The Legends
Last night, Jeff and I took a break from working late at his office, and sweating in my apartment, respectively, and made the trip out to the commercial development on the edge of forever: The Legends at Village West. It's a beautiful new outdoor mall sitting on the western edge of the KC area, surrounded by wheat fields and paint-by-number houses. I live downtown, in what is ideally the center of the metropolitan area, and it still took 25 minutes to get there.

The Legends suffers from very unfortunate timing. For it to have been truly successful, it would have to have been built twnety years ago. But then again, if it had been built twenty years ago, it would be falling into decay by now, as is the way with suburban America. The reason the timing is bad is because it was completed and opened about one year into the steady increase of gas prices into oblivion, and a retail center, which is all it is, requires cheap unskilled labor. With very few residents nearby, the Legends looks to places well over "just a couple miles" away for its workforce.

So, they need people to drive 10+ miles each way, to get to a job that pays under $10 an hour, and pay, right now, $2.85 a gallon for gasoline. It doesn't balance out, and hence, it won't last, I deem.

But, the viability of the leagues-distant Legends was not the purpose for our call. We were going to the Yard House, which is located in the very last part of the complex that we checked. That is, we checked every other part first, and began to doubt that the Yard House exists. Indeed it does, however. We walked in, and found that they store the active kegs pell-mell behind windows through which visitors are encouraged to gaze. The kegs are connected to lines that join together in ten-inch tubes that wend their way toward the bar, situated in the center of the large, modern, attractive room, and feed beer into their 130 taps, 110 of which are distinct.

I had a Rogue Juniper Pale Ale and a Bridgeport IPA, and Jeff had a Red Hook ESB and a Lost Coast Great White. The beers were $4.75 apiece, far more expensive than such a far-flung location was justified to charge, in my opinion, but we paid up, had some preprocessed chicken nachos, and walked over to the new nearby Granite City location, and enjoyed some in-house beer, and conversation with Megan behind the bar, and several Yard House employees.

I wore my sandals for all this- rather, I took my sandals, as they are so old(13+ years) that wearing them for a prolonged period is exceedingly painful, and very blister-happy on my feet. So, for most of the walking, I carried my sandals, and walked barefoot. While this didn't promote blisters on my feet, it did bring about a steady pain from walking on all the pavement. The Legends, for a suburban development, is surprisingly bereft of grass. Anyway, after getting a couple drinks at Granite City, I stepped outside, and stepped into the fountain, to give my feet a bit of relief.

Jeff walked outside and laughed copiously.

We took State Avenue all the way through KCK to get home, and confirmed that yes, it is that far.

justin8216 was sure you'd want to know:
You must have been driving like 30 mph on the interstate if it took you 25 minutes to get to the Legends. For those of doind the

speed limit, it should take you about 15 minutes door to door.

10:54 PM, Sep 14, 2006

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