VACATION–Dorothy, we are not in Kansas anymore, Show Me Missouri!

(this post is about Tuesday, April 5, 2011)

Well, at the time I am writing this we are just heading out of Kansas, so the title fits kinda sorta, huh?  

Our Dear Daughter Heather is a Wizard of Oz fan --- hence the Dorothy reference and Kansas tie in.  Once we dressed her up as Dorothy … so she could sing a solo on stage at the Weidner Center in Green Bay.  It was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and she knocked our socks off!  Her voice was so pure and so sweet….  brought tears to my eyes. She has a wonderful singing voice and the school, choir and audience was all a gasp.  She sang before a couple thousand people.  I am sooo glad we have a video tape of the special moment, because I was crying so hard I could not see!

~~~  I also glued 440 separate little red sequins to each of her shoes, with a tweezers and a glue gun!  Ahhhh the Love of a Mother!   ~~~

Anyhow, back to our trip!  As we woke up on Tuesday, we were still in Guymon, OK where they had such fires and electrical lines burnt so half the town was without power.  No problem for us, we have our solar so we were fine and comfortable. 

We walked little Dukie Palookie in the grass alongside the lot and he was just in High Heaven!  He finally had REAL GRASS to pee on!!!   It’s been a hard adjustment for him to go potty on gravel or dirt in the desert, and the first few days he tried holding it as much as he could manage.  Finally he gave in and used the gravelly ground, but he was sure missing his *grass bathroom areas*   I could swear he was smiling as he did his thing.   LOL

We hit the road and all was clear and roads were smooth.  We were making progress at a North-East diagonal, through Oklahoma and up into Kansas.  At first it was all smooth and flat flat flat…. but then it progressed into gently rolling hills….   spring was evident with the budding of the trees and greening up of the fields.

   

  

We decided to stop to make some lunch, and found a little roadside park and museum attraction at Kinsley, Kansas.   Little did we know HOW important of a town little Kinsley was!  Read this sign:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsley,_Kansas

 

What caught Steveio’s eye was this big big toy!

We could climb right in and check it all out --  Steveio figured he could get it running in no time!  

 

  (we took lots of pics for our Train Buddy Sam)

C’MON ---  HOP ON BOARD!!!

 

 

We walked up and peeked in the windows of the museum (which was closed~ drat!)

 

… inside they had a soddy house all set up.  I sure wish we could have gone inside to see it.  I remember from my Laura Ingalls Wilder visit to Plum Creek, Minnesota to the site of the soddy house they lived in the first winter that was dug into the banks of the creek.   This soddy house inside the museum was high and dry and probably a very comfortable home!

(photo taken through the window)

 

Outside we wandered around the grounds…. they had a real working windmill with a water tank, but it was closed down with fins folding inward,  probably due to the high winds that had whipped through the day before.  There was also a buried time capsule from the county’s centennial celebration in 1973, to be opened in 2023.  Guess we should come back for that?

  

We checked out this adorable little historic 100+ year old church on the grounds…

  

With such lovely picnic grounds, we decided to make our lunch and read more about the area….

 

While we were having our lunch, another RV pulled up… a brand spanking new Coachmen and inside were a lovely couple from Holland.  They were “RV transporters” to take it from Indiana at the factory to a dealer in Los Angeles.  And on the way, they get to see the country!  I asked if I could take their photo, and I gave them one of my travelling business cards with the address of the blog.  I hope they check in and say “HI” !

 

Steve had noticed a working water spigot of city water… so we decided to top off our fresh water tank too….

 

 

Something else we noticed while now being in the Central Time Zone again.  By visiting on the far western edge of the CT zone, we noticed that we have light up till after 8:30 pm... while living on the far eastern edge of the CT zone we are dark this time of year already at 7:00 or so.    Never thought of that before.

We did a fuel up stop 
$3.80 a gallon in Concordia KS
39.38 gallons   $150.00

 

We were cruising along so comfortably, and the roads were smooth and straight.. the traffic was very light so Steveio said let’s drive further than normal today.  If we can get to Bethel, MO a few days earlier than planned, I can spend some time with Rosie!   We have been weaving buddies for years, since attending a weaving workshop at Vavning Studio in Shopiere, WI (run by our good friend Juanita Hofstrom)  

http://www.vavningstudio.com/

So Steveio put the pedal to the metal (well, not really, we don’t speed)  and we put on 465 MILES before pulling over at a Walmart in HIawatha, Kansas for an overnight. Whew!~  That is more than we like to drive in one day, but he wanted to get some miles under us to make up for the four days in Winslow.  Now we are ahead of the game plan and I can spend some time with Rosie!   And then to see Sam and Donna from St. Louis, and also our son and daughterinlaw, Dan and Heather, are on a getaway vacation to St. Louis too.. leaving today!  Not sure if we will meet up with them, but fun to know that we are close by in the same town, after living 550 miles away from St. Louis.  LOL   Maybe they are Second Honeymooning and don’t want any company????   Little Allegra is with her other Grandma and Grandpa Dufek and they are escaping the last dredges of Wisconsin Winter by celebrating Heather’s birthday in St. Louis. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HEATHER!

 

(As I type this now on Wednesday morning, we are out of Kansas and in the Show Me State of Missouri!)

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/history/slogan.asp

 

465 miles travelled today.. whew!
4,177 miles so far