Kansas – TooBusyForWork

Eclipse then home

We woke to a cloudy morning on 8 April. It didn’t look promising for viewing. Kevin kept watching the cloud cover on weather apps, and just before totality we quickly drove 20 miles northwest. We got amazingly lucky, and the clouds parted just enough to view totality! There were still some high thin clouds, but we could see the “Diamond ring” and then the darkness fell. All the birds stopped singing, and even the insects stopped their sounds. Very odd, but just like what we observed during the 2017 eclipse in Idaho. Soon it was over, and we got absolutely no good pictures! We were rushing so much to get to a clear spot we had no time to set up gear. Oh well I have memories.

We spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night at the RV park in so-so weather. We spent Thursday, 11 April at the Walmart in Abilene. Nice spot for an overnight parking location. We spent Friday at Mustang RV Park in Oklahoma, leaving very early after deciding to make a run for home because of a bad storm coming in. We made it to the KOA in Topeka, KS on Saturday, then home on Sunday. We put the motorhome at our local county park, open but without water. We were too tired to unpack, so we just slept there that night. Monday and Tuesday were unpacking – ugh. It always seems a lot more trouble to unpack than to pack. But we are now home, and the cats adjusted quickly. I think they like the extra space for their zoomies. They run from the bedroom through the living room and down the stairs multiple times a day.

April and May are our medical appointment times, and we are both pretty busy with our respective dentists and doctors. Kevin is getting his dental implant finished, and I have appointments with a dermatologist, ophthalmologist, and the pain medicine guy. I need a dentist appointment too. The pain med will require at least two follow up appointments, and the derm probably will too. Sigh.

My poor 830 Record sewing machine had to go to its doctor on Saturday too. I got a thread sound up at the stand and broke the needle. I can’t get it to do any free motion quilting since, and it broke 5 needles when I kept trying various repairs I knew about. It sews ok on straight stitching, but there is thread wadding up on the bottom when I do FMQ. Hopefully I just pulled something out of whack and the machine can easily (and inexpensively) come back from it. I will find out in a week or so. The RZR is in for some major preventative service too since we really don’t know how it was cared for before we got it. We have out a few thousand miles on it! We had a regular oil change done when needed, but this is a more extensive service. We find out that dollar amount next week too, depending on whether they fine anything serious. We don’t think so, but …

I won’t be posting much, normal for me when I am home. Staying in one place just isn’t as interesting as traveling. We do have one short trip planned with my son in law and his two children the week after Memorial Day. Then we will be leaving for our western summer in mid-June.

Death Valley catchup (plus Iowa things)

Warning – this has a lot of time and variety in it!

To catch up on Death Valley and surroundings, we stayed at Sunset until the morning of 20 February. Since the cellular data service ixps extremely limited there, we were pleased to make full use of the monthly WiFi pass at the resort. $60 gives you 30 days of high speed Internet on up to two devices! I tried to get some pictures from Kevin’s fancy camera of the Funeral Mountains to the east of us, but I wasn’t terribly successful. The mountains are made up of rocks so old and confused they are called “Funeral Chaos”. Twisted, faulted, squeezed, faulted again – they show amazing patterns. I just couldn’t get a good picture though, so I guess I will try again next time.

Searching for phone service and a place to hunker down to care for Lily, we ended up at the Needles KOA. We have stayed there a few times before. The sites are big enough, and there is a resident group of quail that I find adorable. I tried to get a picture of the 20 or so who ran across the road as we were checking in, but they were too fast for me. You can hear them clicking away in the mornings if no one has taken their dogs out yet.

As I said in the previous post, we headed back to Iowa as soon as we knew about Lily’s condition. We stayed at Lavaland RV Park in Grants, NM the first night after we left Needles KOA, Tuesday 23 February. They had a nice brewery that concentrated on porters and stouts, my favorites. Sadly their kitchen was closed, but we did order some pizza delivered to the brewery. Nice to eat pizza and beer inside an almost empty place. Our next stop was Big Texan RV Park in Amarillo. It is a mile or so away from the famously advertised restaurant, but it was an easy in and out spot. We made it to the Wellington KOA on Thursday, much nicer than the dreadful place we stayed heading to Arizona in December. We then headed to the Lakeside Casino RV Park in Osceola, IA for our last night. It isn’t very suitable for big rigs since the turns are tight and the sites pretty short, but we found a spot we could fit into. It wasn’t the one the check in folks had us in initially, but with only 5-6 other rigs we had our choice. It is close enough to home to make it a good spot to winterize the rig, and thanks what we did on Saturday morning before heading out. We are pretty good at it these days, and it too, less than an hour. The ice maker is always the hardest!

