A Journey West - Phase 2

Sunday, July 17, 2016

From Beaufort NC to Hot Springs, Arkansas

Hot Springs Ark to Estes Park, Colorado

Fort Chaffee, Arkansas to Keystone, Oklahoma

Happy 50th wedding anniversary!!  50 years ago today, we were married in Beaufort, North Carolina.

Today, we officially celebrate, but we're really going to celebrate after the whole family gets together later this month out West somewhere.  That way, it will be more of a celebration.

Today we drove into Oklahoma and are staying at Keystone State Park a few miles West of Tulsa.  There isn't much close by, especially for celebrating.  However, we did manage to find a Mexican restaurant about 15 minutes away.  And besides, Clara really like Mexican food.

This afternoon I swam for about 45 minutes in the lake.  All the lakes I have swam in before have been greenish, but this one is reddish-green, and the visibility in the water is about 6 inches.  But the water was refreshing and I really needed the workout.

Two ducks leaving a wake

The park we're staying in is right next to a huge marina.  I guess there are at least 300-400 boats in the covered docks.  This would be a good place for anyone looking to buy a used freshwater boat.

This is about 1/3 of the boat docks at the marina

Monday, July 18 - Wednesday, July 20

North to Wichita, Kansas.

We're dropping by Wichita to see Tony and Jill.  They've sold their home here and are in the process of packing up to move to Florida.

Oh! It's hot here.

It's starting to cool off a little

We had dinner with Jill (Tony is out of town and returns tonight) and as usual, Clara and Jill are talking a lot.

We've had three great days here visiting with Tony and Jill.  This is the last time we'll be visiting them in Wichita.

McConnell Air Force Base is a very active place, with refueling tankers, KC 135's and KC-10's taking off and landing all times of day and night.

Thursday, July 21

Today (actually, you could say tomorrow), we end our Journey West.  We'll be there!!  Tomorrow night if all goes as planned, we'll be in Estes Park Colorado.

As I started looking for a place to stay when we got to Colorado this weekend, I found that every RV Park is full.  Must be a weekend!!!!  Anyway, I finally found an overflow spot in a campground in Estes Park, and seeing as we already had reservations there for Sunday until Wednesday, I decided a couple of extra days in Estes Park wouldn't be too bad.

Tonight we're in Goodland, Kansas at a commercial campground (KOA).  This is only the second commercial campground we've been in since we left home.  This one is okay, but it's not as good as the State Parks and Military bases.  At least it has 50 amp electric service, so all three air conditioners are running hard.  It was 102 degrees here today.

After arrival, I took the bike off the rack and rode around town a bit.  There's a museum down the street and I found it interesting.

High Plains Museum (and a buffalo)

As I was riding around town, I found a parking lot on main street filled with these old cars.  I guess someone is planning to restore them, or maybe they're for sale.  This is only half of them.

This 80 foot high painting is at the town entry.  It is a copy of a van Gogh painting.  This is a Rotary Club project.