On the Road During the worst spring weather season ever?!?

Our car road trip came to an end as we made the four-hour drive back to Oklahoma City, where our motor home has been parked at Denisa's sister and brother-in-law's house for the last couple weeks. We sure appreciate the help from our relatives that make this wandering lifestyle easier! We've held our breath a couple times, worrying that our motor home would be hailed on or blown away by a tornado. The severe weather kept us in the Oklahoma City area an extra day as we heard the storm sirens go off close to us once again. We took pictures of another impressive wall cloud across their front yard as a tornado was reported on the ground just a few miles north of us. Is this the worst spring weather season ever!?!

Our stop in that area allowed for getting together again with both of Denisa's sisters, and some of our nieces and nephews. This is our last time in Oklahoma for a while, so we savored our time with family. That also included a morning with our youngest son and his wife. We have gotten to see their golden retriever grow from a puppy into an adolescent. Even though he tries to sit on their laps, he is already too big to be a lap-dog.

We also went with them to the Paseo Art Festival. We can't buy any of the beautiful pieces of art, but Denisa was content with her purchases--a frozen chocolate covered banana, some kettle corn, and tacos. That's delicious art!

So we headed north in the motor home a day later than planned to avoid the bad weather. This is the official beginning of our trip towards Canada for the summer. We had to take a picture as we drove the motor home across another state line into Kansas.

We took a picture of the next sign on the interstate too. Kansas only gives travelers four miles of free driving before they start charging a toll. Normally we would take the smaller free roads on our way across a state. But this time we drove right past that "last free exit" sign and headed north on the toll road.

That's because, just like Oklahoma, Kansas has been enduring the spring floods. We had planned to stop at Elk Lake State Park, but it is closed due to flooding and all their camp sites are under water. This picture was taken beside the Kansas turnpike. This isn't a lake, this is a flooded field that won't be harvested this summer.

A week ago, even this section of the turnpike was under water and traffic had to be diverted. So we decided to pay the tolls, as we feared that many of the smaller roads would still be impassible. Finding ourselves in the middle of a flooded detour is not on our bucket list of activities we want to do in our motor home.

This is a costly decision, as we picked up our turnpike ticket as we entered the southern border of Kansas and headed to the northern edge. We have four axles because we are towing our car, so our trip across Kansas to our next camp site was $26.00.

We had made reservations at Hillsdale State Park, the closest camping to our older son's home in Lenexa, Kansas. But we happened to check the state park web site to find that they were also closed due to flooding. Now we were struggling to find a place for our one-week stay. We were glad to find that Clinton Lake State Park was high and dry and had first-come-first-served camp sites. All that moisture means the bright green fields within the park are lovely.

Normally, we would take a picture of the lake in a place like Clinton LAKE state park. But with all the boat ramps flooded and the beaches and the marina closed, we can't get to a view of the water within the park. This is the best view we have seen as the lake is creeping into the naturally wooded edges that surround the water.

Our decision to stay an extra day in Oklahoma proved to be a good one. A mile-wide EF-4 tornado was on the ground for almost 32 miles in this area the night before we arrived. Mark found this summary of the tornado, as the red line indicates its hour-long path that it was on the ground. The western edge is just south of Clinton Lake where we are camped now.

Later, they determined from the debris field that a second tornado also started on the north side of the lake very close to our campground. We saw evidence of the fierce wind that shredded trees here. The camp host at the state park told us they lost 20 trees in our campground. We were glad to miss that spectacle! Again we ask, "Is this the worst spring weather season ever!?!"

The next morning we went in search of a view of Clinton Lake. We took this picture from the Overlook Park near the Corp of Engineers information center a few miles down the road.

Because everything is so muddy here, we were glad to also find a concrete walking trail to get some exercise.

But our walk wasn't long, since the flooded lake is over the trail. This fisherman was enjoying having a concrete surface to stand on to do some fishing since all the ramps and docks are flooded.

But all this water has also made for an extended spring wildflower season that we are enjoying at the lake.

These butterflies and enjoying the garden flowers at the lookout point, and Denisa was enjoying the butterflies.

