Leslie and David's Wanderings

29 – 31 May May 2024 Junction City, KS to Odessa, MO

In the morning, we went to breakfast at Stacy’s and picked up some essentials at Walmart before paying our bill at NH. We departed NH about an hour before the storms and drove to the Owl Creek RV Park ($58 per night with GSC) in Odessa MO. We felt it was an appropriate place to stay since Leslie was born in Odessa Texas! The RV Park also had a shop that featured locally source cheeses, wines and chocolate candy! We got to see Keira play with other dogs for the first time at the dog park. All the dogs behaved well and had a great time chasing each other around the pen.

26 - 29 May 2024 Camp New Horizons

We said good bye to Bill and Mary Ann Sunday morning. David spent the afternoon working on our taxes. Memorial Day afternoon we drove over to the small town of Lindsborg, Kansas. Known as the Little Sweden of Kansas, Lindsborg was settled by Swedish emigrants in 1869. The old downtown reflects the heritage and there are Dala Horse sculptures through-out the town. The Dala Horse tradition came out of Sweden where craftsmen looking for something to do with wood scrapes from furniture making first started carving them as toys. We pursued through the shops that were open and had lunch at the De Öl Stuga Bar and Grill. On the way back, we stopped at the Coronado Heights and the fort built by the CCC. It is said that the Spanish explorer Coronado viewed the great plains from this location in 1541. On Tuesday the New Horizon service technicians completed all the work we need done to the Wanderer. We had two of the four slide toppers replaced. We had planned to have all four replaced but two of the replacements came in the wrong size from the manufacturer, so we will have to work those later. They also fixed the cutoff switch on the passenger rear stabilizer and repaired one window shade. We had then do an end to end inspection and they did not find any issues that needed attention. The called our unit “lightly used” since we have taken such great care of it. We also met with Cole to price out a possible new build. Also met with Elizabeth to get the latest news for the Ambassadors program. Since we finished up early, we made plans to drive part way to St. Charles to reduce the drive and to get out ahead of the incoming storm front. Wednesday morning we went to breakfast at Stacy’s (a local icon) and picked up some essentials at Walmart.

Entrance sign to Lindsborg

Large Dala Horse

History of the Dale Horse

Fort at Coronado Heights built by the CCC

View of the Great American Plains

Camp New Horizons

25 May 2024 Guthrie, OK to Junction City, KS

We pulled into New Horizons RV around 3 PM. Both parking spots in the service department were full, so we parked in front of the third bay and got set up. We got together with our friends Bill and Mary Ann who were just finishing up a week of repairs being made to their RV. It was great to finally meet up with them again since it has been since we were in Maine since we saw them last.

24 May 2024 Mansfield, TX to Guthrie, OK

We decided to split the drive to Junction City into two days. We stopped at the Pioneer RV Park ($44 per night, no discount) for the night. It is a nice enough RV park for a night. There were a lot of Ceder Elm trees around the edge of the property in full bloom, so both of us had bad allergies for the night.

19 - 23 May 2024 DFW Week

It has been a crazy busy week. David got the tooth that gave him problems on the cruise extracted (Ouch!). We visited with Diane and Donny several times. Caught up with out friends Mona and Wade, Rick H, and Rick and Samantha W. We both saw our eye doctors. David got his annual physical and Leslie her blood tests. The doctors declared all is good and we will live for another year. We were exhausted by the end of the week.

18 May 2024 Conroe to Mansfield, TX

We pulled up stakes in Conroe and head to DFW. It felt good to get back on the road with our home. We are staying at the Texan RV Park in Mansfield where we have stayed before. We were even in one of the usual sites, E3, where we have stayed before. It will be a busy week.

On the road for 2024!

23 April – 17 May 2024 Preparing for the rest of 2024

After recovering from our three-month tour of the South Pacific, we turned our attention to getting ready to hit the road for the northern hemisphere summer travel season. David made a trip up to Fort Worth for work and see his dentist about the crown that came off during the cruise (the tooth will have to be pulled). We got maintenance done to the Behemoth. In addition to the usual annual items, we put new heavy-duty bumpers on both front and back (the factory bumpers had been beat to hell by people in parking lots) and a new set of tires. We had Detail Dr. come out and wash and wax both the Wanderer and Behemoth so they both are nice and shiny. As well as protected for the year. But the biggest thing we did was add a new member to our family. David had promised Leslie that when we got back from the cruise, we could get a new dog. So, on 8 May, we went down to the Montgomery County SPCA to see what dogs they had available for adoption. They had dozens of large breed dogs (Pit Bulls, German Shepards, Malamutes, and mixes) but no small or medium size breeds, until we asked a worker. She took us into the puppy area and there, in a cage by herself was a medium sized English Pointer/Jack Russell Terrier mix. She was a little bit larger than we were looking for, but very shy and sweet. They were treating her for Heart Worms, which made us very concerned. Leslie asked if we could get her out and interact with her. So, we went to an outside cage and got to know her. And so we found our new family member, Keira. We took her home with 25 days of antibiotics (150MG of Doxycycline) to kill the symbiotic bacteria that the heart worms depend on (known as the slow kill method) and for some reason a case of CBD treats to calm her. When we put her in the back seat of the truck, she sniffed around and curled up and was calm and quiet all the way home. The antibiotic pills were huge, and getting them down her twice a day no fun. They also upset her stomach and made her lethargic. So, we took her to our local vet in Spring and had her gone over from Nose to Tip of Tail. Our vet looked her over, did full blood tests and xrays ($890) and said other than the heart worms, she was just fine. But she did reduce the antibiotics (100MG of Doxycycline) since the dosage the SPCA gave us was too high for her weight, gave us some anti-nausea medicine and doggy Prilosec. That really helped Keira feel better and she is eating better and is much more herself. We are all getting used to each other. Keira is very well behaved, house broken and listens to our commands. We’re all happy with our (her?) choice!