Yesterday we set up about noon at the hotel. The hamfest was to be open from 4 to 8pm to the public. Business was fairly slow as there was not very many people there, probably due to the heat as it was over 100 degrees outside but nice and cool inside.

This morning the public was in at 8am and business was better but not what we were used to at a gathering of this type. We were busy at times but not really rushed as usual.

We did pretty good for not being real busy, made expenses and enough to buy gas to the next show in Taos, NM.

Somewhere in the last day or two I lost the stinger on the screwdriver antenna on the back of the motor home. I can see it whipping around in the wind turbulence, in the backup camera, that occurs at the back of the coach. Evelyn noticed it gone when she hooked up the van on Thursday morning. I really doubt it was stolen as they would take more than just the stinger.

So today I purchased another and installed it this evening after the sun went down and it cooled a bit, about 90 degrees or so.

Tomorrow it is off across I40, if it is a good road, if not we will find one of those red roads that go cross country on our way toward Taos, NM.

The photos are of US65 north of Branson, MO showing the general terrain of the area. It is 75 mph down the hill and 35 mph on the other side. Not really good for fuel mileage, but you take what you get and do the best you can. Great scenery but not good fuel mileage.

This is our last day on lake Oogolah. It has been a nice few days even if it was hot. We will leave in the morning for Oklahoma City for a show this week end.

We will go to the campground and then on Friday we can set up at noon and then the show will be open 4-8pm and then again on Saturday from 8-2.

We will then have a week to work our way to Taos, MN for another show. This is an amateur radio comvention and will run for 3 days.

Hopefully it will be cooler in Taos, at least we will be high in elevation so that should at least make it cooler. Then we will have some time to enjoy the mountains and go north into Colorado and then east into Kansas.

The photos are of the large Post Office that serves the small community of Oogolah. There is another large Post Office in Claremore that serves that area. No wonder the Postal Service is wanting to close facilities.

The second photo is a model replica of the Will Rogers home place. A very nice copy of the original.

Today we toured the town of Oogolah, the birthplace of Will Rogers. There is really not much to the town, a few blocks along the highway. The main street is very clean and the sculpture of Will Rogers and his horse is at the center of town in the center of a round a bout.

We then went to Clearmore to visit the J.M Davis Arms Museum. This is a fascinating place with all types of guns from all over the world. There is also many other artifacts from the area around Clearmore. One is a stage backdrop depicting all of the sponsors of the facility. Most only had the name of the business while others had a phone number like 46 or maybe 134.

The gun cases were difficult to photograph due to the reflections from other displays. They have thousands of guns from large cannons to the smallest hand guns only a few inches long. There are many guns made in Germany as well as a lot of copies made in Italy.

The guns were separated by style, pistols, shot guns, rifles and a nice selection of swords and other weapons. Then they were separated by manufacturer such as Colt, Winchester, Browning, Stevens, etc. They even have a nice display of Daisy BB guns from over the years.


There are many other displays, one being the actual surrey with a fringe on top from the movie Oklahoma based on a book by Lynn Riggs "Green grow the Lilacs"

This is a museum you could spend hours just reading about the different pieces as well as the general information about the different manufacturers and their involvement in many of the conflicts over the years.

We concluded the day with a treat at Billy Sims BBQ for some delicious BBQ and all the trimmings.

This is our home on Lake Oolagah near Claremore, OK. We would have liked to have been closer to the water but the spaces are outlined with rail road ties and many are flat enough but I can not get the lift down to ground level, only to the top of the ties or about 8 inches off of the ground and that will just not work.

We have shade most of the time but there is always some sunshine on us. The air conditioner keeps the coach fairly cool but it gets up in the mid to upper 80's when it is 105 or
so outside. It does keep the humidity down in the 20's percent.

The campground is not crowded as you might expect as it is just too hot. There are boats out on the water early in the morning and late in the afternoon and evening.

There are several units here but not more than 25 or 30% full.

We do not go out any more than necessary due to the heat. They do not expect any change next week.

