We left Denver this morning at 10:20 AM EDT and arrived at the Wakeeney, KS KOA at 3:43 PM EDT. The campground here is adjacent to the south side of I-70. The noise from the interstate is acceptable with the camper closed up and the AC running (it was too hot today to spend anytime outside).
The sites are pull-thru with 50 Amps and septic at each site and plenty of space between. The Verizon reception is 5 bars with great LTE download and upload speeds.
Today was our final day in Colorado. We will start our slow trek home tomorrow. I started the day with a shower at the campground facility. I don’t mind our RV shower, but at 6′ 5″ I have to do a lot of bending over in tight quarters to rinse my golden locks. If the campground has decent facilities, I generally take that option. Let me tell ya, the showers here at The Prospect RV Park are incredible. As the shower head peeled off my outer three layers of skin, all I could think of was the Seinfeld episode where Kramer buys the illegal elephant shower head on the black market.
So, as I’m returning to the camper from my glorious shower, I notice a local law enforcement officer talking to the folks in the first site entering the campground. My first thought was that someone had stolen something from them since they were the first site entering the campground. I continued my return to the camper so I could complete the final steps in the daily hair preparation process (timing is critical here). When I turned off the hair dryer I heard Beth talking to someone who sounded official and I heard the words “hazmat” and “evacuate immediately”. The next thing you know, Hurricane Bethany has packed up all the cats and a litter box in the Tahoe and we’re heading for the kids’ apartment.
We invaded the kids and the cats were definitely in stress from the move and having a 2 year old terrorize them. Aaron and I still had to laugh as Beth was chasing one of the cats out of some unauthorized area shouting “out! out! out!” and little Penelope was following along behind her Grandmother shouting “out! out! out!” and pointing just like her leader. It was so cute!!!
Everleigh Observing the Chaos
Once things settled down to a dull roar, we left the apartment and tried a new (to the area) restaurant called Newk’s Eatery. This restaurant was nice and other than having to order your food upon arrival (which is way too much stress for me when I have a 2 year old and a 3 month old in tow) I would recommend it overall. Beth had a French Dip sandwich and I had a very tasty hot Italian Sub sandwich.
From there we walked over to the local Frozen Yogurt store and fed Penelope enough sugar to keep her running at high RPM’s for hours.
Frozen Yogurt Time
When we got back to the kids’ apartment we found some news articles regarding the Hazmat situation and just prior to Aaron leaving for work were allowed to pack up the varmints and return to the campground. They are completely exhausted from their big day out.
Overall we had a great day with the kids and will definitely miss the granddaughters.
We left this morning at 7:15 AM EDT. We stopped at the Flying J in Salina, KS a couple of hours into the trip and fueled up in a light drizzle. We had just passed through a fairly serious storm front and my mountain girl co-pilot, who has never experienced a tornado, was certain she was going to become “Dorothy” while in Kansas, but the weather cleared up nicely after that.
Beth drove couple of hours in the late morning while I knocked out another nap with Phoebe.
We arrived at Prospect RV Park just 8 minutes away from the kids’ apartment by 5 PM EDT, parked, showered, and went over to see the grandkids (and kids too). It was great to see everyone again and meet our darling Everleigh.
We departed from Jasper, TN this morning at 6:15 AM EDT (sorry neighbors, we tried to be as quiet as possible). There’s no better way for your Caterpillar C7 to start the day than an immediate trip over Monteagle. As we started to lose speed I dropped to 4th gear and were able to maintain a speed of 55 MPH all the way to the top with no change in engine temperature.
We fueled up at a very nice Flying-J in Oak Grove, KY and Beth took over driving duties at that point as I demonstrated how to knock out a quick 2 hour power nap.
The Gateway Arch
I took over driving again once I woke up from my coma and we kept on cruising (only stopping once more for fuel). Beth got to see the Gateway Arch for the first time in her life and in honor of Clark Griswold I made sure to point it out to her and then tell her we didn’t have time to tour it. Unfortunately, we lost nearly an hour when traffic came to a complete stop for road repair just west of St. Louis.
We arrived at Deer Creek Valley RV Park in Topeka, KS at 7:50 PM EDT (it was a long day). This has to be one of the nicest RV Parks we’ve ever stayed in. All concrete pads with plenty of manicured grass between sites. We will definitely try to stay here again on our future trips west.
We showered and watched the USF vs San Jose St college football game before going to bed.
We are currently preparing for a trip to Denver to visit our granddaughters. The youngest was born in May and this will be our first opportunity to meet her.
