Peculiar, Missouri

We left Wellington, Kansas on Monday and drove to Peculiar, Missouri where we will be for the next two weeks or so.  We have been to this park before as it is near Fran’s sister who lives in Grandview.  We made the trip here as Fran’s sister is graduating with her Bachelor’s degree in Social Work this weekend.  A huge accomplishment as she has been working, raising a family and going to college to better herself and change professions.  We could not miss it!

It worked out that we were able to meet up with my former boss when I was employed with the government in the Chicago area.  My boss retired back in 1999 to northern Wisconsin but since that time he and his wife have become snowbirds and spend their winters in Brownsville, Texas.  Via Facebook we kept in touch and the timing worked out as they were on their way back to Wisconsin and were coming through the Kansas City area.  We had a great visit on Monday evening and Tuesday morning and made plans to meet up at a later date for an extended RV trip.

I have been providing monthly updates since we made it to our one year anniversary.  I thought I would do quarterly map updates during the second year so you could see our progress.  Here is the updated map to reflect 15 months of life on the road.

Meet My Son-in-Law

This is not a post about Life on the Road but rather an introduction to the newest member of our family, Tyler Hurst.  As mentioned in a previous post our oldest daughter Katie was married on March 24th to Tyler. 

Tyler is a big baseball fan and likes to go to spring training games as they live in the Phoenix area.  He recently went to a game and had an interesting story to tell that I wanted to share with all of you.  It demonstrates what a good guy he is and how it was rewarded.

You can read the story here http://tdhurst.com/az-diamondbacks-reward.

Good job Tyler!

Wichita

Before I tell you about our day trip to Wichita let me start off by saying we are moth free!  We had a lone straggler on Friday night and none on Saturday night, so I think the problem has been resolved.

Where we are staying in Wellington, Kansas is about 25 miles south of Wichita.  On Saturday, since it was the only day of our remaining stay that was supposed to nice, we decided to take a drive up to Wichita to see some sites and to stock up our wine cellar.  Kansas has some interesting liquor laws.  Grocery stores are allowed to sell 3.2% alcohol beer and no wine or spirits.  That leaves liquor stores as the ones that sell wine, but the small towns we have been in have slim pickings when it comes to wine and their prices are very high.  Checking online I saw that Wichita had some larger wine shops so we combined a shopping trip with a sightseeing day.

One stop was a drive through the campus of Wichita State University.  Our tour book indicated it had a large display of outdoor sculptures that Fran wanted to see.  What a beautiful campus.  As we drove around the campus we stumbled on an interesting attraction, the original Pizza Hut.  It seems that two Wichita State students started Pizza Hut in Wichita. The original building has been relocated to the campus.  They started with a $600 investment and sold the company to Pepsi in the 70’s for $300 million!

Here is the building

Following our drive around campus we went to the Old Town part of Wichita.  This is a development project started in the 90’s to bring people downtown.  They have restored original buildings in a two block area and put in many restaurants, a few shops, a hotel and a museum.  We went to the Museum of World Treasures, http://www.worldtreasures.org/.  A small museum but very interesting with a variety of exhibits.  A little disappointed as they used some kind of air freshener in the museum that was over powering and gave both of us a headache and made me nauseous.

Following some fresh air outside we had lunch at a restaurant in Old Town and then took a walk around the area.  The Old Town area is a nice place to visit but it was not very busy for a weekend day, so I am wondering if it is a hit with the locals.

As I write this on Sunday morning the rain is falling steady and thunder can be heard.  The forecast is for this type of weather today and Monday and we leave on Tuesday.

Moths–Part 3

I think we got a handle on this issue and may have resolved it.  I wrote last time that I had used a hose with a spray nozzle to spray around the underside of the trailer and this dislodged the moths and revealed their hiding spots.  The problem was it did not kill them and they would return.  I tried using a regular can of bug spray and that seemed to help but I could not reach many parts of the underside with the spray.  While at Wal-Mart, looking at the insecticides I thought maybe the spray that you attach to a hose would be just what I needed.  This would allow me to spray the entire underside of the trailer, and truck.

I used the spray and the moths came flying out and this time they were dropping dead.  That evening we only had a handful of moths enter the trailer and last night we only had two, so things look promising!

We did move from Liberal, Kansas to Wellington, Kansas (just south of Wichita) and will be here for the weekend before we drive into the Kansas City area.  A fun treat when we get to Kansas City is meeting up with my old boss and his wife who are snowbirds.  The spend the winters in South Texas and the summers in Wisconsin.  I emailed them to see what their travel plans were and it worked out they were getting ready to head to Wisconsin and would be coming through Kansas City.  The timing worked out perfectly.

Moths–Part 2

In my last posting I mentioned the issue we were having with moths in our trailer since our stay in Tucumcari.  Yesterday I decided to do more investigating of the the problem as our truck also has them, fortunately not inside the cab.

It all started when I went to the bank in the morning and upon exiting the bank noticed moths swirling around our truck.  We are in Kansas farmland and moths are common to the area but really, in a city parking lot, moths flying around a vehicle.  I opened the hood and a few flew out.  As mentioned, none are inside the cab so it is more of an annoyance than anything.  As the truck needed washing, I decided to go to a spray wash and put the high pressure hose to the frame and engine of the truck and boy did the moths come flying out.  They would fall to the ground and then the birds would swoop in and eat them.  I made many bird friends!

