Thursday, October 25, 2018 - Travel Day to Wichita

Thursday, October 25, 2018 - Travel Day to Wichita

Today is moving day and it is raining!  Fortunately it is not a downpour but according to the weather it looks like it will stay with us most of the day.  Our plan is to arrive in Wichita between 12-12:30.  

The rain kept us from walking today but we do get a fair amount of exercise on moving day - just from putting things away in preparation for a move, and then going through the set-up process.  We have a system and it works pretty good but does require some steps which is a plus.

We pulled out of Hillside RV Park in Oswego at 9:19.  We planned to head north on Montana Road to US 400, but I was making a long distance call to reserve a campsite for our trip to the southeast with some friends next year.  I didn't want to take a chance of loosing the connection so Dean turned at the golf course to take US 59 instead.  Because of that he decided to go through Altamont and Cherryvale rather than drive through Parsons.  It added a few miles, but as we left Cherryvale there is a nice rest stop before we get on 400 and by then we (I) needed to stop.

We had to make two more potty breaks before we made it to Wichita, but we managed to make it by 12:45.  We are staying at a new campground this trip.  We typically stay at All-Seasons on West Maple in Goddard, but they did not have a site for the 5 nites we will be there.  About two miles down the road is Maple Village Trailer Community.  It is mostly house trailers, but the west side is set aside for RV's.  We pulled up to the office where I found a note on the door that she was out, with her phone number.  I called her at 12:50 and she said we could take any of the sites except 14 or 16.  We pulled around to the west side of the park and drove down the road looking for a site.  Unfortunately it had rained quite a bit here and the ground was pretty saturated.  While the pads where the RV would set were not too bad to pull on to, the entrance areas where you would need to enter the RV were mostly standing water.  We found a couple we thought might work but they had reserved signs on them.  We drove through twice, got out and walked (in the rain) looking at each site hoping one might work for us.  

We were both tired, wet and hungry which is not a good mix.  I told Dean I was calling Air Capital RV to see if they had any sites available.  Unfortunatley, they did not have a site that was open for five nites.  At this point I called Sandy back.  I asked her again what sites we could not use, because there were reserved signs on the sites that we liked.  She said, "Oh, I just haven't got those down yet - all of those sites are open".   Well, at least now we know we will have a site for the next several days!  We chose E21A, the best site we could find as far as not holding water for access to the RV and around it.  We were able to get backed in pretty quickly.  It was 1:29 when we finally got parked in our site.  

Needless to say we were both a little irritated with the situation, besides we were wet and hungry.  We quickly got things set up enough that I could heat up the leftover Hamburger Helper we had a couple of nights ago.  After having 30 minutes to relax, all was well!  Even though it was a bit of an irritation because of the time frame of getting settled in a site, we commented in the big picture it may have been a blessing.  If it was not raining when we arrived, and we had chosen one of the sites where several inches of water was standing outside the door, we would have really been unhappy if it had rained after we chose one of those sites and we had to deal with standing water at the door.  You have to try and see the silver lining in each event.  We always say God is looking out for us and maybe he was in this instance too.  You never know about the weather! 

We have no plans for today as both boys are working, so once I had everything taken care of inside, I had a couple of things I wanted Dean to help me with.  The cornice box around the window next to Dean's chair came loose.  He fixed it once but it came loose again.  He bought a larger L bracket and repaired it today.  Hopefully this will be a permanent fix.  Now that we have the chairs in here I wanted to try moving the table so it would run lengthwise with the length of the room, rather than towards the island.  He loosened the table from the floor and we turned it.  After moving things around, and checking measurements, I decided to have him make the change permanent.  

In a previous post I mentioned purchasing a small ottoman from my friend Joyce.  I loved the size of it and the fact it had a good amount of storage that I could use for my desk items and a few other things when we move from one site to another.  The back side of the top is a good solid surface that you can use to set items on if needed.  We've had it sitting by the couch but it makes the living area look a little small, so I decided to move it next to the dining table, flip the lid, and set the printer on it.  The printer has been sitting on the floor even when we use it.  Now with it raised up it will be so much easier to have access to it.  I also had a couple of things I could "hide" behind it that I use, but not on a regular basis.  If I need to get to them, it will not be difficult to pull the ottoman out for easy access.

When we eventually add the desk we have been looking at, it will be better yet, but we've decided to wait until next year for that project since we have made several major purchases this year.  For now I think this set up will work just fine.  Clutter bothers me, and for now this is an improvement!

Jarred called us earlier today to see if we would want to watch Emerson this evening.  Andrea's work is taking everyone out for dinner tonight.  Of course, we said yes!  At 4:30 we left to make the drive to their house.  After visiting for a little bit, we stopped at Freddy's on the way back to pick up burgers for Dean and I.  Emerson wanted a hot dog (which I have at the RV) and she will share some of Dean's fries.  

We had a great evening playing with her.  She was a busy girl, dancing for us, 

Snapshots I took while she was dancing

showing us her gymnastic moves (mostly somersaults) and singing songs.  When she got tired she wanted to listen to music.  I found some children's songs for her on her IPad.  Around 8:30 she wanted me to lay down with her so we went upstairs.  She was tired, but it was Nana who fell asleep.  She came downstairs, so Papa made up a bed for her on the couch.  She ended up back in bed with me and finally fell asleep.  Dean woke me up when he was ready to go to bed, and we moved her to the couch for the night.  A queen size bed isn't big enough for all three of us.  

It was another great day!  We have big plans for tomorrow.