We drove a total of 59 miles today and some of
that was when we were looking for geocaches.
Yesterday we drove 264 miles.
The weekend was upon us and we needed to find a place to stay before
everyone else got off work and into the parks.
Jim drove about 5 miles out of Burlington to John Redman Reservoir and
we went into three different campgrounds.
He really didn’t like any of the sites.
I liked them because there was hardly anyone there. The first one we went through had one RV and
the second one had none. The third had
about ten. We continued on to Melvern
Lake Corps of Engineers campground and they only had one space left. All sites
were reserved for the weekend. The one that was not reserved was a handicap
site and they let us have it.
We got set up and sat outside and saw a gorgeous
bright yellow/orange Baltimore Oriole.
It was in the tree beside us.
Afterward we played a round of dominos.
Then we decided to go geocaching.
We found three. The first was
really easy. The second, Jim had to
climb a tree. The third, we had to wade
through underbrush and poison ivy. We
went back to camp and had a bunch of leftovers. We took pictures of the sunset and watched the Astros game on
TV.
We took showers this morning and when Jim came
back he noticed there were 2 ticks on him. Then I found another. He got them
yesterday while walking through tall grass.
We looked them up on the internet and they were Lone Star ticks. These almost never carry Lyme Disease.
We left camp and drove to Tallgrass Prairie
National Preserve. On the way we
stopped at an auto parts store and got a new bulb for the Casita’s outside
porch light. Then we drove a scenic
highway through the Flint Hills. These
hills have very little topsoil and the soil can only support grasses. In the valleys you see some trees. There were lots of really pretty houses and
farms along the scenic highway.
After getting to the preserve, we took a 90
minute tour on a bus with the park ranger.
They had buffalo that were brought in from Wind Cave National Park. There were five new calves born in
April. Upon returning back to the
visitor center, we took a self-guided tour of the house, barns and other
buildings on the historic property. On
the way back we went to Wal-Mart and I bought some groceries while Jim updated
the blog for yesterday. We haven’t had
a strong enough signal for dependable internet at camp. Across from Wal-Mart at a Braum’s ice cream
store we stopped to find another quick geocache. Before we left this morning I put some meat in the crock pot and
it was cooked when we got back. We played a game pf Phase 10, then took pictures of the sunset again.
Jim made me pancakes with my Alaska blueberries
this morning. We hooked up and drove
about 60 miles up the road to Clinton, Kansas and got an RV site at Lake
Clinton Corps of Engineers, Cedar Ridge campground. This is a really large lake and has three large campgrounds in
it. On the way we had to dodge lots of
bicycle riders. They were on the Timex
Ironman ride. After unhooking we drove
to Lawrence and went to take a picture of a house that Jim’s father lived in while he was a student at Kansas University in the early 1920s.
Jim wanted to go have a beer and he found two
brewpubs in Lawrence – we had beers at both of them. Then we found two geocaches. One was in a bicycle shop inside a small
door by a climbing wall. The other was
in a garden at an Episcopal church. It
was in a large ammo box sitting in the open by the wall. We went back to camp and I fixed dinner and
we watched some TV. We watched a documentary
about “The Wizard of Oz” and it’s supposed to be stormy tonight. I hope we don’t end up in Oz because of a
tornado since we’re in Kansas.
We drove to Topeka, Kansas today. I wanted to go to Brown vs. Board of
Education National Historic Site. The
park headquarters is in the 1928 Monroe school. This was an all black school that children all over the city were
bused to. They wanted to go to schools
closer to their homes but those schools were for white children. The previous Supreme Court decision in
Plessy vs. Ferguson made it legal for separate but equal public schools. The Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of
Education declared that this was unconstitutional, and their unanimous decision
led to desegregation in public schools.
We then went to Bobo’s Drive In that was on an
episode of Diners Drive Ins and Dives.
(From now on I will abbreviate this to
“Triple D”.) We had great
homemade cheeseburgers, shared an order of onion rings and shared a chocolate
malt. We actually had one of those
metal trays that attach to the window of your vehicle. Jim found one brewpub
named Blind Tiger and we went there. I
had Java Stout and it really had a coffee taste. This was a good brewpub – they have won eleven Great American
Beer Festival Medals.
We found two geocaches today. And then went to the First Presbyterian
Church. This church is one of only
eleven churches in the United States that has Tiffany stained glass windows. The windows were installed in 1911. They are made out of Favrile glass that was
the invention of Louis Tiffany. It is a
glass made without paint, enamels or stains.
Colors were produced by the development of formulas using additives such
a cobalt, gold, copper etc. These
formulas were destroyed on order from Tiffany after his death. People have come from all over the world to
see these windows.
Jim took us by a house that had about 50 fire
hydrants in their yard. No lack of
places here for their dogs to do their business!
