We traveled from Liberal to Halstead, Kansas, today. The old girl (just turned 245,000 miles) pushed a headwind all the way--gas mileage was appropriately lower. Our route took us from a dry desert-like environment to lush farmlands with silos and grain elevators, pumping oil rigs, and cattle operations. We are also seeing many wind turbines here in Kansas, and lots of actual windmills, all metal, some working, some not.

Yesterday we left Tucumcari, New Mexico, leaving our last contact with Route 66 on this trip. We reached Liberal, Kansas, crossing briefly over the panhandles of both Texas and Oklahoma. Most of the ride was through the high plains desert. Liberal is the fictional town where Dorothy lived--Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz movie; museum nearby. And the very real Dalton Gang's sister's house is in Liberal, with a hidden escape tunnel from the house out to the barn, restored and museum attached.

We are parked at the Spring Lake RV Resort near Halstead tonight. We were here in 2004 with 40 other Alpenlite rigs, attending an Alpenlite Travel Club pre-rally. This was our first trip with our newly acquired Alpenlite Portofino and with the Alpenlite Club. After a few days of getting to know everyone, we were all ready to move to Hutchinson for the Great North American RV Rally (GNARV).

It rained and rained while we were here. Several rigs got stuck when we started to move out, and we used two or three pickups and chains to pull them up onto the road. We were instructed to wait in an old abandoned airport near Hutchinson while the rally people tried to dry out the parking lots on the grounds (using helicopters!).

We finally got the word towards the evening to "head 'em up and move 'em out" onto the grounds. It was wet and muddy, and after us, no other rigs were allowed into the official lots. A few thousand rigs had to dry-camp in parking lots of all kinds, all over Hutchinson, and there we were, 40 white shining Alpenlites in a short row in the middle of wet, sucky-muddy huge fields.

Notwithstanding, The GNARV Rally was huge, and wonderful!--full of exhibits, classes, displays, vendors, and clubs. We joined the Escapees at one of the booths. It was our introduction to how much fun it can getting together with all kinds of RVers can be. Making life-long friends with the Alpenlite people added to joy of it all. We were committed to the RVing lifestyle!

While parked here in 2004 we drove over to Yoder, south of Hutchinson, for a fried chicken meal at the Carriage Crossroads. For old time's sake, we did it again tonight. Same great food!