With my experience with the truck I decided to try it on the trailer.  I came back to the rig and took a hose to it, concentrating on the undercarriage.  Again the moths came flying out!.  I crawled underneath and began pushing up on the undercarriage covering and more flew out, so now I could see the places where they had taken up residence. The problem here was that they were not dying and would just fly around the trailer and return to their spots later. 

In the evening the moths began appearing in the trailer, again one or two at a time.  I went outside with some bug spray and sprayed around areas on the trailer undercarriage where I saw them come out and, with the spray, they started coming out.  I did the same to the frame of the truck and they started fleeing.  I am hoping that this spray deters them from coming back to their spots.

I found a trap idea on the internet and tried it inside the trailer and it worked great.  You put a bowl of soapy water very close to a light source and the moths go the light, become disoriented and spiral into the soapy water.  I caught 20 of them overnight.

It is an interesting sight to see them fly them around the trailer and the pickup during the day and evening.  It reminds me of the old Pigpen character from Peanuts that had a cloud of dust following him around.  I am just surprised how these moths can hold on while the truck and trailer are going 60+ miles per hour.

Liberal, Kansas

On Monday we moved from Tucumcari, New Mexico to Liberal, Kansas on our slow journey to the Kansas City area.  Before I tell you about Liberal let me finish up our stay in Tucumcari.

We stayed in Tucumcari for 4 nights.  On our second night as we went to bed we noticed a moth in the trailer.  Ok no problem, I captured and killed it.  Then another, no problem, captured and killed.  We figured they had probably gotten in when opened and closed the trailer door.  On the third night they began showing up in the early evening in the trailer and more frequently.  When it got dark we went to take a drive to see the old motel signs lit up and as we were outside the trailer we saw moths swarming the tree next to our rig.  OK, there is the source, still figuring they must quickly enter the trailer when we open the door.  When we returned to the trailer I must have killed another 20 before we went to bed.  Ok, now this is getting ridiculous.  On our last day I talked to the owner of the park and he said that in spring the moths are a problem for a few weeks then the flies come in.  On our last night the moths just kept coming.  One after the other.  Before we went to bed the number killed was upwards of 40.  There would never be more than a couple in the trailer at any one time, but just as I killed one, another would show up. 

We leave on Monday and figure that should be the end of it as we are not around that tree anymore.  WRONG!  We arrive in Liberal and as dusk approaches they start showing up again.  I go outside the trailer and you can see about a half dozen of them flying around the trailer and going underneath it.  Before we went to bed I killed at least 30 of them.  So, I guess these means we are infested and they have set up home someplace in our rig.  Not sure how to proceed.  Do we wait and let attrition take over by just killing them as they appear or see if there is an insect bomb or something we can place in the trailer?  Interesting development.  We have never had an insect issue (or whatever moths are part of) with any of our RV’s.  We did have an issue with mice in our first RV but solved that by getting rid of the trailer.

On our last night in Tucumcari we met a nice couple from Maine who have been full timers for the past 8 months.  It was interesting talking to them and hearing their experiences and their plans. 

Now, Liberal, Kansas.  As we decided to take a smaller highway, instead of the interstate to get to our destination in Missouri, there are not many RV parks along the way.  Liberal has a nice park and it was midway between Tucumcari and Wichita (our next stop).  Not much here, but they do have a fairly large air museum that we will probably take a look at and they proclaim to be the home of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and have the original model house used in the movie.

Tucumcari, New Mexico

We have stopped in Tucumcari for the weekend enroute to the Kansas City area.  This is another one of those Route 66 towns.  After seeing a few of these Route 66 towns it does get somewhat depressing to see what was and what is now.   These towns cling to the past to get some tourism dollars into the town but for the most part they are very depressed areas.  Empty and falling down buildings with very few thriving businesses. 

You can tell that Tucumcari was a very busy place during the 50’s and 60’s just by the number of motels, café’s and gas stations.  Most of these are no longer in business but the signs still remain to give you some nostalgia.  Some have taken the initiative to restore a motel or an old gas station, but who would really want to stay in one of these old, very small motel rooms.  It is amazing how our tastes have changed.  These old rooms have enough room for a bed and a TV.

It is cool to see the old signs as drive you on Route 66.  Here are some of them.

This is the RV park we are staying at.

This is a sculpture the town commissioned back in the 90’s to put in front of the convention center.  Although I do not know what conventions would be held in this town.

The RV park we are staying in is part of an old Route 66 motel.  The rooms are still there, but I don’t think they rent them out.  There were 4 RV parks in town and this one got the best reviews of the 4, but when we drove into the park all you see is 4 very small run down sites just behind the motel.  If this was all they had we were moving on.  The owner came out and told us he had more, very large, spaces in the back.  It is a pretty run down place but the site was long and level with full hookups and only $20 a night with our Passport America discount.  For a weekend it is fine, but any longer and we would have passed. 

What was funny is that after we set up the owner came by to get payment and asked us why we were in Tucumcari for 4 days!  I would guess he does not get many people to stay longer than a night.