The St. Louis Arch beckons in the distance

It’s great to watch baseball with classy fans who cheer loudly for their guys, don’t boo the other guys, and who actually appreciate the intricacies of the game.  And even though the Cardinals came perilously close to being no-hit in their own backyard (while my guy Justin Verlander actually tossed a no-hitter against the Blue Jays in Detroit! Woot!), we were treated to one of the best experiences available in the Major Leagues – Busch Stadium.

Not too shabby a view.

A bit hot for May, but a perfect afternoon for baseball.

Some classy gents who agreed to pose with me.

[Photos taken with the iPhone 4]

Tonight I’m in the Hyatt Place Kansas City, Overland Park. It’s not the Ritz, but then again, nothing that isn’t the Ritz is the Ritz… and that’s not easy for me to say. BUT, the Hyatt Place Kansas City is actually pretty darn sweet and I am wicked happy with the room, the price, and our service. The staff has been so nice, even offering to go to Wal-Mart for my business partner and I to fetch cheese and crackers to accompany our 14 Hands wine. When the tall, handsome, sweater-vest-wearing guy at the front desk warmed up a giant (and I do mean GIANT) chocolate chip cookie for us, well…I was officially in mad love.

Enough chit-chat. Meet Room 208 at the Hyatt Place Kansas City, AKA “Official Temporary Home of Sher.”

We have an unexpected pit group in our room. It makes me want to get to know the people in Room 210 so I can ask them over to watch The Wheel and eat American cheese on saltines.

I dig the throw pillows on the bed. Not enough hotels spring for the throw pillow any more. I blame women’s lib and Glenn Beck.

Wet bar. Very Valley of the Dolls. I don’t even know what that means, but I’m sticking with it.

I’ll admit I haven’t turned on the TV yet, but it’s flat and shiny and that’s enough for me.  For roughly twenty minutes I thought I was watching a documentary about an old woman drinking wine and washing her make-up off, but it was just my reflection.

The mirror is the size of a twin bed, but that’s not the best thing about it. The BEST THING about that ginormous mirror is that it is devoid of a single fingerprint or speck of dust. I looked. Yes I did. Kudos on the sparking clean enormous mirror, Hyatt Place housekeeping people. Jesus loves you and so do I.

That there is a smart ice bucket  for when we have our friends The Room 210s over for a night cap. (All my life I’ve wanted to know what a night cap is. I’m feeling lucky tonight, what with this dashing ice bucket and all.)

Sadly I only have a photo of the lobby sans Handsome Sweater-Vest-Wearing Guy Who Warms My Cookies. I highly recommend you come to the Hyatt Place Kansas City yourself next time you’re in town and get your own cookies warmed. Ask for the Sher 208 Valley of the Dolls Special. It’ll run you under $100 a night, and even though they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about, it’s what the room costs all day every day even if you don’t use the special Sher code.  Clearly these people have no clue who I think I am.

• 6801 W 112Th Street, Overland Park, Kansas 66211, USA
• Phone: 1-913-451-2553 Fax: 1-913-451-3098

We three have three firm rules about traveling:

1. Never eat at a chain restaurant.
2. Laugh often and at least until a beverage shoots out your nose.
3. Stay in CLEAN (and cool) hotels.

Looks like Seattle is next on our travel agenda, (April), and our trip there is going to give us a chance to forgo a hotel room and try out a super cool service called HomeAway. Here’s the deal – folks list their property on the HomeAway website and people like us rent it for a night or a week or a month.

I’ve thought for a long time that HomeAway looks super cool, and now for the first time I get to check it out for myself.

Rent the perfect vacation home at HomeAway.com!!

The places I’ve found for us in Seattle are just adorable, at least in the photos. They’re super reasonable, too. Looks like we can get an entire house to rent for less than $100 a night! Can you even believe that?

HomeAway isn’t a bed and breakfast. You’re actually staying in a private place, which in most cases is fully equipped with just about everything you need to enjoy yourself.

Am I little afraid I’ll inadvertently rent a psycho killer’s house and I’ll get stabbed in the shower? I am. But I’m gonna do it anyway because it looks like a fun adventure and because there are such fantastic bargains on HomeAway.

Stay tuned to hear how it turns out. That is, unless I get stabbed in the shower.

Rent the perfect vacation home at HomeAway.com!!

When we took a trip to Eureka Springs, we did what any good Twitter travelers would do – we asked our pals on Twitter to direct us to the very best places to eat. They didn’t let us down.

The Oasis was at the top of the list and by far, the hardest to find! We looked, and looked, and looked and must have walked right past it ten different times. To find The Oasis, you have to be on your game. It’s almost like the owners only want the most earnest, most deserving, restaurant patrons to find it.

Praise be, we were among that elite I FOUND THE OASIS group because honey – it was straight up FANTASTIC.

The restaurant is so tiny, it’s like walking into someone’s kitchen. In fact, if you open the door with too much force, you’re likely gonna crack the skull of someone enjoying their “Tex Ark” delicious dish.

