Still Following the Yellow Brick Road

The sky was gray, the wind was cold and it was just starting to sprinkle as we dumped our holding tanks, filled our water tank and hooked up the car to leave the Sac and Fox Casino. We drove East on K-20 and pulled into the Golden Eagle Casino one last time. We played a short while, ate a bite of lunch and started East again. We didn't drive too far before we were in Atchison and found the Super WalMart. They said we could spend the night so pulled over to the curb where it was surprisingly level. It was a great place to spend the night, very quiet and very inexpensive.

From there we made a few phone calls and were told about a campground at Warnock Lake, only 4 miles away. We took the car over and liked what we found then proceeded to the visitor center where we picked up some brochures about the surrounding area.

We went back and picked up the CPE (Couch Potato Express) and headed to the Campground. The cornfield is on one side of our RV and the green grassy area is on the other side. We just got hooked up before it started to sprinkle again. About 3 o'clock the clouds went away, the sun came out and it warmed up to be a beautiful afternoon. We leashed up the dogs and went for a walk around the CG and down the road to the International Forest of Friendship.

This was a great place to take the dogs on a much needed walk. We found a life-size bronze statue of Amelia Earhart gazing over the International Forest of Friendship, which is a living growing memorial to those who have been involved in aviation and space exploration. Each June, new honorees are inducted into the forest with plaques embedded in the walkway that winds through trees representing all 50 states and over 35 countries in which forest honorees reside. Several special trees include the "Moon Tree," which was grown from a seed taken to the moon aboard Apollo 14. It is encircled by the Astronaut's Memorial, which honors ten astronauts who lost their lives in space exploration.

One of our first side trips was a tour of the Atchison area which is known for the Victorian homes built in the late 1800's. Here are a few examples. The second house is famous for the grotesque figures on top of the house, really cool. The last building is the Post Office. The river scene is the Riverfront Park area on the Missouri River.

Another trip has been into Kansas City again, which has amazing huge beautiful homes with gorgeous landscaping featuring rock walls. There are many stone churches as well as stone houses and I just fell in love with the area (again.) If we go back, I'll get more pictures but it was too cloudy to get good pictures when we were there.

We've been lost most of the time while in KC, once we accidentally crossed the state line ans found ourselves in the quaint little Missouri town of Westport. It's been to our advantage to get lost because that's when we see the most and best, like the "Madrid", a bldg across from Burger King where we stopped for lunch one day.

I have failed to mention the many black walnut trees we have found in Kansas. If my Mom were still alive, I'm sure we'd be collecting some for her, she sure loved them. Also, we heard our first pack of coyotes the other night howling away somewhere in the cornfield. I'm sure I've forgotten stuff but it's late and we hope to leave here tomorrow if it's not raining. Some of the Cottonwood Trees here have some yellow leaves on them already.

Visiting Casinos

We spent 3 nights at the Prairie Band Casino, formerly Harrah's Prairie Band Casino, managed by the Potawatamie Nation. We were able to catch up on laundry and have a fun time. M & S enjoyed all the rabbits in their RV park as well and it was a nice place to walk them.

We took a ride to Ft. Leavenworth and were both really impressed with what we saw there. It is a beautiful Army post sitting on the Missouri River complete with cannons. We saw the old Leavenworth Penitentiary, where Al Capone was incarcerated, as well as the new prison. Many beautifully maintained very old houses where the officers are housed were all over, I was just amazed.

Last night was our second night at the Sac and Fox Casino belonging to the Sac and Fox Nation and we plan to leave today unless it's raining. While here we visited the Golden Eagle Casino, Kickapoo Nation, yesterday and received a free buffet, featuring crab legs, for celebrating our anniversary so recently.

The weather has held up, cool enough for no A/C till about noon then warm afternoons (hot in the sun). It was quite cool when we left the casino though around 8:15 last night, around 63 and very windy as it had been all day long. The word was that a cold front was coming, the first one, well it's here. It reminds me of how it feels to walk the dogs in the cold wind in Vegas, not looking forward to that although M & S don't seem to mind, they just get frisky. It rained some overnight and luckily quit this morning before we had to take the dogs out, but it was 56 degrees and still windy.

We have to unhook by 11 and there's lots to do so see ya later.

I have more skinny dipping cows to show you.

Our last night on Lake Perry, KS

We took a trip into Lawrence today and it's a typical college town with hustle, bustle and construction going on everywhere. A great downtown catering to the college kids. I really liked it.

We did a little shopping then stopped at a local place, Runza's, for a bite of lunch. I had a smothered grilled chicken breast sandwich which was totally outstanding and Boyd had a Polish Dog which he thoroughly enjoyed as well. I would definitely go back if I were here longer.

I mentioned the cows that went skinny dipping around here and here's the proof. We spotted a little 4 legged critter crossing the road this morning and it turned out to be a small groundhog, also known as whistlepigs.

