Balloon festival lift off!

Saturday morning was cold & dreary so Judy & I slept in & stayed at the campground as did almost everyone else.  We did keep an eye open and when they lifted off (about one mile away) we went outside to watch them go up, float right over us & the adjacent pond, then descend a couple miles away.  They spent more time setting up and tearing down that actually flying.  It was good to watch them float over all of us.  When the lifted off Saturday evening the wind was different and the blew much further from us.  There were 19 or 20 balloons at the festival, it's too bad the weather was so cold & windy as that stopped many of us from going to any of the other festival activities.

Columbus, KS balloon festival

After Chanute we went to Columbus, KS for a weekend balloon festival.  We found a nice city park with 6 pull through sites (we took all of them) after the campground we made reservations with wanted to have us spend the weekend in a crappy fairgrounds.  The weather has turned cold, wet & windy.  We were not sure if they would have the evening glow the first night but the mist stopped in time and the did light them up for the crowd.

Chanute, KS

Breakfast at the Grain Bin, Judy LOVES their pecan waffles.  Our standard routine is to drop off our HitchHiker at 7am, be at the Grain Bin at 8am & return to NuWa at 9;45am for the plant tour.  There is usually quite a few of us as there's not much more to do!

 

The city park is always 90% HitchHikers and we always gather at 5pm daily for a happy hour and some socializing.  We often know the others that are there and there usually are 2 or 3 couples there taking delivery of a brand new or used HitchHiker.  If we didn't know them before, we do now.

Back to the Grain Bin for another breakfast.

More happy hours....we are a happy group.

Off to lunch at Chicken Mary's.  Ya get the idea we go out and eat often?  There are two fried chicken restaurants in Pittsburg, KS.....Chicken Marys and Chicken Annes.  Both started when their husbands were injured in mining accidents and their wives open chicken restaurants because they made good chicken. The two restaurants are a block apart in the farmlands with nothing else around.

Chanute, Kansas Artists Alley Festival

We arrived in Chanute, KS Thursday for our service appointment Monday.  We arrived early as there's a city festival Saturday and we want to ensure we have a site in the city park.  We went to the beer tent, as you can see, and helped celebrate whatever was going on at the festival!

On the road.overnighting in Sidney & Wilbur, Nebraska

We are now in travel mode to Chanute, KS.  Our first overnight was at a Cabelas store's campground in Sidney, NE.  We had made reservations but this is the most screwed up campground we have ever been in.  All did work out OK but this place has no idea what is going on and it's a very nice campground!

 

Our next stop was in Wilbur, NE at a nice city park at an American Legion.  BIG park with lots of room.  There are four of us here now.  Ourselves plus Jeff & Susan, Stan & Connie, and Steve & Susy.

Buffalo roundup at Custer State Park

Closer and closer they come.

Far away but getting closer, horseback riders and trucks are used to round them up and drive them.

There are two viewing areas, looks like they rounded up people, got them all fenced in real good! 

Here's the gang that sat still for an hour and chatted after the roundup, we were allowing traffic to clear out as there was only one two lane road for several miles to our viewing site.
The bottom picture is the sunrise, that's right, I was there for a sunRISE.  Once we were close (5 or 6 miles away) to the viewing area the traffic just stopped.  It started out dark and the sun came up while we were waiting.  We had to wait about a half hour for the gates to open.  so we could drive the rest of the way.  The entertainment was a pair of antelope on a nearby ridge getting it on.
We are glad we went but disappointed, we expected well over a thousand buffalo but there were only about 300.  There was dust but no thunder as the pamphlet led us to believe.  Bummer, but it's off the bucket list.

Final happy hours at Hermosa

We are getting ready to leave Hermosa and the weather had a cold spell for a couple days then it warmed back up.  The wind has been pretty steady though.  When it gets into the high 30s and low 40s at night it's tell us to GET THE HECK OUTTA HERE.