Yesterday morning we left our spot at Lakeside Family Resort just south of Salina, KS. It is actually about 15 miles south near the town of Assaria, KS. It is a really nice park with a swimming lake and nice sand beach as well as several large grassy areas and a nice campground.

However, if appears to be suffering from the economy as we were there over the week end and we only saw a few people using the swiming area.

The hamfest was a small one and it only ran from 8am to the main prize drawing at 1pm. Most of the people were gone by that time and some of the vendors were beginning to pack up in preparation to going home. I was one of the lucky ones and won a $25.00 gift certificate from the ARRL, so I will probably buy a new Repeater Directory as I have not had a new one for several years.

After spending Sunday night at the park we headed down I135 and then east over to US54 and are currently in the town of Iola, KS. We will be here until Thursday morning and then it is off to the hamfest in Joplin, MO on Saturday. That will give us time to take a tour of the damaged area of town and see how they are coming with the cleanup and reconstruction process.

While we were out yesterday we toured the town of Larned, KS. As usual they had a beautiful court house that was well manicured. The town was as nice and clean as the courthouse square.

We stopped at the local Subway for lunch but they did not have pizza so we settled for a foot long.

It was hot again today, near 110 degrees and they had the power off for a while as they changed some wiring for a new circuit. We started the generator and stayed fairly comfortable until they got the power back on.

Tomorrow we are off to get ready for the hamfest in Sedalia, KS, so it will be up early Sunday morning so we can get to the facility and set up and ready to work by 8am. we will be staying about 20 miles out of town so it will take a while to get there.

Then it is off toward Joplin, MO for the next weekend.

A trip to the nearby Fort Larned National Historic Site was an interesting outing.

The fort was built in 1859 and stood for 19 years. It and several other forts were built to protect those that traveled the Santa Fe Trail.

An African-American regiment, nicknamed buffalo soldiers" by the Native Americans served here. So named because their hair was similar to that of buffalo hair.

In 1883 Fort Larned military reservation was transferred from the war Department to the General Land Office, U.S. Department of the Interior.

In 1884 the buildings and land were sold at public auction. For the next 80 years the property remained privately owned. The buildings
were not destroyed however some were converted to house animals as well as store hay.

In 1964 Fort Larned became a national historic site and part of the National Park System. It has been restored to its prior condition and the Barracks have been converted to the Visitors Center and museum with a short film on the facility.

The grounds are in very nice condition and well groomed. I am sure that those many soldiers that served here would be proud to know it has been preserved in such a fine way.

You can tour all of the buildings but it was too hot for us to do that, however we did spend a lot of time in the museum and watched the film. the Visitors Center is
air conditioned and was quite comfortable.

The photos are of some of the buildings that are built in a square around the parade grounds with the flat in the center.

Today we toured the town of Kinsley, which really did not take long. It is only a few blocks in either direction but a very neat and clean little town.

Small towns have to put their best foot forward to make an impression on tourists as they drive through. Here they have a nice park with several farm implements from the past. A steam engine from the AT&Santa Fe. A very nicely styled park. Beside the steam engine is a Case thrashing machine probably from the early days of mechanized farming.

Many of the buildings are built out of local sandstone and have been standing for many years. Some have been restored but many appear to be original and still in good condition.

Most small towns grow around a railroad siding and a large grain storage facility. It seems every town is on a railroad with a large grain elevator.

The main crops appear to be hay, silage and some Milo. Feed lots are plentiful and it appears the agriculture is geared toward the feed lot operations.


We are at the Four Aces RV Park. A nice park with level concrete pads with full hookups for $15.00 per night. A good price for a nice place to spend a few days. We are only a block of two from the main street and highway US50 and US56 goes north east from here toward McPherson, KS.

We will tour the Fort Larned National Historic Site and report on that tomorrow.

We left our nice RV park in Lamar, CO this morning and stopped at Love's to get fuel. The cost is still down, at least compared to some places, only $3.49.

We traveled east on US50 and are currently in the town of Kinsley, KS. Not really a lot of difference between southeastern Colorado and western Kansas. Pretty much flat to rolling terrain with lots of hay and some corn, but the corn is short and does not look like it will mature into much. There are a lot of feed lots with thousands of head of cows, so maybe they cut it green and feed it to the cows to fatten them up for market.