We had gotten COVID vaccination appointments on Sunday, 28 February, and we had our follow up vaccination yesterday (Pfizer). I am anxiously awaiting my 2 week time for feeling comfortable again! We are having two of the kids and their families over for Easter (another son heads to his cabin every Easter), and I am soooooo wanting to hug them all!

Kevin’s big job this time was installing new LiFePO4 batteries. He chose three 200 amp hour LifeBlue batteries with their integrated heater. Lithium’s don’t charge below 35 degrees or so, and we stay in those temps too often to not get the more expensive heater version. He needed a new solar controller, and luckily this one has Bluetooth so it is much easier to see what is happening. They see to work fine, and I am anxious to try them out on a real trip, not just sitting outside the storage unit. Our solar system will be able to punch more power into the batteries because it won’t be throttled by the lead acid charging curve.

We have been doing work on the house too. We bought a pergola to go on our very hot west side deck. It has a nice adjustable shade cover that will help with keeping the house cooler too. We even bought a propane fire pit to put under it!

i also finished the three quilt tops I sewed while we were out. I got them quilted pretty quickly, but I procrastinated on the binding because it is the task I like least. I got them into the wash yesterday though.

The first two were made from a layer cake I bought on sale. I love the water lilies and dragonfly theme.

Bound and backed with a green Grunge fabric

Bound and backed with a light turquoise fabric with yellow dots

This one was way outside my comfort zone! I just don’t “do” scrappy well. It will make a fun ”I Spy” quilt for some child though.

Enough for now. More going on at home, but I will leave that for later.

On the road to Arizona

We pulled out of the storage lot this morning at 7:30. We spent quite a bit of time yesterday packing food, clothes, and gear. Kevin’s new hobbies of 3D printing and his astro photography equipment took quite a bit of space, but it all fit in nicely. We pretty much empties the freezer, deep freeze, and refrigerator so we won’t have to shop as often. I have lots of individually frozen packages of uncooked chicken breast and chicken thighs, nicely protected with the vacuum sealer. There is also brisket, smoked turkey, roasted turkey, and smoked pork butt in meal sized portions. Add in frozen vegetables, and we are pretty well set. We also have a lot more canned good and dry goods than normal. I want to grocery shop no more than once a week, and we should be able to do that.

The forecast for today said good weather along our trip until 10-11, but that icy rain/sleet started early. I drove 35-45 mph for probably 50 miles until the weather and roads improved south of Des Moines. The rest of the way was smooth sailing, though we had some winds as we left Kansas City. We are safely tucked in at the Topeka KOA, a place I do not recommend. Their long pull through are right next to the Kansas Turnpike; the highway fence is about 40-50’ from our door! Not only is it noisy, but the interior roads are truly awful with big ruts. It is just for a night so we can manage. I will definitely look for an alternative the next time we go this way though. Kevin got the rig dewinterized, and we have water and heat. What more can I ask for? Oh, and we even got the Dish satellite restarted, always a bit of a trial after suspending service.

Lily settled in about 5 minutes. She sat on Kevin!s lap a lot, and she slept in her carrier (one of her favorite places). She is now sleeping on top of the carrier quite soundly.

History in Kansas, making our way to Stillwater, OK, and starting some heirloom sewing

On Saturday we decided to go to the Atchison, KS rail museum. On the way we saw an historical marker for the town of Lecompton. We decided to stop at the museum, and we were so glad we did! This little town was actually the territorial capital of Kansas from 1855-1861, and it was a major player in the Civil War. The first proposed Constitution of Kansas was written in Lecompton, and it was firmly a pro-slavery document. The free-staters believed the Legislature that wrote the Constitution had been elected in 1855 illegally, and there were all kinds of battles, verbal fights, arrests on both sides, and general mayhem. During the election in 1857, the new Leislature was firmly free-stagers by a 5-1 margin, and the Constitution that was finally approved by the US Congress allowed Kansas into the Union as a free state, thereby ending the “great compromise” that Stephen Douglas favored where every free state that entered the US would also have a slave state entering. It was a major contribution to Lincoln winning the 1861 election. Fascinating stuff. We wandered through the museum, staffed by an incredibly knowledgeable and passionate history buff, then went to the old Constitution Hall, a state historic site. We met another ardent historian there who gave a great overview of the history. I highly recommend a trip if you are in the area. We never made it to Atchison.

National Historic Site and State Historic Monument

Constitution Hall is probably the oldest frame building in Kansas.