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We’re not in Kansas anymore! We hooked up and drove to Smithville,
Missouri. This little town has a very
nice lake and a couple of campgrounds and it is just north of Kansas City,
Missouri. After unhooking we drove to Independence, Missouri to visit the Truman Presidential Library and the Harry S. Truman home. On the way we stopped off at the beautiful Vaile
Mansion. Jim and I went to the visitor center and got
tickets to go through the Truman House. Then
we found two geocaches while waiting for our tour time. After touring Bess and Harry
Truman’s house we went through the Noland house across the street that two of
Harry’s cousins owned. He had been
visiting them when he took a borrowed cake plate across the street to Bess’s
house for his cousins. After Harry and Bess Truman were married they lived in this house which belonged to her grandfather. Truman came back to this house after his presidency and he and Bess
lived here the rest of their lives. The
house was very modest inside (no pictures were allowed).
We also bought tickets and went through the
library. In the foyer there is a large mural painted by Thomas Hart Benton. We watched two movies and saw
all the exhibits. There is a replica of
Truman’s oval office from the White House and also the office he used at the
library after leaving office. Harry and Bess are buried here. Then we
drove into Kansas City and went to Boulevard Brewing. It was 5:30 and they were closed but I talked our way into a few
samples and we even got to meet one of the brewers. Normally you have to be on a waiting list for months to go on a
tour here. He told us about a nearby
brewpub and we went there afterward.
McCoy’s Public House had good beer, too. We talked to a homebrewer from
the KC Bier Meisters homebrew club who was sitting next to us. He gave us some tips on brewpubs to visit in St. Louis.
One of our friends lives in Kansas City and
brews for Gordon Biersch. He formerly owned Brenham Brewery in Texas and also brewed for Gordon Biersch in New
Orleans. Jim called James and got his
voice mail, then called the brewery and he was still at work brewing. We went to visit him and saw his brewing equipment and had some of
the beers he brewed. James brews
outstanding lager beers. It was good to
see James again and we sure miss him.
We got back to camp about 10:30.
We are in Mexico. We didn’t leave camp until noon and we drove to Mexico, Missouri. We got a site at the city
park with a pretty lake. They have 14
sites here and there are only 4 rigs. One is a large 5th wheel, one
is a High Low, one is a Lance that fits in the bed of a pick up truck and
us. The couple camping next to us are
from Mission, Texas and were at the singles rally in Bandera just before we had
the Bluebonnet Casita rally. They will
be getting married this year and won’t be able to attend the singles rally next
year. We went to Wal-mart and I cooked
stir-fry and we sat outside. Nothing
much going on today, relaxing!
Check out time this morning from the city RV
park was at 11 am, but the camp host let us stay longer. We went north to Florida, Missouri and visited the Mark Twain Memorial Shrine. The little house where Mark Twain was born in 1835 is inside
a building that was built specifically for it. Also in the building are exhibits about his life, including the original manuscript of Tom Sawyer.
Then we drove to Dr. Edmund A. Babler State Park near St. Louis. We got the only site that was not reserved
for the weekend. We will stay here
three nights and leave on Sunday. Near
here is Daniel Boone’s birthplace and burial site that we hope to visit
tomorrow. The roads in Missouri have a lot of orange daylilies blooming wild
like our bluebonnets. They sure are
pretty.
We drove to Daniel Boone’s home today. He moved here in his later years after
leaving Kentucky. The home was started
in 1803 and finished in 1810. This is
the home in which he died in 1820 shortly before his 86th birthday.
After touring the Boone home and some other historic homes and a church that
were moved to his home site we drove to Augusta Brewing in Augusta,
Missouri. We had a beer and a fresh,
hot pretzel. We also stopped at Daniel
Boone’s gravesite. Then we went back to
camp and sat outside and played Yahtzee.
Jim’s friend in Longview, Fred, called to tell us his brother, Gale, had
a stroke on June 11th. We
just visited Gale and his wife Kathy on June 6th in Tulsa and had dinner with them. The stroke has affected his eyes.
It got to 93 degrees today. We drove into St. Louis and went to Ulysses
S. Grant National Historic Site. This
was the house (named White Haven – even though he painted it green) of his
wife’s family and the home he lived in after marrying her. He also came here to get away during his
presidency. We continued on to
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and the Gateway Arch. This is where President Jefferson had Lewis
and Clark start the exploration of the Louisiana Purchase and the west. The arch was started in 1963 and completed
in 1965. They started tram tours in
1967.
We watched a movie about the construction of the
arch and then rode a tram to the top.
The little tram car holds 5 people very snugly, knee to knee and
shoulder to shoulder. We rode with
three men, one of whom loved Houston and wants to move there. He will be in Houston in near future to sing
with the Houston Grand Opera. From the
top we could see Busch Stadium and the Cardinals were playing the Kansas City
Royals. (Kim, this picture is for you!)
Afterward we visited the nearby old courthouse rotunda.
Then Jim wanted to try some beer so we went to
three brewpubs/breweries. The first
was Schlafly Bottleworks where we had a nice pizza and a pint of beer. Then to Urban Chestnut and to Six Row
Brewing. Six Row Brewing is in the old
Falstaff Brewery offices building. They
had a pre-prohibition style lager made with six row barley, flaked maize, and
German noble hops. It was almost as
good as the one Jim used to make.
