Bartlesville exploration trip

Today we travelled 170 miles round trip to see several attractions. We first got a picture of these 3 interestingly labeled water tanks. Then we visited the Tom Mix Museum in Dewey. In February we had seen where he was killed in a 1940 car accident in AZ. Mix's third of five wives was from Dewey, he was the town marshal and worked on a local cattle ranch before his movie career. We enjoyed the museum and watched one of his 1930's first talkies with Mickey Rooney when he was a young boy. We visited a replica of the Nellie Johnstone #1 oil well site, the first commercial oil well in OK. The name came from a young Indian girl who owned the land. While driving in Bartlesville we noticed a strange building that turned out to be Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower. Never heard of it but it's a unique 1956 19 story building. We then visited the Phillips Petroleum Museum, it was quite commercial. The company almost didn't exist, they barely had funding for 3 wells that were duds and somehow did a fourth well and it was the first of 80 successful oil wells. If you want to know how "66" was added to the company name drop me an email and I'll tell you! On the way home we visited the home with the bowling ball fence and yard. If you think MI has some bad gravel roads you should drive on Oklahoma's. Hey Devyn......I finally had a baconator today!!!!! Doubt I'll have another.

Exploring Grove

Wednesday Judy went to Curves and we got our first look at Grove, that's about all we did, other than me wumping her at gin rummy. She's still 60 points ahead of me. Today I debugged the front cap of our home and cleaned the truck up a little. After Curves we made a 60 mile drive around Grand Lake. One side of the lake looks to be pretty poor while the other side is not. The Pensacola Dam was constructed in 1940 by Franklin D Roosevelt's WPA to supply power to NE Oklahoma. You can tell it's not made to today's vehicles, it would have been interesting to meet another dually. There was quite a bit of water going over or through the flood gates from the reservoir. We also went through the Jay County Historical Museum and had lunch in the City Perks local downtown eatery.

Grove, Oklahoma

We had the toilet repaired this morning and left Chanute at 10:30; arrived in Grove, OK a little after 1. We are planning on staying here (it's a free ROD park) for 9 nights. On the 25th we'll move 100 miles down the road to a Corp of Engineering park to meet up with some friends. We have learned that the HitchHiker rally has been cancelled because of Ike. We are trying to put put something together for our Haulin' HitchHiker group.

Judy went to church this morning while I slept in a little longer. We went for a walk in the park and we got a picture of this strange goose. It has skin growing under it's chin like a turkey does. I sent a picture to Bill Teetz, an avid birder, and he believes it's a Swan goose introduced to the US from Asia. There are at least two in the park. Do you like the duck with a mohawk?

The truck received a good cleaning inside and out and Judy even washed the trailer windows.....both sides.....now that Ike has passed. The rain stopped during the night and was replaced by a strong wind. But....it's beautiful out now although chilly. This evening we played Mexican Train with Stacy & Sharon and Judy was getting into Stacy's sipping burbon!

In need of pontoons for the trailer here in Chanute

Still here! Our part from Thedford hasn't arrived yet, we'll check Monday morning and make a decision if we want to stay longer or depart for OK. Rained Friday morning, was real nice in the afternoon, and started raining again last night and been raining since. We have been visiting with Stacy & Sharon yesterday and today. We did some beeritas (margaritas made with beer) testing and went out for Mexican this afternoon. Third time in four days, it is that good! Judy has been cleaning my clock playing rummy, other than that we have been relaxing and piddling around the trailer and Chanute testing our home for leaks and it's passing with flying colors.

OK, what else is there to do in Chanute?

YEA.....got to sleep in today. Judy went to Curves. Larry & Lynn came over and we chatted then went to lunch. They are from Wichita, KS and are here for some work & the tour. We went to lunch with them, back to the same Mexican restaurant we had supper at last night! Told ya the place was GOOD. I can't remember the last time it wasn't raining. We are caught between Lawrence (tropical storm from the Pacific) and Ike coming up from the Gulf. Local predictions are for 8 to 10 inches of rain from today through this weekend. Some flooding expected. How can that be, Ike isn't expected to hit TX until Saturday and we are way up in KS??? One thing I do know.......this trailer is water tight!! No one else here has a leak either. OH.....I forgot to mention.....life is good! It's almost 5:30 so it doesn't look like our part arrived, it appears we'll be here until Monday. There's a Mexican festival in the park this weekend so we'll have some very wet entertainment.

Back to service.......

We were back in the service department a little before 7am. We went and got donuts for the service guys, donuts or pizza will work wonders! We then went with 3 other HitchHiker couples from AZ, CA & MO to the Grain Bin for breakfast. I there's one thing we are doing in Chanute it's eating! We then took the NuWa plant tour again, you will always learn something no matter how many times you have taken the plant tour (an eighth RV manufacturer this year, Teton, went out of business today). We picked up some soda for the service manager who helped us with a problem in OR earlier this year. We watched the ducks and geese in Santa Fe Park, watched traffic (in the rain) and chatted with Stacy & Sharon as we both waited for our homes. At 3:15 we returned and 21 of 22 work items were completed. Service is waiting on a valve from Thetford (Ann Arbor, MI) for our toilet. It works but we don't want it to fail and overflow again! Unfortunately Stacy & Sharon will spend a 3rd night in the motel, their floor isn't finished as the damp (read saturated) air isn't allowing the glue to dry. We went out with them to a local Mexican restaurant and had a FANTASTIC Mexican supper. There are 7 HitchHikers in the city park tonight. We are meeting many HitchHiker friends (Stacy & Sharon, Gary & Suzanne, Larry & Lynn, Ed & Ruth) we have met in the last year and a half, kind of amazing. Some are here for service, some for the tour and some passing through.