On Sunday we headed to Stillwater, OK. We are staying at Sunset Ridge RV Park. It is advertised as the nicest RV park in Stillwater, but that isn’t saying much. Flat level pads, some trees, close sites, and almost everyone here is obviously a long-term resident. The place is clean and quiet though. We got in early enough to visit family in the area which was nice.

Monday we went to Arkansas City, KS to handle some property business. I liked the attorney, and with any luck we can get everything signed by Wednesday. Turns out he is leaving Wednesday afternoon, so he is motivated. I also spent time with my new travel sewing machine, a Viking Opal 650. I am using it to sew a baptism gown for my granddaughter, and I got the insertion done on both sleeves. Imperial batiste fabric and imported entredeux with insertion. It looks pretty good if I say so myself! I like the machine.

I hope to get the bodice lace work done tomorrow. I am still waiting for another set of baby measurements before I do a final cut of the fabric.

Clinton Lake and Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival

We arrived at our wonderful COE campground on Wednesday. Gorgeous place! The sites are big with solid gravel parking for the motorhome and a large spot for parking a car and just hanging out. There is a lot of shade in one corner of our space for sitting, but most of the site is sunny (better place for our satellite antenna). Since we have electricity and water at the campsite we don’t need shade to keep cool, so Kevin decided to leave the shady sites for renters who rally need them. Hardly anybody here when we arrived. but that definitely changed on Friday! There are a few spots left, but not very many. We are lucky enough to have a resident mockingbird that likes to hang around, plus doves, purple martins, some type of woodpecker (heard but not seen), and an assortment of other common birds. The mockingbird is incredible though! Click the link to listen to just a short sample of the songs.

E9022BAA-E6F6-476C-ACEC-3FA3C2BC0143

Thursday I went to the KCRQF. It was about an hour away, but the drive was easy. I wandered through the vendor mall, looking at the goodies. I ended up with only a few things – a lightweight thread stand for traveling, a stencil for marking 1” squares on my quilt tops, and a lovely piece of pre-fused appliqué of birch trees plus a piece of fabric (dark blue with stars) to use as a background. All I will need to do is heat press the appliqué to the fabric, then do some thread paining on the birches. It will make a lovely wall hanging.

I took an intermediate free motion quilting class Thursday afternoon. There wasn’t a lot of instruction, but she had lovely samples to inspire us plus stencils, books, and rulers to experiment with. I didn’t play with the rulers because I do that at home, but I did try a number of stencils, concentrating on getting an even stitch. It was even harder to do because were using Babylock sewing machines provided by the festival.

Trying to do free motion orange peels on a gridded background. Result was only so-so

Lovely little bird from a stencil. Top is an experiment using Press and Seal. Lesson learned: don’t do that!

I also experimented some with feathers, a very traditional quilting pattern I have never been able to master. I won’t say I have it mastered now, but they are much, much improved! Diane Kimber, a friend and quilter in Salt Lake City, had given me some pointers. I hadn’t tried her technique, but I had thought about it, and it worked pretty well for me.

Feathers randomly tied to the end of a daisy

Friday I took a class in machine appliqué, but I accidentally left all my samples in class! It was a wonderful class though. She had a kit prepared with samples to use for practicing multiple techniques. We tried using fusible interfacing sewn to the fabric then turned to provide a smooth edge for the appliqué, using water soluble stabilizer with rubber cement to provide a turned edge, and two types of fusible raw edge appliqué. We also experimented with stitch types which was very informative. I am definitely going to try some of the techniques. My favorite stitch combo was a pretty short and narrow blanket stitch. It would be almost invisible in the color of the appliqué, especially with a 50 or 60 weight thread. This class used Viking machines, again provided by the festival.

While the classes were very good, I was not a fan of the show administration. Turns out they would have given my class spot away if I hadn’t checked in at a specific desk, but no one told me that ahead of time. Strike 1. Then when I did check in at 1:15 before going to the vendor mall, they didn’t have the class lists for my 3:00 class! I had to come back at 2:30. Strike 2. Then they changed the time of my Friday class without telling anyone in the class, including the teacher! Strike 3. Some of the desk staff couldn’t believe we were notified, but I showed them on their own website the time and also the confirmation email I was sent. Even though the class was only slipped by 30 minutes, it put the class finishing at the same time as the last shuttle to the parking lot. In addition there was some evening entertainment that conflicted. Probably half the class had to leave at 6:00. I won’t be back. I have a real issue with poor organization, and this was dreadful in a large professional show like this. Yes, they had big names -Ricky Tims, Leah Day, Angela Waters, many others – but the frustrations weren’t worth it. I will go back to the big AQS shows that are run smoothly.