We made the long drive around this big lake to take a look at the campground on the south side. We are staying at a state park on the north side, and this was the view from the Corp of Engineer campground on the south side. Roads are closed, all the boat ramps are under water, the docks are covered, and the lake is now right up to the parking lot that is normally high and dry.

Clinton Lake is a relatively young lake, formed in 1975 when the dam was built. This interesting piece of artwork at the Corp of Engineers park is a symbol of the underground railroad towns in this valley used by slaves escaping the south. The gold rings represent the little towns that were on the map before the lake was.

With all the flooding, we probably won't be doing any of the usual lake activities while we are camping here at Clinton Lake. But we are enjoying the beautiful blue skies on this day as we are hoping that the worst spring weather season is finally over.

Hanging out with the young and old - welcome to our 40th class reunion!

After the girl and guy trips, we spent a few more days near Kansas City with our son and his family (That is a cue to post a couple more pictures we took of our granddaughter, Carter.)

We're teaching her things like clapping to the song, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands."

And she's refreshing our crawling skills while we're trying to keep up with her.

She has a house-full of toys that play music and blink lights, but we are amazed that she still enjoys the simple things. She found this fascinating toy that kept her attention for a whole hour!

No flashing lights here--that's a double pack of dental floss that was so interesting!

We also went on a safari while we were visiting. That yellow piece of wood is actually a lion puzzle piece. So it looks like Carter is on safari--shooting a lion in the picture below.

After another dose of Carter-time, we continued our car road trip as we made the six-hour trip back to Beaver, Oklahoma. Now we have changed from hanging out with the very youngest to be reuniting with some old folks. Welcome to our 40th class reunion!

It's hard to believe that we were all in high school forty years ago! Mark and Denisa graduated the same year from the same high school, so we both enjoy going to the same class reunion. Now we are immortalized on the hallowed walls of good old Beaver High School. Our pictures are close together on the left hand side because we were both class officers. What we didn't understand forty years ago, is that for some reason senior class officers are forever responsible for class reunions. That gets complicated when you travel full-time, so we were glad that other classmates stepped up to plan everything this time.

We had a total of 14 show up for the various events of the weekend. That's way down from reunions of the past. But that's because some people are waiting for a promised class reunion in the Oklahoma City area later this year. It will be easier for people to fly in and there are far more options for hotels in the metro area. So hopefully we'll be seeing more classmates if that reunion will coincide with our travel plans.

One of those local planners did a great job of decorating our table for the high school banquet. She used one of the band uniforms she bought at a recent school auction. That uniform was brand new 40 years ago, and we were pretty stylish with those tall shaker hats.

We are proud to say that we were a sweepstakes band two of our high school years. That means we made a top rating in marching, sight reading, and concert band at state. Band was a big thing at our little high school. One year we marched 100 students, so almost everyone was in band. A highlight of the class reunion was watching some marching videos. We were pretty sure that we were awesome, but seeing that old film was proof!

Besides the band memories, Mark's highlight was getting to visit with some of the people that he went to school with for all twelve years. The memories and stories were getting pretty deep by the end of the weekend.

Since we started with the very young, it seems fitting to end this blog with the very old.  Denisa went to grade school at a little country school where both her parents were teachers. So her 89-year-old Mother came to see some of the students she taught 45 years ago.


Our time in Beaver wasn't without some bad weather that we have come to expect this year. We spent some time in the cellar one afternoon when tornadoes were sighted in the panhandle. When those giant wall clouds start rotating into funnels that start lowering to the ground, it's time to get underground.

Hail covered the ground when we came out of the cellar. We are glad that our motor home is sitting in Oklahoma City instead of here in the panhandle right now.

This was Memorial Day weekend, so we spent some time taking our Mothers to four different cemeteries to decorate graves.

Then we spent several more days with both of our Mothers, as this will be the last time we're in this part of the country for a while. Denisa has to include a few more turkey pictures. These are fun creatures to watch in this rural setting.

These toms were all puffed up, trying to impress the hens that seemed to be totally ignoring them.

