Alabama by Way of Texarkana

We are currently enjoying a sleepy Sunday afternoon in Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale.

A very sleepy Sunday! In an attempt to get this blog back on track, lets back up to Friday, December 21st.

Amazon Camperforce is done for the year, so we leave Fort Bluegrass and Louisville. After spending a second year here, we are growing attached to this city, with its many funky restaurants and um, interesting driving habits. Always wait a few seconds when the light turns green in this town - just saying!

Our original plan was to follow our route last year, taking a leisurely week-long stroll down down 65 to Alabama but

it turns out its time for The Biker to renew his license in person. Which means we need to drive to Texarkana, first.

So we leave Kentucky then swing west, through Arkansas.

We crate the crew when we drive, so we drive for a few hours then pull over in rest areas and Walmarts to let everybody stretch. Not what we planned for Christmas, but at least we have holiday lights to enjoy - even if its just a beautiful full moon and a whole lot of semi lights!

We finally reach Texarkana on December 26th. Getting the license only takes an hour. After Lousville, the warmer Texas weather is glorious!

It's also true gulf state weather - devious and sneaky. A big storm front moves in just hours after this picture is taken. We spend the night in a torential downpour, as high winds rock our RV from side to side.

The next morning, we pack up the crew and check the radar. The storm is heading east and so are we. Sigh. It can be dangerous to drive a high profile vehicle like ours in high winds, so we decide we will just drive until we reach the storm's edge - and then pull over.

We spend the next day slooowly driving through Louisiana, playing our own version of storm chaser.

Eventually the storm stalls out over Missippi. We have no choice but to pull over at a truck stop in Louisiana and wait it out. 

We finally reach Missippi on December 28th, a whole lot later than we planned -

only to discover that there are road closures ahead! The storm has dumped so much rain, bridges are underwater. We talk to a very nice Department of Traffic person who is directing traffic and she tells us our best bet is to detour an hour or so north.

We aren't exactly happy about this, but we check Allstays and the detour will send us toward the Alabama Welcome Center in Cuba. We change plans (again!) and decide to head to the Welcome Center, where we can either wait out the storm or push through.

Of course, when we arrive, the radar shows the storm is just passing through Gulf Shore. We asphalt camp for the night, waiting once again for the durn storm to move along. At least this is a really pretty Welcome Center!

We make it to Gulf Shores late Saturday afternoon. The ground is incredibly soggy from the storm, so we park and resign ourselves to having to level out again when things dry out. At least we made it safe and sound!

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Road Trip!

Yes, this post is a wee bit late. First we decided to spend time with relatives and friends, then we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves at the Winnebago National Rally in Iowa. I also dropped the phone we use for Facebook and Twitter last weekend, and it's now in itty bitty pieces. 

So much for being good and faithful bloggers!  Let's back up a couple of weeks, shall we? We pulled up anchor in Indiana, just after July 4th.

We packed up the animals and jumped onto to 30. After a year on the road, even the cats are fairly good about going into their crates - and Crockett loves it. I suspect he feels safer in his "den" when the house is rocking and rolling.

We headed west to Joliet, then turned north, asphalt-camping at a rest area. One of the trucks next to us was transporting a tail section of a plane. Talk about taking tail-gating to a whole other level!

We camped for a few days at Castle Rock, near the Wisconsin Dells, then headed west again. this time towards Black River Falls. The electric company in the area is putting in new towers.Instead of scenery, we got treated to lots and lots and lots of heavy machinery.

 

We stopped at a local rest area and discovered it had a scenic look out, so we went exploring

The half mile path is green and shady and smooth, but it's a bit steep in a few places.

There is a viewing deck at the end, with a lovely view of the tree tops 

We're not sure what was in the forests around this rest area, but the cats were very interested. Puppykat kept returning to the screen to get another whiff.

We then continue west and Wisconsin becomes more and more rural,

with a lot of twists and curves in the road. 

We camp for the weekend at a tiny park called Tourist Park in Mondovi.

We will NOT be reviewing this park. It may look pretty, but the flies and mosquitoes were horrible!

Our main reason for stopping was so we could meet a good friend in Menomonie. She lives in the suburbs of Minneapolis, so the cafe in Menomonie was a good half way point to catch up. We had a lot of fun - and our hubbies finally got to meet each other!

When we pulled in, there was a grandfather and his grandson pulling in with a 1979 Itasca Sundancer. Isn't this an adorable little rig?

Our friend brought us a special gift - a new chew for Crockett. Yum!

