Birthday!

Wednesday the 6th was Joe's birthday (I won't say how many he has now celebrated...). We enjoyed an evening out in KC, starting at the fantastic bar at Pierpont's at Union Station. The station itself is a holdover from a more elegant era- the gorgeous interior space of the station is inspiring, and rouses a longing for a time when travel was elegant and when the U.S. had a real transportation system. I never get this feeling from the cramped and plain airports that we use today, and car travel on our crumbling infrastructure is simply ridiculous (see my post from four days prior). One can still take the train from Union Station, but it is slow, expensive, and inefficient. For example, to travel to Chicago via train is more costly than flying, takes longer than driving, and travelers only have the option to leave two times a day. That and the Amtrak trains that I see pulling out of the station appear to be of the same era as the station itself- pre-World War II. As a result of the decreased use of the station for transportation the city has tried to place a variety of tourist attractions in the station building, some with more success than others. While I'm not excited about the type of exhibits they bring in (Princess Diana's stuff, Motorcycles, etc.), I do love Pierpont's, which is located in a corner of the station. I haven't eaten in the restaurant itself, but the bar is beautiful, and the service on Joe's birthday was fantastic.