Tag: Oklahoma

Home again

No pictures for this post. We spent Tuesday night in Albuquerque at the American RV Park. Nice place, but close to the highway. Luckily it was more of a continuous hum rather than intermittent jake brakes. Wednesday we headed rest of the way across New Mexico and all of Texas. It was long enough that Kevin got to drive some, a rare thing. We ended up at a tiny RV park 1 mile into Oklahoma called Double D. It was a very inexpensive park since we used our Passport America membership to get it half off. Otherwise I wouldn’t recommend it. There were maybe 2 spots that had the trees trimmed back enough for us, and they were having water problems so only an electrical hookup was available. It would be fine for most travel trailers or small motorhomes.

We got up early and headed to Yukon, a suburb of Oklahoma City. Maverick Run RV Park is quite nice with roomy sites and clear views. It was quite empty this time of year, but I understand it is really busy in the warmer parts of the year. We spent a full day getting the motorhome ready to go into storage. We are going to live dangerously and keep the refrigerator turned on, hoping the solar keeps the batteries charged enough. That mean cleaning out everything that wasn’t sealed, just in case. Kevin cleaned the tanks as well as he could, and I got the last 4 loads of laundry done. I even got the sheets and towels all washed! It will be nice to come back to a clean place.

Both of us were excited to head home, and we were up early on Saturday. Kevin and I winterized the motorhome, dropped it in the storage lot, and headed on the 600 mile trip to Iowa by a little after 9:00 am. We made it home around 8:00 pm The house seems huge, and Lily seemed quite impressed. She kept running up and down stairs, playing with the stuffed mice Kevin gave her. The housekeeper had come on Friday, and the place is as spotless as she usually leaves it. I doubt it will stay that way long!

So far we have gone through 4 months of mail (!), renewed car and utility trailer tags, had dinner with our oldest son and his family, lunch with the second son and daughter, and talked to our third son. I also picked up more allergy drops and got my Viking sewing machine looked at. Oh, and I had a birthday with a lovely dinner! Now I am in the midst of planning Thanksgiving dinner (planned for Wednesday) along with practicing for our church choir concert in a few weeks. Enough to keep busy, for sure!

A Grand Canyon detour

It always takes a long time to restore order in the motorhome whenever we have been in one place for a while. After two weeks at Furnace Creek NPS campground, it took us about an hour and a half to get ready to leave. It is amazing how much stuff gets pulled out of the storage bays when we are stationary for a while – grill, Dutch ovens, picnic table cover, chairs, mats, and even more. The inside was a mess too with dust and dirt everywhere. I do vacuum every 4-5 days so the tile floors don’t get scratched, but that wasn’t even close to enough. Wiping counters and other surfaces, dusting, vacuuming, and even mopping was the order of the day. We didn’t leave until just after 10:00.

Sunday night we stayed at Fort Beale RV park in Kingman, AZ – back to mountain time. Not a bad place, though we just barely fit in the big pull through we had. The Grand Cherokee is a big vehicle, and we didn’t want to unhook. We did do some serious thinking about the route back to Iowa though, and spent some time on various weather apps checking forecasts for later in the week. It is nasty in the central part of the country right now, but it is forecast to be much better by when we would be driving through. Therefore we decided to take I-40 instead of the longer (and more boring) I-10/20. The other major consideration is when we will travel through Albuquerque, the only big city on the trip. I much prefer going through any big city between 9:00 and 3:00, so that generally means staying close to the city one night, if possible. Balancing all of that, we chose to spend last night at Twin Arrow Casino that provides free overnight stays in their parking lot. And since it was only a bit over 120 miles from Kingman, we took a quick detour to the Grand Canyon!

I love this view because it shows the river

Even with the smoky haze blurring the view, the canyon is amazing.

We did get a bit of a surprise at the southern edge of the park with these horses.

They were just grazing at the side of the road.
A shy foal was hungry. Mom was keeping an eye on us.

Since they were right by a sign for a riding stable, we called the number, thinking they were escapees. Nope, they were wild horses the man responded. What a nice thing to run across.