The first thing I noticed was how quirky and cool the walls were. Decorated with posters that are so old it’s entirely possible they are integral to the structure, you’re not gonna find any run of the mill “art” here. It’s straight up weirdness – and the Smartphone Travel crew loved it.

But forget the atmosphere and the super nice waitress that seemed like she might have at one time been a pretty serious Dead Head, let’s talk about the food.

Sweet. Heavenly. Love.

Listen, I’m not gonna kid you. I don’t know what the heck Tex Ark food is, but I do know that I am now an official fan. The beans made JD so happy, there was a distinct possibility he was going to write a bean poem had he not been distracted by how fantastic his pork was.

Let’s put it this way. The food at The Oasis was so wicked good that we purposefully ate slower because we didn’t want it to be over. As a woman who has been known to inhale an entire brownie in 1.none seconds, that’s saying something.

If you’re going to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, you’ve got to try The Oasis for lunch. Don’t bring plastic because they only take cash, and don’t be in any hurry. This isn’t McDonald’s and after all, you’d best be proving yourself worthy of my even telling you where it is…

53 C Spring St, Eureka Springs, AR

My handsome Smartphone Travel pals have decided Niagara Falls is the place for three cool kids with smokin’ hot smartphones. (And by kids, I mean “kids” in our own feeble & sort of old minds.)

JD, the tallest of the smartphone totin’ gang, has been to Niagara Falls lots of times. I’m sad to report that not even ONE of those times did he man up and go over the Falls in a barrel. If he had, I would respect him. Since he didn’t, I can barely look at him.

There is hope for JD to redeem himself with me though. All it takes is a set of super durable Tall Man Water Wings and a leap of faith during our trip to Niagara Falls. If you should read at some point that an exceptionally tall man was shoved over the Falls, you shouldn’t assume it was me – even though I’m gonna be honest with you…

It was probably totally me.

Dude, the second tallest among us, may or may not have told me whether he’s ever been to Niagara Falls. He was probably telling me using one of his patented “make Sher almost pee her pants” voices, which explains my loss of memory. He could tell me he’d recently strangled the Easter Bunny with a Cadbury wrapper and if he said it in what I can only describe as “drunken John Lennon voice”, I couldn’t turn state’s evidence against him because I’d only remember laughing.

So yeah. Niagara Falls this summer. I have no idea what a person does in Niagara Falls other than honeymoon or plummet to their death, but I’m excited to find out. Road trips with my Smartphone Travel boys are almost better than brownies and red wine.

Almost.

Footfeed began app life as a homegrown solution to combat “check-in fatigue,” that pervasive scourge now sweeping the globe. Several months back, Dude and I tried Footfeed when the feature set was relatively small and the functionality struggled to locate about half of the spots we frequented. We figured that having one tool that does you the equivalent of individual check-ins on Brightkite, Facebook, Foursquare, Google Latitude, GoWalla and Twitter sounded pretty great in theory…but the initial experience let us off far short of one-click check-in nirvana.

Early this October, Footfeed released the 2.0 version packed with new features, the most notable of which is a fast & accurate multi-check-in offering users the ability to manually match locations on the fly. The app also does a fantastic job of aggregating nearby rewards and promos, as well as giving you user tips and all your location stats in one place.  But I learned that there’s a lot more to Footfeed & where they want to take us, when I had the privilege to chat yesterday with CEO Dennis Mink.

One of the things that struck me right away in my time with Dennis was his sincere desire to get into the heads of everyday folks like us who’re using the app, and have us help him keep this baby pointed in the right direction, especially as things in the location services space are shifting so radically; witness Brightkite’s recent drop off the radar (Footfeed will now be adding Whrrl in their stead), and GoWalla launching their app which integrates Foursquare check-ins.  Plenty more shifts and shake-ups are sure to come, but I like the way Footfeed has its focus on cultivating brand loyalty tie-ins that they believe will put REAL power in smartphone users’ hands.

Footfeed is available now for free in the Apple App store, and the beta Android version is due to drop THIS WEEK (hear that, Sher?!) Make sure you give Footfeed a go, and please let Dennis and the gang know what you think by responding to their user survey. You can also tweet them up @footfeedapp

As I sit waiting on my friend, I’m able to knock out my grocery shopping list using a yummy app called Ziplist.

Can’t remember how much cream I need for cream puffs! Oh holy hell!

Ziplist says “Easy there, sweet cookie. We got your grocery list back.”

In a flash, Ziplist searches the web for my recipe and adds the ingredients to my list. What????

Tell me that’s not sexy.

So in the time my friend has been with her Doc, I’ve knocked out my shopping list AND written this post. I love you, Droid X, and I think I love you too, Ziplist.

Link

This is what Bally’s in Las Vegas considers clean – crusty lip prints from previous guests and long, black, hairs in the tub. Both are complementary.