This unsuccessful courting process made for some great pictures sitting on the front porch of Mark's Mother's house.

So we finished our road trip at our Mothers' houses. We enjoyed being able to hang out with both the young (our granddaughter) and the old (our Mothers) and all those old youngsters we call "classmates" from 40 years ago. Our old stomping grounds in the panhandle of Oklahoma has some of the prettiest sunsets we see anywhere, so it seems fitting to end this road trip with a picture of the skies over the pastures there.

Mark's First Ever Blog--the Guy's Trip

Mark here... Denisa is making encouraging me to write my first blog.  I have always appreciated how well Denisa writes and how much work she puts into documenting our travels in this blog.  But since I took a rare trip without Denisa, I will blurt out a few lines and plop in a few pictures to record this fun trip.

Months ago our sons came up with the idea of the first ever father/son/son trip. Our family has always enjoyed the mountains, so it was decided that the Sangre de Cristo mountains would be our destination for this inaugural trip.                                                               

Luke researched and booked a very nice cabin using "Vrbo" in the foothills of the mountains 20 miles north of Westcliffe, Colorado, on Copper Gulch road.  If you are ever looking for a place to stay in this area, we can highly recommend "Pastor John's" 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath, extra clean cabin.

The cabin is in a beautiful mountain setting with great views from the front porch and some local wildlife (if you call hand-fed deer and turkeys wildlife).

The cabin is fairly remote with a 40-minute drive to Canon City to the north, or Westcliffe to the south. So it was decided that we would buy groceries at a Canon City grocery store and cook all of our meals at the cabin.  With this being a "guy trip," I was concerned that I might lose weight on this vacation. But I am pleased to report that my sons are great cooks and we ate well every day, including a nice hearty breakfast each morning.

We only had a short long-weekend for this trip, so we planned one day travel to the cabin, two days of hiking, and one day to return home.  For our first day of hiking we started right from our cabin and went up into the rocks, trees, and mountains. The 27 acres that Pastor John owns around the cabin backs up to the Sangre de Cristo wilderness area, and made a great area to scramble and roam without any formal trails.  

The beautiful snow-covered peaks that we saw in the distance on this hike, will be the destination for tomorrow's hike.

We were thankful to have our phone GPS to guide us back to the cabin.  With no trail, steep rocky scrambling, thick forest, and bush-whacking, it sure seemed like we went further than 3 1/2 miles today.

I can tell that I am missing my regular hiking partner (Denisa) because I stopped and took a picture that is normally her forte.  This nice little barrel cactus almost looks like a bird's nest at first glance.

For hiking day number two, we headed to the Sangre de Cristo mountains for some "real" hiking.  There has been a lot of snow late in the season this year, so we know that we will not be able to summit any of the tall snow-covered peaks.  We decide to start at the Gibson trail head and venture up the Lake of the Clouds trail to see how far we can go before the snow drifts stop us.

It doesn't take long until we find the well-marked mountain trail disappearing into an sparsely traveled snow trail.

Since this is a "guy trip" we weren't about to let a little ice cold mountain stream stop our progress up the mountain.  (In all honesty, Denisa would have probably been leading the way across the log if she had been on the trip.)

The snow was deep and lightly packed, so we found ourselves "post holing"  for much of our hike.  If you haven't heard the term "post holing" lately, it simply means that your foot breaks through the snow and makes a deep hole that you must pull yourself out of to continue up the trail.

This hike is getting very tiring with the thick snow and the thin air.  We continue up the trail where the only other footsteps in the snow besides ours, are ones left by a bobcat or small mountain lion. When we come to a large canyon with a rushing stream and steep cliffs, we decide it is time to turn around and head back down the trail.  What a beautiful day and a great hike! We are definitely wandering His wonders today.

Even though we were tired when we returned to the cabin, what would a guy trip be without a little brotherly wrestling?

The moon was still shining brightly over the mountains as we left early the next morning for the long drive home.

We had a great trip! Thanks to Luke and Blake for all the memories and fun.

Finally... the end of my first and last blog.