Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Kansas - Memorial weekend -- part 2 (Saturday, May 26)

The cabin has two separate bedrooms and a loft. One bedroom has a double bed (Mom's room). The other bedroom has bunk beds (my room). Spade slept in the loft.

After breakfast we headed to Wichita to visit with my cousin, Deb (Mom's brother Ben's daughter), and her partner, Linda. They live in Belaire, east of Wichita. The drive from Toronto to Wichita is through the Flint Hills area with wide open grazing land of incredibly green grass and few trees. It was absolutely beautiful.

Spade wanted to see buffalo but only cattle were along US54. We drove by Dale Isaac's house in Eureka. Someone is living there which is nice to see it occupied. We got caught up with Deb and Linda then Deb gave us a full tour of Wichita. Mom and Deb got liver and onions for lunch. I had a brat and sauerkraut.

First stop was Resthaven Cemetery. My dad's dad, Grandpa Loyd, and mom, Grandma Trudy, and sister, Aunt Melba, are all buried there. The cemetery was all decorated for Memorial weekend. We continued our luck of dodging the rain storms.

Deb was driving and took us by Grandma Trudy's old house. It looked pretty much the same. My sister, Carol, lived in Wichita for a while right down the street from Grandma. Both houses look pretty much the same.

We then went over to the city park where the Big Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers meet. There is a large memorial called The Keeper of the Plains. Very dramatic and beautiful. The sidewalks around there were under water from the swollen rivers.

From there we went for a quick visit with Anne Adkins, Uncle Ben's third wife. She has done a big renovation to her house and landscaping. On the way Deb stopped the truck so I could get out and rescue a box turtle from the middle of the street. This has become a kind of tradition with us.

On the way back to Deb and Linda's house we went past a new amusement park and also gawked at a big black smoky fire. I'm sure there's other stuff we saw but I don't remember.

Mom, Spade and I drove back to Toronto stopping in Eureka for more grocery supplies. We were down right exhausted and decided on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner then bed.

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