June 7th through June 28th, 2025
We escaped from Carlsbad after Margot's fall from the RV roof, and it was so good to get back to our "normal" life. Monica took the whole week off from work, and we were excited to finally get to Kansas. It's been a joke of ours for years, our map of places we've stayed. We've been to all of the states around Kansas, but never actually went there. It was strangely exciting and fun to finally get to the state.
But first, a single night in the middle-of-nowhere Texas. We barely fit into the campground, and it was a muddy mess, but it was a nice stay with nice people. Then we spent two nights in Oklahoma. We stayed in a lovely spot so we could visit the Chickasaw National Recreation Area. It's a lovely park, with one of the features we like the best: a drive through the woods. We even found a casino and fantastic restaurant in the nice town of Sulphur. Oklahoma can be so scenic.
Kansas was our main goal for the week, and we found a perfect spot at a lovely resort in Topeka. We had three days of touring, and the first day we went to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum & Boyhood Home. It was about an hour west of us in Abilene. Margot used her powered wheelchair to get around, so it was an easy week. We learned a lot about a very inspirational president.
The next day we stayed in Topeka and visited the Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park. It was an interesting building and a nice way to spend a bit of the day.
On our last Kansas day, we traveled an hour east of Topeka to Kansas City to visit the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum. He wasn't as inspirational as Eisenhower, to us, and we got the impression he may have been a bit of a jerk. But we learned a bit more about the second world war and the struggle of Jewish refugees. It was sobering, but we appreciate being exposed to these things.
To end our whirlwind week of travel and touring we headed to Iowa to hang out with Monica's mom for a couple weeks. She has a spot for the motor home where we have power, water, and sewer hookups so it's quite comfortable. We got to spend a lovely lunch with Bev and Janet, too, which is always a great time. We played Swoop, of course! Then we visited Ron and Cindy at their river property and had a fantastic, relaxing visit.
We always feel like we could spend months in Iowa, and it wouldn't be long enough with mom, friends, and family. Two weeks was definitely not long enough. But we had more to see and do in the Midwest before heading south again for the winter. We waved goodbye to mom and headed toward Chicago and still more misadventures on the road... but that's a story for next time.