We are now at the American RV Park on the west side of Albuquerque, a drive of about 300 miles. Nice place, and mostly empty this time of year. We have a huge pull through so no unhitching needed. Tomorrow we will be in Double D RV Park in Texola, OK, right at the TX/OK border. It will be a long day, 400 miles, so I may even let Kevin drive some! Then we will arrive in the OKC area for two nights, setting the rig up for storage. No more posts probably until I can recover at the house in Iowa.

History in Kansas, making our way to Stillwater, OK, and starting some heirloom sewing

On Saturday we decided to go to the Atchison, KS rail museum. On the way we saw an historical marker for the town of Lecompton. We decided to stop at the museum, and we were so glad we did! This little town was actually the territorial capital of Kansas from 1855-1861, and it was a major player in the Civil War. The first proposed Constitution of Kansas was written in Lecompton, and it was firmly a pro-slavery document. The free-staters believed the Legislature that wrote the Constitution had been elected in 1855 illegally, and there were all kinds of battles, verbal fights, arrests on both sides, and general mayhem. During the election in 1857, the new Leislature was firmly free-stagers by a 5-1 margin, and the Constitution that was finally approved by the US Congress allowed Kansas into the Union as a free state, thereby ending the “great compromise” that Stephen Douglas favored where every free state that entered the US would also have a slave state entering. It was a major contribution to Lincoln winning the 1861 election. Fascinating stuff. We wandered through the museum, staffed by an incredibly knowledgeable and passionate history buff, then went to the old Constitution Hall, a state historic site. We met another ardent historian there who gave a great overview of the history. I highly recommend a trip if you are in the area. We never made it to Atchison.

National Historic Site and State Historic Monument
Constitution Hall is probably the oldest frame building in Kansas.

On Sunday we headed to Stillwater, OK. We are staying at Sunset Ridge RV Park. It is advertised as the nicest RV park in Stillwater, but that isn’t saying much. Flat level pads, some trees, close sites, and almost everyone here is obviously a long-term resident. The place is clean and quiet though. We got in early enough to visit family in the area which was nice.

Monday we went to Arkansas City, KS to handle some property business. I liked the attorney, and with any luck we can get everything signed by Wednesday. Turns out he is leaving Wednesday afternoon, so he is motivated. I also spent time with my new travel sewing machine, a Viking Opal 650. I am using it to sew a baptism gown for my granddaughter, and I got the insertion done on both sleeves. Imperial batiste fabric and imported entredeux with insertion. It looks pretty good if I say so myself! I like the machine.

Front side of the insertion
Back side showing the rolled seam.

I hope to get the bodice lace work done tomorrow. I am still waiting for another set of baby measurements before I do a final cut of the fabric.

Out of Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona and into Nevada

Yup, lots of driving. No pictures either because I never remember to take any when we are just driving to a destination. We left Oklahoma on Friday morning after visiting my sister, my niece, niece’s husband, and their four month old baby. The baby was such a solemn little guy he was inadvertently hilarious. We stayed in a lovely campground in Oklahoma City, Twin Fountains near the Cowboy Hall of Fame. I definitely will stay there again on another trip.

We ended up Friday night in Santa Rosa Campground in, surprise, Santa Rosa, New Mexico. It was an old KOA so the sites were a bit narrow, but it was a nice and quiet place. Surrounded by that classic New Mexico landscape, I could smell pinons and enjoy the sunsets in that clear New Mexican Sky.  Another one worth a repeat for sure. There is a little restaurant at the campground that wasn’t too bad, so no cooking! Nice after a long day of driving the motorhome. I am getting in the grove for 400 mile days: drive a few hours, take a nice long break (30-45 minutes) then finish it up.

Saturday was another 400 mile day. We spent the night in the parking lot of the Twin Arrows Casino outside Flagstaff. We ate in the (well-reviewed) buffet at the casino, but it was so-so at best. Add into it the smoke that you had to walk through to get to the food, and it is definitely not a place to return to. The parking lot was nice though! Many RVers say they only pull into parking lots late at night, but we like to stop our drive no later than 4 or so. Here it was a good thing because the RV parking got quite crowded by evening. We got to position the coach so the driver side windows looked east onto the sage, and it made for a lovely sunrise. The long ride on I-40 made me want to plan a much more leisurely trip where we can stop and see all the lovely places we just drove by on this trip. Maybe 2-3 weeks, just sightseeing.

