Jim & Al's Excellent Adventure Pt. III

Day 2 (part II)

A funny thing happened when we arrived today.

As Al and I were driving into Kansas City, Al asked me a question about what I felt the 'best case scenario' would be for our time at IHOP. We talked about it and I basically said that I wasn't going with any big expectations or hopes or questions that I needed answers to. It was interesting to talk about whether it was good or bad to go on a trip like this without particular expectations. On the one hand, it sounds good to 'not have expectations', but on the other hand, it sounds problematic to not have any particular hopes.

Anyway, I then said to Al that pretty much the only way this trip could be bad was if we arrived to find that they had closed the prayer room (which obviously couldn't happen because it's a 24/7 prayer room that hasn't ever closed in 8 years!)

So today we arrive at the IHOP missions base and as we gathered our stuff together from the trunk, I expressed my surprise to Al at how few cars there were in the parking lot. There were about 40-50 cars. As we walked to the building, it appeared that they were doing some work to the main doors, and there were a couple of people who went in side door, so we followed suit.

We open the door to walk in and the entire place was a construction zone!! Dry wall all over; chairs everywhere....

Al and I stood there in stunned silence. It was amazing because of our conversation in the car, not because we were worried that they had closed the prayer room. Obviously they had moved it to another temporary location.

It's just so good to be here and great to be here with Al. He's loving it so much; Al is one of the funniest people I know and he's had so many great lines that made me laugh really hard, but just don't translate in a blog because the voice and facial expressions are missing, not to mention the specific context! He was great in the book store... like a kid on Christmas; he didn't know what to look at next! Classic!