Archive for "Travel"
Franklin US Open Pickleball Championships
Posted on April 29, 2026 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.
Yes, you read that right. The Minto US Open is now Franklin US Open Pickleball Championships – at least this year, anyway. To get a recap from previous years, read this and this.
You can’t go to the US Open and not take a picture in front of this wall. It is iconic. I love how they add every single year so it’s easy to tell what year you were there. They’re starting to run out of room, though.
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Some key differences between this year and previous years – besides the obvious absence of two major sponsors (Minto and Margaritaville) – the player goody bag was just a basic string bag and not as nice as past year’s bags, and there was not much in it this year in terms of swag. You still got a tournament shirt, though, which was nice and always appreciated. Since Franklin is the title sponsor, players also got a commemorative Franklin X40 ball this year. Brian and I ran into a few people at the tournament such as Ramon’s friend Johnny (whose last name I forget) and William and Rosti Sobek (below). |
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We also had a fun Lunar sighting. This young kid named Nicholas from California is sponsored by Lunar.
The usual suspects were there – Kyle Yates and Rob Cassidy.
We got to see Rich Lively, a senior pro who we met through our friend Susie Ternes because she hosted him one year.
And we got to watch Jack Oxler play several matches throughout the week.
And, of course, we also watched our favorite pro Jay Devilliers. He got to partner with Anna Leigh Waters in mixed doubles which was amazing!
My friend Laurie Adams and I played together in 3.5 women’s doubles 40-49 age group on Thursday. I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of us in our matching Chicken N Pickle team uniforms!
Then on Saturday I played 3.5 mixed doubles 40-49 age group with Michael Cheung. We played in our matching Lunar shirts.
I actually got accept for 3.5 singles 40-49 age group as well but the event was on Saturday, April 11, the day we were flying in so I had to withdraw. At least I withdrew early enough that I didn’t have to pay for the event that I couldn’t play in.
I was a bit more subdued this year and didn’t hound people for pictures. Something I deeply regret because I love looking back at photos and there’s not as much for me too look back on from this last trip. However, I did get participate in the iconic US Open flag ceremony this year.
Brian didn’t want any part of it so he just stayed in the Fan Zone while Michael and I walked with the Philippine contingency. It was so cool. The flag ceremony is one of the most unique and distinctive features of the US Open tournament and I was grateful to be part of it. I want to bring the Wichita flag next year.
Besides spending time at the tournament, Brian and I got to eat some good (albeit expensive) food and do some touristy things while we were in Naples. I’ll share more about those activities in the next post. Stay tuned!
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Good Eats, St. Louis
Posted on December 26, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
Recalling some of the food we ate while we were in St. Louis a couple of months ago… The first place we tried was Truck Norris in Ellisville because it was close to both MPC Ellisville and our hotel in Chesterfield. This place originated as a food truck, which ended up getting wrecked so then they had to find a brick and mortar. Thus, Truck Norris, the restaurant, came to be.
Brian found this place while googling restaurants nearby with good reviews.
They have lots of beers on tap but are most known for their “totchos” – short for tater tot nachos, which ironically we did not have. We should have tried it but we only found out after we had already ordered our food.
Here are some pictures of the food we did have…
The next day we had lunch at a place called Ukraft in downtown St. Louis after checking out the Gateway Arch. It was highly recommended by one of the employees we met at the Arch. It was also just a short walk so we didn’t have to move our car.
I honestly don’t even remember what we ordered but we both enjoyed our meals. The chips were homemade and they gave you a generous helping. Our sandwiches and my side of slaw was good. My favorite part, however, was the brunch punch. It was alcoholic but tasted like fruit juice.
Later that evening we met up with my friend Christie Pink and her partner Travis at Billy G’s, a local restaurant chain.
Here are some pics of our dinner.
After dinner, we went to check out this place called the District which is an entertainment area with a music/event venue (the Factory), and several restaurants and bars.
We walked around and checked out a couple of places including a local brewery. It was a little bit chilly that night, which I wasn’t quite prepared for, so we didn’t get to enjoy much of the outdoor space but overall I found the District pretty cool. Will have to return to check it out over the summer or some other time when there’s better weather.
Anyway, that was pretty much the dining we had during our quick St. Louis getaway. The dining was mostly a side thing, though. Our main mission that weekend was for me to check off the St. Charles Chicken N Pickle location, which we accomplished. Five more locations to go!
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Road Trip to Allen
Posted on October 13, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
Since I wrote about Chama already, I won’t write about it again. However, I will use this post to write about all the other things we did that weekend. As you know, we were down in the DFW area celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary in August but we found ourselves back there again last month for the Chicken N Pickle ambassador event in Allen, Texas.
For most of our road trips, we try to stay at Hyatt Place because (a) they are pet friendly and only charge a $75 pet cleaning fee, and (b) I can use my Chase Rewards points. On this visit, we stayed at the Hyatt Place in Allen, TX. I had to take picture of the door because their address number is 333, which is a throwback to our Texas hold’em days.