Today we took a short trip to visit the birthplace of Will Rogers near Oologah, OK. It was originally on a 60,000 acre ranch but most of it is under water, a part of Lake Oologah.
The house was moved and reassembled on the top of a hill overlooking the lake.

The house is basically a log house as you can see in the attached photos. The large yard is surrounded with a white picket fence complete with a well in the yard and an outhouse behind the house. there are several Bantam chickens in the yard as well as some goats and a couple of Burros in the outside yard.
There are several RV sites along the fence with electricity that are available for $15.00 per night. Across the fence is a large field that is in hay and it is a landing strip that is used for training by a local school.

The house is beautiful inside as you can see in the photos. The furnishings are either original to the house or similar to the period.

The upstairs of the house is not available to the public due to weakness of the floors due to age but I am sure it is beautiful as is the downstairs.

You can click on the photos to enlarge them for more detail.

We got on the road about 9:30 after getting the LP tank filled and headed south toward Joplin, MO. As we got closer to town there was a flashing sign that stated that Tornado volunteers should use a certain exit into town. We only saw some trees that were damaged by the storm from the highway.

We took highway 166 west from I44 and west across the southern part of Kansas to the town of Coffeyville. It is in Kansas but South Coffeyville is in Oklahoma. There was a relatively new Wal-mart at the intersection of 166 and 169 which went south from Coffeyville. We needed some groceries so we did some shopping, ate some lunch and of course a little nap and hit the road.

Shortly after we left South Coffeyville we were detoured to the west on sr10 apparently due to a bad accident just ahead that had the road closed. Most of the traffic was taking a gravel road south to get around the wreck. We saw some 18 wheelers coming down the gravel road in a cloud of dust and we did not want to go that way. The semi ahead of us stopped to talk to one of the safety men and he went on west on sr10, so we followed him and the semi behind us did as well. As we passed the gravel road it only looked about one and a half lanes wide and it would have been difficult to pass anything as well as contend with all of the dust and dirt.

We continued west to US75 and then south to US60 and then back east to 169, a detour of maybe 40 miles, but better than all of that dust and dirt.

We continued south on 169 until we got to sr88 and then east a couple of miles to the Hawthorn Bluff campground on Oologah Lake. This is quite a large lake with lots of camping spots with water and electricity as well as lots of shade trees, What a welcome site to see lots of shade to help with this sweltering heat. We will be here for a week or so before we move to Oklahoma City for our next show on the 29th and 30th of the month.

Hopefully we can keep fairly cool here in the woods.

The photograph is of the swimming pool at Lake Paradise. They say it is the largest pool in the state. It sure looked inviting on a hot summers day.

Another really hot day in Missouri. Still near 100 degrees with no relief in sight.

Tomorrow we will be off to a COE campground on lake Oologah north of Tulsa. Surely we can find some shade and we can stay up to 14 days at $10.00 per night with electricity.
We will stay off of I44 as it is a toll road and generally they are rougher and more heavily traveled than the US highways that you can take. We will go cross country, actually the southern part of Kansas and then south into Oklahoma and the park.

From there we can visit Norma, a sister in law, that lives just south of the lake as well as the Will Rogers museum at Claremore, MO.

Our photos are of the Big Red Barn campground where we have been the past couple of days. One of our neighbors is a gal in the little Teardrop trailer. It looks like it would be hot at night, but there she is all by herself. She was gone most of the day doing something, but I hope she was keeping cool.

We left the Lake Paradise campground about 10am this morning. We intended to go west on US50 to sr7 and then south to the town of Harrisonville. However, we missed our turn due to road construction so we went on west to sr291 and took it south.

I had checked on Gasbuddy and found some really cheap gas in Harrisonville but sr7 took us into the middle of town and therefore we would miss about half of the stations with good prices.

Just as we got into town on 291 I saw a Wal-mart with fuel at a cost of $3.42/gallon. If you buy with a Wal-mart card you get another $0.10 per gallon for a cost of $3.32. We filled up with 50.1 gallons for a savings of $5.00, enough to buy a Subway for lunch.

