Flamingo on a Stick

Our camping spot for 3 nights. Excel service center. This week found us parked in the parking lot of the Excel Service Center in Smith Center KS. Next month our Excel will be 2 years old and our warranty will be up. We have had a few minor things and a couple not so minor issues that needed to be address and we haven’t been happy with the repairs we have gotten at the dealer and since we were headed this way it just made sense to head to Smith Center. It took about 2 1/2 days to get it all done. About a week ago John found a small crack in the fiberglass on the front cap. He cleans that area often so we are pretty sure it is new in the last couple weeks so it went to the head of the list. The other major item was the eternabond taping of the two larger slides. They got the fiberglass fixed the 1st day but the eternabond tape proved to be a job. The dealer had taped over it to try to fix it so Jim (our tech) had to scrap off all that eternabond to start over. He said if he knew how

There is nothing like a sunset, no matter whether you are in the desert, by the ocean, the North Woods, Lake Superior, the Midwest including here in Kansas. So tonight I will let the sunset we had last night speak for itself.

GlenElder State Park We are at Glen Elder State Park in northern Kansas and when you look around we are definitely on the prairie and it made me remember reading the books about Laura Ingles Wilder when I was young.  So this is our “Little House on the Prairie”. It has been very windy here until yesterday and the wind calmed, the sun was out, it was an incredibly beautiful fall day. John worked on cleaning the rig and I went for a long walk with my camera. Our Little House on the Prairie Little Church on the Prairie There really isn’t a lot for us to do here unless you are a fisherman. They have a couple short hiking trails but that is about it. There are 3 campgrounds for RVs and a marina. This week not having much to do has been great. We were looking forward to some down time before we head to our jobs with Amazon.  The first few days were cold and very windy so stayed warn inside, read books and watched some TV. We can’t get much on the antenna but we have a wi-fi hot spo

Audra at Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Have you ever felt like you had so many choices you couldn’t make a decision?  Lately that is how I have been feeling even though I know there is no right answer. We’ve begun to think about what we want to do this winter and I can’t make up my mind and John has no preference. We are working November and December so that is taken care of. We were thinking about the Gulf coast and I have found a spot in Port O’Connor that I made a reservation for the month of January but I’m not entirely sure that is where we want to go. So maybe go there and then head to Florida? But Florida is pricey and we are trying to get caught up financially from an expensive summer.  So now we are thinking about returning to the Southwest.  We really enjoyed last winter and there is a lot that we still haven’t done yet. We loved New Mexico State parks and they have a season park pass for their parks that is $225 for out of staters. The pass then makes campsites $4 a nigh

View off Al and Judi's deck The last week or so has been full of visits with friends and family. We arrived at Two Rivers State Park near Waterloo, Nebraska. John had a good friend near here that we made plans so meet. This is part of the group that calls him “Doc” and we did get together with them at a wedding in St. Louis this summer. Al and Judi live on a Lake about 20 minutes from this park. I also have friends that live close to this park, Teri and Alan, but Terri is in Florida on business and Alan was out of town too, so I struck out. I did get to see them last year on our way through so will try to catch them next time through the area. One of the benefits of this lifestyle is getting a chance to visit with old friends. Al and Judi Tuesday afternoon we drove to Al and Judi’s for dinner. They have a great house on a lake with a beautiful view. We also took a boat ride around the lake. We really enjoyed the visit. John has enjoyed reconnecting with Al and Judi. They ha

Another Beautiful sunset on Storm Lake  The sun has been shining and the weather’s warm but the wind has been crazy. Since Tuesday we have had sustained winds above 20 mph. The first couple nights the wind died down at night a little but Thursday night there was no let up an by Friday morning the sustained winds along the lake were now 30-35 mph with gusts up to 50. I think these are the worst sustained winds we’ve had since living in the trailer. Makes me glad we are as heavy and compact as we are.  Lake Trail Thursday, despite the wind, John and I went for a bike ride on the Lake Trail (it runs along the lake front). On the way out the wind was at our back, so not too bad. It is a very wide sidewalk part of the time then city streets and then back to the trail; all in all a very beautiful trail about 5.5 miles long. When we turned around to ride back is when we realized how strong the wind was. It was a long ride back and there were a few times along the lake that the wind wa

Gabe fishing at sunset on Storm Lake, in front of our camping site I have been remiss in my blogging as of late. We spent last week in Cedar Rapids (former home) and were out visiting almost every night as well as running errands every day. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, that’s not a pace I really like but sometime it has to be done. It was a good week of seeing family and tying up loose ends. We spent time with Mitch several nights and I never feel like I have enough time with him but I know as a grown up he is always ready for mom and her hovering to end. We really did have fun this visit. Corbin Autumn and Kolton We also wanted to see my niece Autumn and her family as we had yet to meet their newest addition Corbin. They delivered Corbin in Virginia just and a week later were moving back to Iowa. Corbin was having a bit of a fussy night when we were there but we know that babies do that so we took it all in stride. His brother Kolten took up the slack and entertaine