Today was by far our longest day so far on this trip. Last night we parked in a parking lot at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska. A friend of my parents who lives in the area had told them the college had RV hook ups and arranged with the college for us to park there what she, and therefore we, didn't realize is that the hook ups are in a regular parking lot on campus with cars parked all around them. We got parked by waiting till the lot cleared out some in the evening. So . . .this morning my dad woke up a little after 7 and realized the lot was filling up and we could get parked in. We woke Little Bit up enough to move her from the floor to the sofa, got everything ready to go, including slides pulled in, then woke the big girls enough to get them to turn the other direction in their bunks so their feet were pointed to the front, not their heads, and pulled out. Dad stopped at the entrance of the lot to hook the car on the back and while he was doing that, literally minutes after we pulled out of our spot, someone came and parked in a spot that would have blocked us in! Drove a few miles to a Walmart lot and stopped to let kids finish waking up and all of us make our coffee and eat breakfast then headed to the Homestead Memorial national park site. Spent the morning there . . .
Not surprisingly, the homestead memorial is on the prairie. It has its own kind of beauty but the girls and I are in agreement that we have no desire to live on the prairie. So flat and hot and . . . Flat!
This was in the eclipse's path of totality, so they still had stuff about that here. My favorite was the series of small quilts they had showing the stages. So gorgeous!
All 3 girls got their Junior Rangers but as usual, Ashlyn didn't want her picture taken.
They had a "Not so Junior Ranger" book here do mom did that one and got a different pin.
We left Homestead around 1pm and ate while dad drove into Kansas to the Pony Express Museum there. It's small, but very cool!
The original pony express stop for this area is still on it's original location! It was used as a home until the 1940s. The interpreter at the museum said recently a woman in her 90s came to see the museum and said she had actually lived in this house! So cool!
Inside the original building they have a place where the show the different "layers" in the wall.
The building still has it's original floors and at some point in it's history someone flatten out tin cans and used them to patch the floor. Talk about using everything you had!
Riding gloves.
There was a telegraph key in the museum that you could try. Lexie taught Little Bit how to use it.
The people who lived in the wayside house when the pony express was in operation were German. This is s German Bible.
So we spent a couple hours there then decided to do a couple hours of driving to get closer to tomorrow's stop, Ft Scott. We found a campground that looked like it would work well but dad didn't have good cell reception there at the museum so we figured we'd drive a little bit then stop and dad could call and confirm they had a spot available. We discovered that cell service was spotty most everywhere and places to stop were minimal . . . By the time mom could call it was after hours and the recording gave no indication of if there was a way to stay there if you hadn't planned ahead. So, new plan . . . Found another campground, called and actually talked to a person. She said they did have a spot, so we drove to this campground (which happens to be in a town named "Peculiar" I've been making tons of jokes about that, the girls don't find me as funny as I find me lol).
Didn't get to the campground until after 8, then had to get parked, not an easy task to back a motorhome into a spot in the dark. Get leveled and hooked up . . . By then it was bedtime!
So today was our earliest time pulling out, by at least an hour, and our latest time parking, by probably 2 hours, first time parking after dark. Long day, and hard on dad, doing so much driving, a lot of it on 2 lane roads with quite a bit of wind. I'm proud of my girls for handling the uncertainty without complaining, and generally being great travelers.
This campground has laundry facilities and showers so I'm going to get laundry going in the morning and take a much needed shower (with so many of us, we have to be careful about water usage if we spend very long at sites without water hookup and/or a dump station. So, while the shower in the motorhome works fine, we've been conserving water so no showers since we left DeSmet Monday morning). And hopefully the kids will sleep in a bit.
Not surprisingly, the homestead memorial is on the prairie. It has its own kind of beauty but the girls and I are in agreement that we have no desire to live on the prairie. So flat and hot and . . . Flat!
This was in the eclipse's path of totality, so they still had stuff about that here. My favorite was the series of small quilts they had showing the stages. So gorgeous!
All 3 girls got their Junior Rangers but as usual, Ashlyn didn't want her picture taken.
They had a "Not so Junior Ranger" book here do mom did that one and got a different pin.
We left Homestead around 1pm and ate while dad drove into Kansas to the Pony Express Museum there. It's small, but very cool!
The original pony express stop for this area is still on it's original location! It was used as a home until the 1940s. The interpreter at the museum said recently a woman in her 90s came to see the museum and said she had actually lived in this house! So cool!
Inside the original building they have a place where the show the different "layers" in the wall.
The building still has it's original floors and at some point in it's history someone flatten out tin cans and used them to patch the floor. Talk about using everything you had!
Riding gloves.
There was a telegraph key in the museum that you could try. Lexie taught Little Bit how to use it.
The people who lived in the wayside house when the pony express was in operation were German. This is s German Bible.
So we spent a couple hours there then decided to do a couple hours of driving to get closer to tomorrow's stop, Ft Scott. We found a campground that looked like it would work well but dad didn't have good cell reception there at the museum so we figured we'd drive a little bit then stop and dad could call and confirm they had a spot available. We discovered that cell service was spotty most everywhere and places to stop were minimal . . . By the time mom could call it was after hours and the recording gave no indication of if there was a way to stay there if you hadn't planned ahead. So, new plan . . . Found another campground, called and actually talked to a person. She said they did have a spot, so we drove to this campground (which happens to be in a town named "Peculiar" I've been making tons of jokes about that, the girls don't find me as funny as I find me lol).
Didn't get to the campground until after 8, then had to get parked, not an easy task to back a motorhome into a spot in the dark. Get leveled and hooked up . . . By then it was bedtime!
So today was our earliest time pulling out, by at least an hour, and our latest time parking, by probably 2 hours, first time parking after dark. Long day, and hard on dad, doing so much driving, a lot of it on 2 lane roads with quite a bit of wind. I'm proud of my girls for handling the uncertainty without complaining, and generally being great travelers.
This campground has laundry facilities and showers so I'm going to get laundry going in the morning and take a much needed shower (with so many of us, we have to be careful about water usage if we spend very long at sites without water hookup and/or a dump station. So, while the shower in the motorhome works fine, we've been conserving water so no showers since we left DeSmet Monday morning). And hopefully the kids will sleep in a bit.
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