to tell you about a sandwich I ate this evening. A disappointing sandwich.

Fall is my favorite season. The weather takes a break from its murderous blasting, leaves turn silly colors, and sandwich vendors dust off their chutney jars and start making cranberry turkey sandwiches. I like cranberry turkey sandwiches. My favorite was one that I ate 9 years ago in Boulder, CO. Ahh, sandwich memories.

This year, Panera wanted in on the action and they've been advertising a Roasted Turkey and Cranberry Panini. I've had my eye on it for a while and was pretty excited when we had a Panera supper opportunity tonight. Finally, my day had come!

I ordered, I fetched, and I prepared to embrace the Fall - then I took a closer look at what I had. Promotional photographs of the sandwich suggested thick cuts of "roasted" turkey similar to what you would use the day after thanksgiving. The sandwich I had contained the same deli meat that is used as a force of powerful good by the Bacon Turkey Bravo. However, in this bacon-less context deli turkey was underwhelming. It got worse.

In addition to a cranberry compote this sandwich also sported a thick slathering of garlic and herb cheese spread. Turkey and cranberry often comes with some sort of mild spread to keep everything lubricated and moist, but the spread must be mild. These are delicate flavors! The spread completely took over and it made everything taste like a garlic and herb sandwich with a splash of cranberry and some lunch meat.

I'm still so disappointed. I just... You know. Sandwich.

...

Because this has been a depressing bummer of a post, I will now salvage it by coming up with two super positive things that happened today.

1. The hotel bathroom has an impressive looking shower. Here's a picture.

It's soooo square.

2. It's fun to take the laptop on trips because it has buttons. With buttons Julie has more fun surfing and I am much more likely to blog.

3. (bonus!) I got Julie a new phone today. It's red and it has a keyboard for texting and she likes it :-)