Last night we made it to Pahrump and spent the night in the Wine Ridge RV Resort. Very nice place though we didn’t use all the facilities. We did do lots of laundry and got our shopping done though. We will be in Death Valley for almost two weeks, and there isn’t much shopping there so we really stocked up. We actually stocked up more than I intended to since the baby back ribs and the meatballs were both BOGO. We should have plenty of meat! I also used the convection oven to cook up a bunch of maple bacon for future BLTs. Surprisingly the little store at DV generally has nice produce. We plan on leaving today with empty waste tanks and full fresh water and propane tanks. Weather shouldn’t be too bad though the forecast is for higher than average temperatures in the low 90s-upper 80s.

It is hard to get internet in DV, so posting will be limited except when we get into a town.

Leaving Missouri for Oklahoma

We left Pulltite on Saturday instead of our planned Sunday departure. I did get quite a bit of sewing done, and all the sub-blocks are now complete. I don’t think I have posted a picture of my sewing set up so here is one of the table and machine.

I have plastic tubs with sewing supplies on the sofa to the right of the machine, and pressing is done on the dining table to the left of the machine. Works pretty well! I have started using a small hand held iron instead of a big one, and I really like how flat it gets my blocks.

We decided to move a bit closer to I-44 to make going to and from Iowa a bit easier. We parked the coach at Meramac Springs Country Store and RV Park, and it was a hard! The park was full, but they said they had room for a rig our size. Wrong! With the narrow roads, tight turns, and overhanging branches, it took 20 minutes to get us wiggled in the spot. Even then we couldn’t open the awning without hitting the guy next door. We were amazingly lucky that the park emptied out after the weekend since I don’t think we could have gotten out without backing out the same way we got in if there were other campers around. I ended up going through two other campsites to get out to the road. Ugh. We will mark that a solid “Never again.”

We did drive back to Iowa to get our voting done though. Black Hawk county made it a very quick and painless process. We also dropped my daughter’s birthday present off at her our – a gift certificate for a massage plus some Ozark candy. Then back to Missouri Monday night. We did some laundry (I absolutely love having a washer and dryer in the coach!), and we just relaxed. Tuesday we drove into Oklahoma and bought a PikePass to allow easier travel on the tollways Oklahoma specializes in. It will also work in Kansas, and we do use the Kansas Turnpike too. We needed two of the RFID sensors, one for the motorhome and one for the Jeep. We thought the Jeep one had messed something g up because all of a sudden these three LED lights started lighting up! We had never even seen them before, and Kevin was at a loss. The Jeep dealer assured us they were an aftermarket add-on, so Kevin finally traced it to the AirForce 1 auxiliary braking system we had installed for towing. A bit more debugging, and he fixed the problem. Weird.

We also ended up buying a Dyson battery powered vacuum cleaner at the Costco in Iowa City on the way back home. The cat tracks litter everywhere, and I need either the generator or shore electrical power to operate the central vacuum. Since the tile floors will eventually scratch if we close the slides with dirt on the floor, this seemed like a good idea. We got the “Animal” model, and it cleans very well. Not much battery life on “high”, but the motorhome is much smaller than a house so it works fine for us.

We spent Tuesday night at the Walmart in Vinita, OK, just off the I-44 Turnpike. Nice and quiet. Wednesday we moved to Twin Falls RV Park in Oklahoma City. Very nice place with concrete pads, patios, lots of trees, and lots of space. Price was reasonable at $50 or so. We spend tonight here too.

Yesterday we saw my niece, her husband, and their four month old baby boy. He was the most solemn thing! Bald as a billiard ball with a classic baby stare. He played with Kevin a bit, then I held him and immediately seemed to put him to sleep. I have that effect on adults sometimes too! We also had lunch today with my sister, the baby’s grandmother. Pretty uneventful, but she doesn’t pick the best places to eat. I definitely expected better BBQ in Oklahoma, but the sides were pretty good.

Tonight we are finishing up some laundry, the bikes are back on the Jeep, and we will pull out of here tomorrow between 8:30 and 9:00 to miss the early morning traffic. It will be probably 9 hours on the road followed by another 9 hour day afterwards so probably no posting. It should be smooth sailing on I-40 all the way though. As long as we don’t hit bad winds in the Oklahoma/Texas/New Mexico plains we will be fine.