On Monday, we fled the mosquitoes. We turned south, camping at another rest area, then we rolled into the Forest City rally grounds the next morning at 8am.

The gates officially open at 12, but we heard parking can get a bit crazy the first day.

We were glad we showed up early! As we waited, the line behind us started getting longer and longer. Eventually, they opened the gates at 11am and we were directed over to our spot over in the Texas row.  Now if we can only post about the actual rally in a somewhat timely fashion....

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Guess this is our Meade Haul?

After stopping for lunch at the Washita Battleground, we continue north. The weather continues to be threatening, with heavy storm clouds on the horizon. 

We make one last stop in Oklahoma. Woodward was part of the Cherokee Outlet, the biggest land rush in United State history - way back in 1893.

We overnight at the Walmart and watch our last Oklahoma sunset.

The next day we push north and reach Kansas. We cross the state line and notice one thing immediately - the roads are much better maintained.

For the next hour we wind our way through southern Kansas. 

Ready for another diversion? Today, Kansas is America's breadbasket and the top producer of quite a lot of our food, including wheat and soybeans. Back in the 19th century, nobody woud've seen that as the territory's future.  Kansas took many long and difficult years to become a state, which inspired the state's motto "Ad astra per aspera." That translates as "to the stars through difficulty". 

From 1854 to 1861, the territory became a battlefield between abolitionists and those who were pro-slavery.  The violent confrontations earned the state the nickname "Bleeding Kansas". In 1860, a severe drought hit, and its estimated as many as 1/3 of the settlers pulled up stakes and left. 

After several years and multiple attempts at writing constitution, the abolitionists finally won the day and submitted a finished constitution. Kansas became a free state in 1861 - just four months before the Civil War began.

 The drought would also create conditions ripe for dust storms, and farming would continue to be a struggle through the 1880s. By the 1920s, Kansas finally seemed to be fertile farmland - then came another drought, and the great Dust Bowl of 1935. This  would lead to some major, and necessary, changes in how prairie land is farmed.

So, yep, next time you get stuck behind a Kansas farmer (like we did) just be thankful his family was too tenacious to quit! 

We finally pull off  Highway 54, stopping at Meade's City Park. The park was started way back in the 1920s, by business men who wanted to cater to the tourists traveling along Highway 54. Today, the city still allows RVs to park overnight for free.

Meade's real claim to fame, though, is the being home to the Dalton Gang Hideout! 

In 1887, J.N.. Whipple married Eva Dalton, and built his new bride a house in Meade. Eva was one of 15 children (some sources say 17). Her oldest brother Frank had become a lawman, and three other brothers followed suit. When these three weren't paid for their services, they turned to crime. Two of the brothers were killed during a bank robbery in Coffeyville in 1892, the last brother was captured and sent to prison.

One more digression! Eva's mother was Adeline Younger. She was the aunt of  Cole, Bob, and Jim Younger. These three men were also outlaws, and rode with Frank and Jesse James.

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Little RV on the Prairie

 Time for a couple of catch up posts! We're writing this post from a rest area in Clarendon, but we've spent most of this week at the second largest canyon in the United States, Palo Duro Canyon. Palo Duro is a great place to ride, but there's no way to get a cell signal through solid rock. Somebody really needs to work on that!

 We leave Austin on Sunday, then spend the next couple of days heading northwest. Eventually we turn onto 82, which follows the old MacKenzie Trail. 

 This trail was laid out by General MacKenzie back in 1872, when he was given orders to explore this part of the country. This would lead to one of the saddest chapters in Texas History - the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, where General MacKenzie forcibly removed the local Native Americans  from their land.

We're glad now we took time to convert the Otterbee into a boondocking machine.  We can take our time; enjoying the quiet beauty of the Texas panhandle, and parking wherever the mood strikes us.

 Yes, we just said we enjoyed driving through the Texas panhandle - and we're posting these pictures as proof!

 One of our favorite stops was at an old-style Texas rest stop, just south of Dickens, Texas. The rest area sat on a small hill, which meant we had a wonderful - and free - view!

Watching a spectacular Texas sunset, we were reminded of the brilliant Willa Cather line, "There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries were made." 

 Of course, being long-time Texans, we tend to think of Texas as more of a country than a state... 😄

 We'll end this post with more sunset phto, and our favorite song about the panhandle. Billy Briggs and the XIT Boys were one of THE best Texas Western Swing Bands, and this song is a classic. And yes, Clarendon is one of the towns mentioned!

Panhandle Shuffle

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