Finally! Back at it AND we're HOME [in Kansas, Phillipsburg, to be exact]. 34 days and 3,025 miles after leaving Eugene on August 27. And I'm listening to John Denver singing "Hey it's good to back home, again". We always listen to him on our trips, especially when traveling through the Rockies. I'm sitting in the motor home, looking out the window at the big Hackberry tree in mom's backyard. Good to hear the crickets, locusts and the doves cooing to us again. Home is always home to us.
It's breezy and will be in the 90's again today. We did have a break when we left Oklahoma City. It rained pretty hard early that morning, and we decided at first to stay the day and wait out the rain, but by 9:30 we decided the rain was over and we unhooked and set out for Wichita [about 180 miles]. That was on a Tuesday, and the cool front that blew in stayed until Saturday. Air conditioner during the day to keep the "house" cool, but turn it off and open the windows and turn the fans on at night. Actually got into the upper 50's a night or two. Actually, haven't run the air conditioner at night since that rain.
The last entry left off in Frisco, TX. We spent 5 nights there. Hot and muggy. And, it didn't it get much better 200 miles north in Oklahoma City. There are a few nice-sounding parks there, so we picked the one closest to my sister's house in Edmond [just north of OKC] - Twin Fountains RV Park. This one was much nicer than the one just north of Frisco where we stayed when there. Lots of trees, and we got a site with good shade, but it faced NE 63rd St, and the traffic could be pretty fast just 40 feet away. And, then on the north side of the park was I-44. It was elevated so we could see the traffic from the park. Overall, it didn't bother us that much. We were gone most of the day, so we missed most of the noise. The park was about 14 miles and 30 minutes from Becky's house. We tried a number of ways getting there but decided it didn't make a whole lot of difference which one we took.
Since I-35 has a lot of construction going on between Dallas and OKC, we took US-75 out of McKinney, TX when we left the Frisco area. Not a bad drive. Some construction going on there too, but not too bad. And the road was pretty good.
That night we ate at Pei Wei [say "Pay Way"]. I think it's owned by the PF Chang company, and the food looks similar. But, here you order at the counter and the items are different, yet some are the same. Such as the lettuce wraps, one of our favorites at PF Chang. The food was good we had a good time with my sister, Becky, and husband, Don. They were at the Bowman family reunion at SunRiver in June.
At dinner Don pulled out 2 tickets to the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Museum that happened to be just down the street from our rv park. So, on Friday, we went there. Was expecting something like the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, but this was much more western art than hall of fame. Each year they have a judged contest of western art, and that was on display. Artists from all over, but most from what we'd call the western states. And the art was outstanding. But, of course, you couldn't take pictures of any of what the museum didn't own, which was just about all of what we saw before we ran out of gas strolling and standing and looking. I managed to get mixed up about what you could take a picture of and what you couldn't, and was immediately reminded "not to take pictures in this room", so I had to delete a picture. I think it might have been the one I liked the most.
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| Remington's "Coming thru the Rye" life size |
There were rooms and rooms of pictures and sculpture. We think the most expensive one was priced at $95,000. Many had little blue dots on the label that identified the artist, and medium [think, oil, pastel, water color, bronze, etc.]. That indicated that the picture, or a copy [?] had already been sold. Some of the artists had been in this competition for many years [think the most I saw was 27 years]. Good art. And then they had originals from years gone by. There was a wing with Charles Russel art [pictures and bronze], and Frederick Remington [pictures & bronze] - the 2 preeminent western artist of all time [I think]. I'd say people would recognize Remington's work more often than Russel, but both are at the top of the list of American western artists of all time.
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| John Wayne |
By the time I got through the small room on firearms, I was ready to do something else, and Rita had gotten to that point before me, so we walked over to the dinning room and had lunch. You could order from the menu or pick the buffet. I picked the buffet, and Rita had something from the menu.
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| Eischen's Bar |
pickle chips with every order. I think we ate it all! That'll do Rita and me for fried chicken and okra for a while.
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| Don, Becky, mom & Rita |
They do a business. In original bar it's individual tables and booths, and in the old grocery store [they shut that down to expand the bar some time ago] it's some booths and long tables that you may have to share with someone else when they get busy, which appears to be about every night.
On Saturday we had a family get-together. All of Becky & Don's kids [3 of them] live about 5 minutes away, and they ALL came over for dinner. Each of her kids have 3 kids [from about 15 mos to 12 yrs] so it got a bit noisy at times, but it's fun cuz they get along together so well. For dinner Don barbecued chicken, and we had beans, chips, salad, fruit, Rod made ice cream [yep, I took my ice cream maker on the trip - knew it would come in handy!]. Had a good time. Was really good to see everyone again.
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| Saturday Dinner |
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| Becky/Don's Grandkids |
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| Mom with Great-grandkids |
Not much else to report on in OKC. The next stop was Wichita, KS to see Rita's brother, Bud, wife, Helen, and son, Ray. If I work at it this week, maybe I can get caught up.
Hope all is well with everyone out there. We're having a great time. Is always nice to be home. It will be in the 90's today, but haven't turned on the air conditioning yet [2:30 pm] as there is a good breeze that blows through the windows. It was supposed to have cooled into the high 60's last night, and we were able to leave the windows open and the fans on. Slept very good. Tonight is supposed to be similar. Nice not to HAVE TO USE the air conditioner.
Till next time, so long from the Land of Ah-h-h-s [say Oz, kind of].
rod, rita, lucy & rozella
