We ended last week and started this week at the Good Sam Park in Golden Colorado. First stay in the wee trailer this trip. Very nice. Great weather and not too chilly. It dropped slightly below freezing one night. While in Golden we finally got a chance to test Brian's spiffy portable camping tap and faucet. We clamped it to the picnic table, ran the hose over to the campsite water hookup, turned it on and voila... easy access water at the table!
We did one day shopping in Denver at the Cherry Creek Center. Not much to purchase other than a new storage bin from the Container Store. Our waterproof one had a cracked top so needed replacing. Another day we went to downtown Golden and wandered around. Beautiful park along the river with some really cool metal fish you can sit on...
Leaving Denver we headed east for our first ever foray into Kansas. The drive east of Denver in Colorado is at best BORING. Into Kansas there appears to be more agriculture and the little towns seemed a bit more lively. We stopped in Goodland to see the giant reproduction of van Gogh's painting "3 Sunflowers In A Vase"...
We then kept heading east to Wakeeny where we stayed the night at the KOA. Good thing we had brought some food with us as it was Easter Sunday and there was bugger all open in the small town. Even the "best" restaurant in town was closed.
We had planned to keep going east in Kansas then head south through Wichita towards Oklahoma City, however with increasing signs of possible weather disturbances (aka tornadoes) we decided to head south from Wakeeny to Dodge City which seemed likely to be just as interesting anyway. And it was interesting. They've done up the old Boot Hill along Front Street quite well with restored historic buildings and a cool museum.
They have added some commentary to old wooden grave headboards...
We stayed at the Gunsmoke Trav-L RV Park. Once again it is still too early in the season for the pool to be open so we decided to head over to the Boot Hill Casino for a bit of gambling and grub (as they say in these parts). The grub was not bad and we lost only $20 for the evening.
The next morning, while I was in the shower, Kris woke to the sound of some screeching metal. She thought a train may have jumped the tracks but the sound of the train going by continued... so back to sleep... later (at least three hours) when we left the park, there was a lot of activity on the highway about a half mile from the park. Apparently what she heard was the sound of a large semi turning turtle and skidding down the highway as it took a corner too fast. The truck was still on it's side taking up about half the highway. There was another semi there and it looked like they had been loading up some livestock from the one on it's side. Cops and more cops all over the place.
Amid continuing concerns about the weather (more forecast for isolated thunderstorms and possible tornadoes) we decided to stay west of Oklahoma City and just head basically straight south towards Wichita Falls, Texas. Lunch that day was at Wagg's BBQ in Woodward, OK. Nice ribs and sausage. Later we stopped in Clinton Oklahoma for the night at the KOA there. We drove into town and checked out the Cheyenne Indian Trading Post coming away empty handed then went into the new Route 66 Museum only to find that it is so new that it's not open yet... just the gift shop so we looked around there for a short bit and left empty handed as the construction noise was too much to handle.
The next day we drove south into Texas via Lawton Oklahoma and stopped at Wichita Falls for the night. We stayed at the Coyote Ranch RV Resort. Very Nice. The woman at the front desk told us that if there is a tornado warning we would be directed to the shower houses as they had been built to be tornado proof. We hoped we didn't have to find out first hand. We set up the trailer then headed into town for some sightseeing, shopping and a Diet Cherry Limeade at the local SONIC.
Our next stop heading south was to be Brownwood, Texas. We stopped at Smitty's for a BBQ lunch on the way through town. One reviewer had noted "...Some folks might scare off when they see the little ole red run down building but don't let that deter you from experiencing some great Texas hospitality and even greater tasting BBQ..." and that was truely the case. Not much to look at. We were the only ones there and initially thought that maybe we should just continue on, but decided to stay and give it a try. Turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. We had some ribs and sausage along with some slaw on the side. The bbq sauce as nice and tangy. Worth the stop for sure...
After lunch we headed toward the only RV park we knew about in town. Yikes... the only spot available was about 15 feet from the edge of the major highway and not the best looking restrooms... we decided to hit the road and head for the KOA in Leander where we had previously stayed.
On the way out of town, Kris spotted a bunch of metal sculptures of Texas Longhorns in a field. They were quite cool...
Leander is just northwest of Austin and could make a good place to stop for a few days. We weren't sure if we would stay just the one night or veg out for a few. The KOA owner helped make the decision for us... they were expecting a group of over 50 girl scouts the next day... hmmm one restroom with only two toilets, two sinks, two showers, 50 young girls ... basic arithmetic told us it was time to move on...
We settled on the La Hacienda RV Park west of Austin near Lake Travis for a few days to end the week. Very nice and well worth the high rating given by Trailer Life. Driving out towards the park we could see Lake Travis from the hill tops. WOW... compared to when we drove past here two years ago the lake water level is waaaaay low. We asked at the park about the water level and she told us that the level is at a 50 year low due to a drought lasting the last 2 plus years, but said, optimistically, that it is well up from over a month ago. One staff member said that the water level is 32 feet below normal; last month it bottomed out at 47 feet below normal...
... oh, and a guy stopped by, said he really liked the tap and faucet and asked if he could come over and look at it... COOL he said...
More affirmation of ingenuity or more crazy??? Clearly this guy had credibility as he also liked our espresso maker. "I can tell you aren't Americans" he said... We had a good laugh.
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