Saki is such a good girl. We love taking her on road trips whenever we can.
We met our friend Laurie Adams for happy hour at the Lazy Dog down the street from our hotel on Friday night. This was actually a wonderful surprise because I originally thought we would have to drive to Grapevine. Come to find out, there are several Lazy Dog locations throughout Texas and there was one about five minutes from our hotel.
Here are some pictures of our food.
You can’t go for happy hour and not have any drinks, obviously. So here are some drink pics. The cocktail sampler was not part of the happy hour specials but I still had to try it.
The next day, I played in the Chicken N Pickle ambassador team event at the Allen, TX CNP alongside Laure, Bee Bandasack, and Tom Pham.
We had dozens of ambassadors from at least seven Chicken N Pickle locations converge for some friendly competition. It was a great time!
Here’s a little highlight video I made of the event:
It was such a fabulous weekend. I can’t wait to do it all again.
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September Activities Round Up
Posted on October 6, 2025 by Ching under Events, Life, Travel.
I met another one of the guys from the chess club, Austin. He was a good sport and tried pickleball after we played chess. Their regular weekly meetups, which I have yet to attend since I joined the chess group several years ago, are at the Delano Braums on Wednesday evenings, and the Advanced Learning Library on Sunday afternoons. A few of them have come out to check out TapNPaddles, though. I hope they can add Friday nights at Tap to the regular rotation.
I participated in a super exciting team-building activity with my workmates. Our afternoon began with volunteering at the Kansas Food Bank, happy hour at the Monarch, and we were to wrap up with a baseball game, which ended up getting canceled due to a hailstorm.
We ended up just hanging out in the suite until it was save to walk to our cars and head home. There were two storms that night. The others stayed but a few of us decided to take off during the intermission, aka the break between the two storms. Tom Grace came down from to Topeka and he walked from his hotel to the meet us at the Monarch so I ended up giving him a ride back to his hotel. Literally, no sooner than I dropped him off, it started hailing again. I could hear the hail hit the roof of my car as I was driving down Kellogg. I kept looking around me to see if there were holes because the hits were so loud. I was afraid (because it sounded like the hail could punch a hole through thick steel and could really hurt you if you got hit with it) but also secretly hoping I had some hail damage because I have a crack on my windshield that’s getting bigger by the day. I was hoping to get hail damage money and use it to replace the windshield. Brian checked my car after. Alas, no such luck. I guess I’m going to have to pay for my new windshield out of my own pocket. Currently a low priority so I’m putting it off.
Brian and I had tickets to the ballpark for the next day. It turned into a double header. They played both the game from the previous night and that night’s game back to back but reduced it to seven innings. We couldn’t take off work so we only went for the second part. The Dills (Becca and Jay) and the Huntees (Tina and Justin Huntington) met us there. It was great seeing Tina and Justin as we hadn’t seen them in ages.
Speaking of things we hadn’t seen or done in a while, we went to Zoobilee for the first time in a long time. Free tickets are kind of hard to pass up.
We went to Allen, Texas (DFW area) for a quick weekend getaway so I could participate in the Chicken N Pickle ambassador event. More on that later.
We went back to Chama Gaucha, which has quickly become one of our favorite places to eat down there.
Checked out a new restaurant in town that we had never been to yet. More on this later too.
Got a plant for work.
We celebrated the Wichita Pickleball Facebook group reaching the 4K members milestone with a special Friday night open play and a huge Friday Night Fiesta, one of the biggest ever!
We met up with some of our pals at Napoli to celebrate April Phelps’ birthday.
And, we completed some home projects. It was a productive month overall.
I’ll do a deep dive into some of the things that we did in September next so be sure to check back. Until next time!
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The Real Unreal
Posted on September 8, 2025 by Ching under Travel.
Here’s a short highlight video I made of our recent trip to the Real Unreal, the Meow Wolf in Grapevine, TX.
Our mission was to find this missing boy and we failed miserably. Moral of the story? Don’t ask for our help in these situations because are apparently no good at finding missing people. LOL. We gave up before we could complete the mission.
I think part of it was that we were overwhelmed with all the kids there. Firstly, unlike Convergence Station in Denver, this Meow Wolf is attached to the Grapevine Mills Mall which I think adds to the traffic. Secondly, we went during the summer before school started so I’m guessing a lot of people were doing one last activity with their kiddos before school started again.
While this wasn’t our favorite Meow Wolf exhibit, we still had a great time and are looking forward to visiting all the other Meow Wolf locations. Of the existing locations, we have three more to check out:
- The House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe, NM
- Omega Mart in Las Vegas, NV
- Radio Tave in Houston, TX
I hope we get to see them before the new ones in LA and NY are added. What about you? Have you been a Meow Wolf? What did you think of it?
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