Since it would be so late when I got out, Kevin picked up ribs, beans, and apple crisp at Joe’s Kansas City BBQ. After all, you have to eat BBQ in KC! The ribs were absolutely fantastic.

Note my empty plate!

Christmas done and we are out of Iowa

Christmas was fun, being with family and having a relaxing holiday. I got to be in a fun Christmas church choir concert, went to a grand daughter’s piano recital. Nick, my son in law, and I made Christmas dinner for my daughter’s co-workers at the hospital. It went well – ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans with mushrooms and bacon, sage cornbread dressing. The day after Christmas I found I came down with shingles. What a letdown!

After Christmas we had to do such really important tasks like get haircuts and a massage before heading off to California. We left on Friday, 28 December. Cedar Falls was having some snow, so we left at 10:15, later than we planned originally to let the snow plows get the roads salted. I-80, I-70, and I-40 were all having problems so we decided to head straight south through Missouri. It was a good idea. We ended up staying in Emporia, KS at a La Quinta that was ok. We like La Quintas because they accept pets without an extra charge. The trip was uneventful, always a good thing.

Today we drove a very long way, from Emporia, KS to Odessa, TX. We left by 7:00 in the dark. Luckily there was a Starbucks next door to the La Quinta! With the weather still being iffy on I-40 and north, we decided to take the longer but safer trip on I-20 to I-10. Let me say I am definitely not a fan of the Texas plains. I normally don’t mind remote, isolated land, but this just didn’t warm me up at all. However I was astonished at the activity in the Permian Basin around Midland. There were dozens and dozens of “RV Parks” being used for worker housing. The amount of activity was amazing. I have never seen so many active drilling rigs, and I have been through North Dakota and the Uinta Basin drilling areas.

Tomorrow we will spend the night west of Tucson, and then we are spending a week in Needles in the motorhome! Normally I would just plan on spending time dry camping somewhere, but with the Government shutdown going on indefinitely, I am worried about the closure of public land and increased demand for private campground so we just booked a full hookup site for the week. We can visit Mohave and Joshua Tree areas from there, plus the Lake Havasu/Bullhead area.

So in summary, lovely month at home, but we are ready to travel again.

Back in Iowa

We left the motorhome in storage in Needles, CA on Tuesday, 13 November with both the solar and the refrigerator running. I am nervous that something will go wrong and I will have a disaster in the refrigerator when we get back, but logic says it will be fine. I hope so!

We spent the first night in Santa Rosa, NM at the Super 8. Not bad, and we would go back if it was convenient. They did charge an extra $10 for Lily, but is was clean. The second night we stayed at the Days Inn in El Dorado, KS. We intended to stay in Wichita, but it was challenging to find a place close to the road so we drove a bit farther. We did eat at a totally fantastic restaurant in Wichita called Mediterranean Grill. Absolutely wonderful, and I will drive out of my way to eat there again.

As for a route, we chose to just drive I-40 to I-35. It was a bit longer than taking some state highways, but it was just so much easier we did it anyway. Since we bought an Oklahoma PikePass on our way to Death Valley even the Oklahoma and Kansas turnpikes were easy. We got home on Thursday, 15 November in the late afternoon. The house feels huge! What doesn’t feel huge were the televisions, especially in the bedroom which is much smaller than the ones in the motorhome. Of course that gave Kevin the perfect excuse to shop for a new living room TV so we could move the old one to the bedroom. Haven’t figured out where to move the bedroom one yet, but we will figure something out!

My daughter in law had ordered me a wonderful turkey from a local specialty house, so I picked up a 20 pound bird on Friday. It went straight to the refrigerator. We will be having my daughter’s family and my unmarried son for dinner, so five adults and a toddler. The turkey is definitely overkill, but that’s what they had. Kevin also smoked a glorious 14 pound turkey, but it pretty much all went to leftovers for the kids (my married son and his family showed up in the evening). Two pecan pies, one pumpkin pie, turkey, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes made up the menu, and it was wonderful. I brined the turkey for the first time, and it was a brilliant idea.

The other particularly nice thing about being back in the house is that I get to be back in choir. We are practicing for a cantata by Mark Hayes that is filled with Christmas carols. Lovely, and I so enjoy singing with a group again. Our performance is on 9 December.

I admit the cold here is pretty intense for someone just coming back from the Southwest, but we will survive. I just had to pull out all the big winter coats!