Mac Angel

Kansas

We left Longview Lake Park today. After John finished judging the show on Saturday night we decided to stay another day. Our motto on this trip is that we have a month to get to Oregon. It probably won't take that long but when we start to get in a hurry about something one of us will look at the other and say, "What's the hurry? We have a month." So we stayed an extra day. We walked four plus miles every day around the park. I'm happy to say that I found a place in Missouri that I really like.

We completely forgot that it was Labor Day weekend until the campground began to fill up. Mary is such an oasis that we were fairly insulated from all of the activities in the park on Saturday night. Apparently there were lots of activities. The woman who I spoke to when we were lost in the rain without working windshield wipers (check the last post if you need the story), who made me feel like an idiot (rightfully so) was out tending to her little garden when we came in from our walk yesterday morning. We stopped to visit with her. She is from Missouri and an absolute hoot. When John asked her about how the weekend was going she shook her head. "Well hell, we had a damn fight last night. Had to call the Rangers in to break it up." She said it wasn't far from the coach. I remember hearing some noise outside and then fell asleep. She continued, "Yep, people get drinkin' that beer and their heads get big, and then there's trouble. This mornin' I got up real early, put on my warbonnet, grabbed some big garbage bags, and headed down there. I rolled em out and made em clean up the whole campsite." She grinned. She drives a golf cart and lets the little kids in the park sit on her lap and drive it around. I told John, they are all going to want golf carts for Christmas this year. Anyway, she and her husband were very nice and we really enjoyed our stay.

We only had one problem. We were situated right in the middle of the campground. There was a lot of space between campsites but the place got pretty full. Each campsite had a grill and a fire pit. And every camper had a fire in their fire pit. We were determined not to close up the coach and turn on the air conditioning, so by bedtime last night we were a little nauseated from the smell of wood smoke. I stepped outside before bed and it looked like we were in a ring of fire! Everyone was having a great time, kids on bikes and scooters, dogs and Frisbees, a guy on a Harley, lots of ball games, and junk food, smores, hot dogs and the people next to us had a massive jug of what looked like Cheetos. It was full on Friday and two thirds empty this morning. That's a lot of Cheetos. We took our walk this morning, packed up and hit the road to Wichita. It is only about 200 miles so we were here and set up by 3:00. Between here and there we encountered wind. John loves wind. Not.

Mary was buffeted from pillar to post, zig zagging down the highway. It took our stellar mileage of seven to eight miles per gallon, down to five and a half miles per gallon. Thankfully diesel is cheap this year. Being as we didn't have that far to go and we have a huge fuel tank we didn't have to get out of the coach until we got here. I made the reservation here when I thought we were going to be here on Sunday. The pickins were kinda slim. We followed the GPS right off of the Interstate and made two quick turns in an industrial district. John said tonight that it must be a law of the universe that they build these RV parks between an Interstate and a railroad track. It's not fancy but it works.

Our guide in a cloud of dust

So we made the turn into the park and all I could see was a massive cloud of white dust blowing past Mary. It obliterated the view into the park and when John stepped out of the coach he stepped into 98 degree heat. The wind howled and Mary rocked. Finally he came back and the guy with the golf cart pulled in front of us to guide us into the park. We nearly lost him in the dust.

I decided to take the dogs for a walk while John set up the coach. I put the leashes on them and we stepped out into the blast furnace. It's amazing what a difference 200 miles can make! We were out for ten minutes or so and by the time we got back to the coach I felt like a piece jerky.

We settled in and John put in his order for a light dinner. He requested some soup, a salad, and what he calls one of my "famous" sandwiches. In our quest to find decent food to eat we found Arnold's light bread. They are little thin rounds of whole grain bread that make great sandwiches, without so many calories. The famous sandwich has meat and cheese and lettuce, onion, red wine vinegar, mustard ... it's pretty good. So I got our dinner put together and put it on the table.

I had been working on my book blog on my MacBook Pro all day. I splurged and got the Mac in January, and I have been in love with it since the first time I turned it on. It is the Mercedes of laptops, simple, great quality and the best screen resolution there is. So instead of moving it off of the table where I usually work, I turned it and pushed it over on the window side of the table and put the place mats and silverware down next to it. I put a bottle of Newman's Own, Oil and Vinegar salad dressing on the table and we sat down to eat. John got up to get his vitamins so I grabbed the bottle of salad dressing and put some on my salad. I put the top on, gave it a few twists and when he sat down, I got up to get my vitamins.

The next thing I heard was "Oh shit!". I was tapping capsules out of a bottle and I stopped and closed my eyes. I sensed that something happened that I might not want to see. He said, "The cap wasn't on!". I turned around to find him sitting with the salad dressing bottle in his hand, and salad dressing was EVERYWHERE. It was all over his new blue shirt (ruined), it was in his hair, on his hands, face and arms, all over the table, on the floor, on the leather seats, on the dogs, on our sandwiches, in his soup, all over the place mats ... just plain everywhere. I looked at my laptop from across the room and my eyes bugged. I walked up to the table, afraid to look, but unable not to. I looked closely at the laptop. There wasn't one drop of oil on the thing. Not the tiniest little bit. It was everywhere else in the area but not on the computer. I know I have a Mac Angel.

Apparently when I put the top on and twisted it the little paper ring on the top was what twisted and not the top. When he picked it up he gave it a couple of good shakes and the top flew off. The rest is history. I spent an hour this evening cleaning up oil and doing the laundry. The shirt is history but the rest survived.

Tomorrow we head off to Clayton, New Mexico. I believe it is about 350 miles from Wichita and in the middle of nowhere. The next stop is Santa Fe for a few days of fun. We are looking forward to that. I'll take lots of pictures and be back in a few days with the continuing adventures of The Joneses. There are some photo albums on my Facebook page of Longview Park.

Have a great week!