The last post also mentioned some insects that I called Willows. This morning we found them on the Internet and were surprised to find out that they're Mayflies. They weren't here last week, just in the past few days we started seeing them.

I took another couple of photos of the lake and found one of the geese we saw yesterday morning.

Tomorrow we have all day to clean windows pack up and vacumn dead mosquitoes. Check out time isn't until 6 PM and we'll wait until close to 6 when we leave. We're going West on Hwy 24 to Topeka and plan to spend the night at WalMart, it should be cool enough by then to not have to have the A/C on. While there the car can get it's overdue oil change and we can restock the freezer. The next morning we're headed to the Prairie Band Casino to spend the weekend.

Kansas City and Topeka Here We Come

It was a very short ride from Pomona Lake to Lake Perry which is situated between Lawrence and Topeka just North of I-70. Of course we took the small back roads again, enjoying the rolling farmland with their just mowed appearance, fresh looking golden hay bales all neatly rolled, scattered around the countryside in between heavily forested areas. Lazy cows cooling off as they skinny dipped in the many ponds, colorful butterflies galore as they spasmodically flew between the many gorgeous wildflowers and I must mention the many new looking John Deer tractors. Again, there weren't many signs and we were relying on our GPS which kept telling us to plow through the cornfields and dirt and gravel roads, which experience told us to ignore. The sky was clear and blue and just as we just started over the top of a hill was Lake Perry in all it's splendor. A truly beautiful sight as it is a very large lake and was glistening a bright blue in the sun. We've been on 4 lakes now in Kansas and they just keep on getting more beautiful, we just never tire of them.

Over the weekend the campground was full of campers and boaters. Pontoon boats are very big up here and I was surprised at how many yacht basins there are in Kansas. Saturday morning I crossed the dam and there were many sailboats out across the lake, that was a pretty sight too.

Our campground is Rock Creek Park and at certain times of the day there are huge clouds of little white blind mosquitoes, they don't bite but are a real nuisance as they come inside every time a door is opened then hang around the lights at night until they drop dead, then you have to vacumn them all up the next day. There are also Willows, really cute little bugs that fly and come inside too, I'll get a pic but don't have one for this post. We found a lake in Tennessee that had so many of these you couldn't go near the lake.

I saw my first Oriole yesterday morning, the pic isn't great as he was between me and the sun.
It sure was pretty but I didn't get to hear it so I still can't recognize one by it's song. We've seen a couple of deer and last night as we sat out by our campfire an owl flew across us to the other side of the lake.

This lake seems to have it's resident Canadian Geese but this morning we saw several large flocks fly in over the lake and circle it while it looked as though they were changing leaders, they didn't land but it was a thrill to see them anyway. I do believe we are in a major fly zone so as the weather cools there should be many many more. Once in South Carolina I counted 117 flocks flying in the V formation as I was about to enter an auction house. Naturally I choose the birds over the auction.

I must mention that on our second night here as we prepared to go to bed we saw lightning way off in the distance. Later, around 2:30 A M it got to us. The sky stayed lit up with a new flash every 5 seconds if not more often and even though there was not a lot of thunder, we had a few strong gusts of wind which broke our neighbors awning straps. Due to the inexperience of Kansas weather we keep our awnings put away unless we're home.

The day after our arrival here on Lake Perry we took off for Kansas City since we had to buy dog food at Costco. We spent hours driving around the town going in and out of KS and MO. The KC skyline was impressive to me because I didn't think there were as many tall bldgs. as there were. There were a lot of overpasses with pretty iron bridges over them as well. We checked out 3 of the 4 casinos to see if we would be able to dry camp when it got closer to Boyd's appt. We found 2 where we could stay . We looked for a Chick-fil-A to no avail, they must not be in KS, too bad.

We did find a really cute little housing development named Rock Hill Gardens where the houses were older and just as cute as could be. They mostly had the same design on the outside but with different ornamental features. I took 2 pics.

On our way back home to the RV we spotted a hot air balloon close, by we chased it down and saw it was a mouse wearing a tuxedo, cute.

Our next ride was to the Prairie Band Casino in Holton where we'll spend the Labor Day weekend in their "state of the art" RV park.

Yesterday we rode into Topeka and saw a lot. We ordered Boyd's glasses, the reason we went, and rode around a lot. We were going to a highly recommended place for lunch but didn't see anything on the menu that turned us on so we found Coyote Canyon and liked the sign well enough to stop there but it was closed to get ready for the dinner crowd so went up the hill to the Rib Crib, we had seen lots of them in various towns and were ready for bbq. It was great and we brought some home with us. After lunch we went to the main Post Office down town and what a beaut that bldg was. Built in 1937, it was full of marble and it even had a fallout shelter.

There are a lot of large parks in Topeka, one is Lake Shawnee and we drove all around the perimeter to the RV park. I can't figure why Orlando doesn't have more parks like what we've seen. Another park is that is outstanding is Gage Park.

So far a great visit and I'm sure we've missed a lot.