We then drove south to Lamar, MO where we stopped for lunch and a short nap. After which, we proceeded south on US71 to the town of Carthage and the Big Red Barn campground where we will be for a couple of days before we head west toward the Will Rogers Memorial and on toward Tulsa.

The photos are of the back waters of the Missouri River. When we crossed the Mississippi it was in its banks while the Missouri was muddy and spread out over hundreds of acres of bottom lands from the rains up in the Dakotas. It will take some time for the Missouri to get back to its normal pool level.

Well, it is still very hot here in Missouri. We do not know which direction we will be going from here but it looks like it will be warm where ever we go.

I hope to hear something tomorrow so we can make some decisions which way to go. I would like to find a cool spot or just maybe a spot with some shade to help the air conditioning unit a bit. It is really not doing a great job but better than nothing.

The thermometer says 115 outside and 89 inside, so I guess it is not doing too bad. They say a 20 degree difference is about all you can expect of an air conditioning unit. The 115 degrees is under the awning so it may be more out in the sun.

The photos are out our dining room window overlooking Lake Paradise. We have been watching this bird for some time now and he is looking for something to eat. The photo of the bird was taken at 40X zoom with our Canon SX120is camera. Not too bad for a small camera, however I did have it on a tripod as at 40X it is hard to hold still enough to get a focus on the subject.

So, it is off to an unknown destination tomorrow. I guess we will know when we get there.

Friday we drove to the Johnson County Fairgrounds in Missouri, the location of our hamfest. It was quite hot all day, in the upper 90's but we stayed cool enough with just the engine air on in the motor home. But, as soon as you stopped the heat really took over. We ran the generator and both ac's after we got parked. We were able to set up later in the afternoon and got permission to hook up to a 30A outlet but the voltage was not very high but it ran the one ac but that was all. We stayed comfortable all night. We had to unhook this morning as the Red Cross van had to use the outlet to run their unit.

We had a good day at the hamfest and got packed up and ready to go by early afternoon. with the generator and both ac's running we finally got it cooled down and took a nap and headed out for the Lake Paradise Campground near Lone Jack, MO, really out in the boonies. We will be here for a couple of days while we decide if we are going to Leavenworth, KS for an amateur radio gathering or kill another week and go on to Oklahoma City the following Saturday. I need to talk with the people in Leavenworth to see if we can get in.

The temperatures are supposed to be near 100 the next week, so we may just find a shady spot and take it easy.

The photos are of the I70 bridge over the Missouri river and the large casino on the other side. The Mississippi river was about normal, but the Missouri was full and running over. The low lands were flooded and the water was very muddy. They told us that if the water came up 3 more inches in Leavenworth that they would have to move that show to another facility, however the Corps of Engineers said they had it under control and they did not expect it to rise any further. Time will tell about that.

We left our summer campground on the White River in Strawtown, IN, this morning. We had to make a stop at the tire store to have them work on the right front tire that had a slow leak. Slow, to the tune of losing about 1 lb per day. We had them look at it a few days ago and they said it had a bad valve stem, so they replaced it, but it was still leaking. Today, they changed the valve stem and sealed around the tire so it would seal to the rim. That is supposed to take care of the problem. We will see now that we are over 300 miles away.

We are currently in Wentzville, MO at camp Walmart. Again, fuel in MO is more expensive than IL or IN at $3.68/gal. But that is the way it goes.

This is our first trip after having a Banks Power Pack installed. It is a free flowing intake and exhaust headers and muffler system. It is supposed to increase power as well as get better fuel mileage.
Our first tank of fuel resulted in 8.4 mpg, much better than our prior 7.0mpg, however we had a tail wind, which is most unusual, so that has to be taken into consideration as well. We will know better when we get back from this trip out west and can average things out.

Our photos are of our neighbors at the Whiteriver Camp Ground. They have a beautiful Prevost coach and pull an enclosed trailer with their beautiful Goldwing motorcycle that the use to tour the area while they are in camp.

Looks like a really rough way to live, however I did notice that no shoes were allowed inside but sat close to the steps.

It is off to our next hamfest tomorrow to set up for the show on Saturday.