We’re Not In Kansas Anymore Dorothy!

One of the premises to our journey was to see the entire country. All of it! Now, it's taken an interesting turn to Kansas and Oklahoma. We especially enjoyed Wichita, and, we were hugely surprised at how much we dug Oklahoma City. Two wonderful surprises back-to-back!

Before we got to Wichita we boondocked, which we rarely due, at a rest area in Greenfield, KS. This helped to break up the 550 plus mile drive. In Kansas, unlike most states, they permit overnight stays in their rest areas which was cool. So, we took advantage. For the record, Brad has now driven the RV over 11,500 miles to date, and Kathy, has driven maybe 10 feet. She's gotten good at moving the Rv a few feet when we either gas up or disconnect our Toad. Haha...Just providing a little travel insight to our journey. All kidding aside, we both have our roles. She's the best navigator and best sourceeurer of campgrounds in the world. Brad does 99.9% of the Rv driving. We split the car driving pretty evenly once we're at a stop.

Wichita was a cute, little, clean city. It had a lot of industry, was spread out and comfortable with exception to their homeless population. Not to compare the latter to the Pacific Northwest but compared to Colorado and Utah it was more pervasive.

On our first full day in Kansas, our first stop was a tour of the Allen House which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. We've been in towns where Mr Wright's houses were on display but for the $50-$70 tours we've passed. This visit was a reasonable $20 bucks per person so we were in. Mr Allen was a rich newspaperman and two-term Governor of the state. We weren't permitted to take pictures on the inside and the outside front of the home is kind of unassuming. But when you go inside, wow! It really pulled it all together. It was really interesting to hear the inside scoop of how they planned and designed the home. Definitely worth the price of admission.

Our next stop was the Botanical Gardens. It was underwhelming. To put it in prospective the best part of the gardens were the twelve sculptures created from trash off of the San Diego beaches. Two of them are pictured below. The other pics are of the entranceway and the Japanese Garden. The Koi Fish were pretty as heck and there were a ton of them but who carries around a quarter to feed them?

We hit Old Town and the Keeper of the Plains Monument three times each. The first Old Town visit was accidental as we did our initial drive-thru town. The second time there was to watch the Eagles-Cardinals 20-17 victory and the third was to grab some sushi at the Bluefin Sake and Sushi Bar. The Keeper of the Plains was a wonderful memorial and tribute to the indigenous people there before us. It was spectacular in it's size, scope, and detail.

So why did we go there three times? Once was the original visit, a second was to see it lit at night, and the last, was for a bikeride along the the Arkansas River Trail.

It was in the eighties every day here. When we took the bike ride which circled back from one side of the river to the other the crossover was at the Keeper of the Plains. The second best part of the bike ride was the Veterens' Memorial Park along the trail. It's awesome how most every major city has a sentimental tribute to our Veterens for every conflict the USA has endured and Wichita had a really good one. Brad always especially appreciates the Korean War Veterens Memorials since that's when his Dad served. Since we're both very patriotic (especially Brad), we really dug this one.

Our next stop is the Capitol of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City. It was a 170 mile drive which we did in a little over a two hour drive. On a travel day we often don't have time to do much once we are setup in anew campground. This stop was an exception to that since it was only a short drive. The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum was only a stones throw from our stupendous new campground. So we went that same travel day.

We underestimated the scope of this museum. We thought it was going to be a little place to visit. Boy were we wrong! 220,000 square feet of Museum with 39 Tribal Nations represented and iver 28,000 artifacts and pieces of art were a bit much to cover in our two hours till closing. This place was huge!

When we were greeted and given direction on our visit, both of us had no clue why our greeter made us feel we'd never be able to see everything in just two hours. She was right! It was much cooler than we thought it would be. They had displays inside and out. Some were history related, splendid artwork, guns, statues and more. It was a compelling place. We wished we had given it more time. The greeter was right on point in her introduction.

This campground was the nicest we've experienced in quite a while. Our spot was on a cement pad directly on the fountained lake. It had a patio with it's own gas's powered barbecue, furniture, a fire pit and was shaded with overhead coverage. The campground had a bar, restaurant, mini golf and trash pickup at your site which is always a nice, unexpected amentity. We keep track of all of our campgrounds along with scoring them on a one to five basis. We gave this one a 4.5.

The Oklahoma City Capitol visit was great. We had no clue that Oklahoma wasn't a state until 1907 and was our 46th. Seemed late to us but after educating ourselves we realized there were many-many Indian tribes there before it was settled. That's the Governor's mansion below in the last two pics.

The most compelling part of our visit to The Sooner State was The Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. Dedicated to the survivors and those that were killed in the largest local terrorist attack in United States history. The first pic below shows one of the three remaining original walls of the Federal Building that was blown up. The second picture is an outside memorial to those people that were killed in the explosion. They are lined up in rows of nine symbolizing what floor the deceased was on when the incident occurred. The children that were killed, their chairs were smaller than the adults. It was heart wrenching to walk the grounds. The reflection pools were a peaceful memorialization of the space and were done so with a great deal of dignity. The original fence that was placed around the building during the criminal investigation was relocated in it's original form in the fron entrance to the museum.

Much of the space of the museum was devoted to the story of the the survivors and the heroic moments dedicated to the many heroes that day. The last picture above were some of the cards that were written with love and support of the terrible circumstances. It was a truly heartfelt visit.

The Devon Energy Building is the tallest building in OKC. It's the 45th tallest building in America ( haha...we thought it was a goof that the 45th tallest building in America got so much good Okie PR here). We visited, and, it was beautiful inside but the revolving restaurant ( Vast) on the look-out floor was closed so it was a quick visit. That same day we took a riverfront boat tour which was mirrored off the bigger and better riverfront in San Antonio but was cool nevertheless. We had sometime to kill before our tour guided boat ride and right across the street was the Mickey Mantle Plaza and the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. All the statues outside of the Hall of Fame were Oklahomans that played professional baseball. It was great reading for Brad, who didn't know Mickey Mantle, Jim Thorpe and these others (Jonny Bench, Willie Stargell, Carl Hubbard and Warren Spahn to mention a few) were from Oklahoma.

We had to mention the Cattleman Steakhouse. Pound for pound and dollar for dollar it was the best steak we've had our entire visit. Whoa! It was stupendous! It was so good we asked if we could buy the seasoning they used. They accommodated our request the only thing that sucked was the first time Brad was using it on our outside grill he dropped 1/2 of it. Dumb Ass!

Our next blog, we'll talk about our visits to the Ozarks, Branson Missouri and an outstanding time in Little Rock Arkansas. Our apologies for the delay in getting this one out more timely. We've had terrible internet service that has prevented our post. Thanks for following our journey! Good luck to the Phillies in the World Series and congratulations to them on winning the National league pennant. The rest of the National league can suck it! Haha! Winner-Winner- Chicken-Dinner! Go Birds! Philly Sports are rock'n it!

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Thanks for following our journey! Kathy and Brad