When we came through Dodge City, we found lots of feed lots and again, hundreds of head of cows being fed up for market.

US50 is a pretty good road with some areas 4 lane divided and others a wide blacktop. We did find some construction today and a stretch of one lane road but it will be nice when they get done with it. Not a lot of traffic and not too many trucks, mostly hauling grain.

US50 follows along the Santa Fe Trail and joins up with the Cimmeron Trail at Dodge City. There are viewing areas where you can still see the ruts of the trails of years ago. This was really a part of the wild west at one time.


We are currently at the 4 Acres RV Park and will be here until Friday morning when we will head toward Salina and the next hamfest on Sunday.

The photos are of the RV park in Lamar, CO. It appears relatively new, only a few years old and it has a lot of nice things, a small putting green, a stage where they have held several weddings, a covered area where they can have group gatherings and BBQs as well as fund raisers. He has 8 motel rooms and probably 25 RV spaces. A really nice facility all things considered.

We have been out of touch for several days in Blanca, CO. We did have phone service but very poor air card service. I could get my e-mails but not send anything of size and no photos.

We are now in Lamar, CO with good phone and air card service. We are in a nice RV/Motel complex that is relatively new. When we came in and Evelyn went in to register the owner asked what kind of engraving we did. As a result I worked most of yesterday making key tags and signage for the motel rooms, etc. Needless to say it was a money making stay for a change.


Tomorrow it is off east on US50 to the town of of Kinsley, KS. We will be there a day or two making plans to attend the hamfest in Selina, KS. We had a nice time there last year and I hope we do as much business.

The photos are of some homes/ranches in the Colorado countryside. This is really a pretty part of the country.

We did visit the Cumbres & Toltec RR station in Antonito, CO. This is a narrow gage rail road that still takes trips to and from Cumbres, NM. It crosses the state line 11 times on its way. You can take a ride from one end to the other and then you take a bus back to your starting point.

You have to make a two day advance notice for a wheelchair ride on the train and the bus. They do have handicapped facilities but on a limited basis.

We watched the workers work on the train cars and learned how they turn the train around for the trip back. Some railroads use a wye but the Cumbres & Toltec RR used a loop around a large area to turn their trains around.

While we were there we bought a couple of DVD,s, one on the Cumbres & Toltec RR and the other on the Durango to Silverton, CO. Both are quite interesting and it looks like a great trip on either narrow gage railroad. The scenery is beautiful.

Enchanted Circle tour

Today we took the Enchanted Circle tour that goes from Taos to Questa, Red River Ski area, Enchanted Forrest Ski area, over Bob Cat pass and on to Eagles Nest and Angel Fire.


It was a really beautiful trip over some pretty good roads with the usual construction areas, but all in all pretty good roads for mountain roads.

The town of Taos is really an interesting area. What might be considered as a tourist trap with all kinds of shops and places to eat as well as hotels, motels and B&B's. Many little trinket shops that have most anything you can imagine. Some are locally made and others are from China I am sure.


Taos is near the 7000ft level and the ski areas and the Bob Cat Pass is at almost 9300ft. The towns of Red River and the Enchanted Forrest ski area are near the 8500 to 9000ft altitude.

The trees are beautiful and vary in size depending on the elevation. There are some mountains that do not have any trees on the top. One is called Old Baldy and there does not appear to be much there, maybe some vegetation but not of any size.

We considered coming thru Eagles Nest on our way to Taos as it would save a lot of miles over I40 and coming up from Santa Fe. The narrow and windy mountain roads thru the area of Eagles Nest was relatively hard and slow driving in the van and I would not want to do it in the motor home.

Tomorrow we will be leaving Taos and heading north into Colorado but I do not think we will have too many mountains to contend with, we will just wait and see.

Hard Weekend

It is late on Sunday evening after a hard weekend at work.

We are in Taos, NM for an amateur radio convention for the 4 state area. There were hams from all over. One guy was from Wyoming and he said it was a nice drive, only 300 miles across Colorado and he did not live too far from the state line. People do not talk in miles, they talk in hours, something is only 3 or 4 hours away. It is hard to realize that 100 miles does not get you very far in this wide open country with deserts and mountains. Of course they are talking about driving at least the speed limit which is 75mph on most major roads. On 2 lane roads they cut you back to 65 or if in the mountains 55 with 25 or 30 mph curves. But that is not for us in a motor home towing a full sized van.

This is a beautiful area which has been inhabited continuously for over 1000 years. There is a lot of history here, even a Civil War battle fought locally. I did not realize the Civil War got into this area.

The old part of town is not very big. The streets are narrow and all of the buildings are stucco, as is most of the buildings in the area. There are lots of murals depicting some beautiful scenes of the area.

The photos are of the Convention Center as well as a mural from downtown and an old Australian military vehicle that has been converted into a portable radio station for emergency use by the local amateur radio club.

Our week end was very successful but tiring as we worked a lot of hours, 10:30 to 6 on Friday, 8 to 6 on Saturday and 8 til noon on Sunday.

All in all, we had a good time, met a lot of very nice people from all over the area.

It is off on a day trip tomorrow to see the sights in the surrounding area.

We spent last night in Espanola, NM. We were only about 45 miles from Taos but I had already driven a little over 200 miles and I did not want to take on a 2 lane mountain road for the rest of the trip.

We stopped at Walmart, just a few blocks from our campground, and went shopping. We were low on groceries and wanted to fill the refrigerator before we got to Taos and settled in at the campground for the rest of the week.

We arrived at the Taos Valley RV Park a little after 1pm. Got settled in and I had accumulated a few engraving jobs yesterday and this morning, so I got busy and started to work on them while Evelyn went to the laundry to wash clothes that had accumulated for over a week. By the time she got back I had finished the jobs and had billed them out, so we got them ready for the mail and headed to town to the post office.

The trip from Espanola on sr68 is a nice drive. The road is a little rough but not too bad. It follows the Rio Grande River all the way. It is not very big at this point but I am sure it really gets big when it rains. We did hit a little shower as we came into Espanola, just enough to wet the motor home and cause the wet dirt and dust to run down the sides and the back. It really looks bad now, so I guess we will have to have it washed if we do not have any more rain.

There are a lot of outfits that have inflatable rafts that float the river. We saw a lot of them but could not get any good photos of them. It sure looked like fun as the water is rough in some areas.

We saw several vineyards along the river and many wine shops. One would not think of vinyards in a remote dry area as this, but apparently there is enough water to make things grow.

Evelyn met a lady in the laundry that works at the hospital and they live in the park year round in their rv. She said it gets cold here, as much as a -20 degrees in the winter. The elevation is about 7000ft and we are in a valley.

So tomorrow it is off to the hamfest for Friday afternoon, all day Saturday and Sunday morning. Hope all goes good as far as business is concerned.

The photos are of the road and the Rio Grande River between Espanola and Taos, NM.

We spent the last couple of days at a campground at exit 1 on I40 in the town of Texoma, OK. There is really not much to the town as we could find. There was a gas station with a small grocery that sold mostly cold beer and drinks and a restaurant that was only open part time and we did not see much business there at all.

It is still hot, over 100 degrees so we just stayed inside and kept as cool as possible with the one air conditioner. We have two but have to run the generator to use them both at the same time. So, it is either one or the other on 30A electricity.

We gained altitude as we traveled west on I 40. At one time we exceeded 4000ft. But, if really did not seem to help with the heat.

We are currently in Tucumcari, NM at the Catcus RV Park. It is located on US66, which is main street. The motel is pretty much as it was, when it was built in 1939, only deteriorated due to the elements. At one time they put awnings over the windows to keep out the morning sun. There even appear to have been garages for each motel room. Something you do not find today.
There are a lot of businesses that are closed up. Many you see along I40 that front on the frontage road, probably old US66, that are just falling down due to the passing of time. Old filling stations, restaurants, curio shops, etc. All gone and mostly forgotten.

Tomorrow we are off to Espanola, NM for the night and then on to Taos for the weekend.

Hopefully we will find some cooler weather at the higher altitudes. We have seen lots of clouds today as you can see in the photos, but nothing that really looks like rain.