RVing tip #1

Many a thought process goes "if you are traveling in an RV, you need to downsize everything" tiny sink, tiny cabinets and all of your storage is small. Well while it is true that you are working with less space, that is not to say you need to shrink your life, it means to use the items that are the most important, things that might be able to do double duty and so on. Example, a queen size bed in an RV is smaller the a queen size bed in your home, and for those who have seen Gary you know that ain't going to work, he is 6' 5" Our fix, buy a firm piece of foam that ads an additional 8" in length and cover everything with one of those memory foam 4" pads. It not only makes a very uncomfortable bed comfy, it also keeps Gary from sleeping across the bed leaving cat and me the corners. When we move, the foam flips on top of the bed and it all fits when the slide moves in. We all have our slice of the extra long comfortable bed. Now if I could just teach Blue to use his share of the bed rather than laying across my legs, life would be purrrfect!

On that same thought process we were using a pint sized dish pan that held two glasses and just a few spoons, that was crazy and everything was wet including at least two towels each washing along with the counter. Now that we have a regular size pan, we can wash all of our dishes and let them drain before giving them a wipe and away they go. This pan can sit on top of the cutting board that sits on top of the stove and hold any dishes we make dirty until the next washing.

Hold up in OK

Traveling is for us a joy, unless one of us gets sick. When we both get sick, we find a nice spot to hold up for a few days until we feel better, because traveling when you do not feel well is no fun. That is the case for the last few days. It is rare that we both get sick at the same time but unfortunately it is what it is. Blue is in high spirits and entertaining us, we have a good internet connection and good TV reception. With a frig full of food, all is well. We're OK

On a brighter note, the little city park where we are hold up is our usual stopping point when we travel this way. It has electric, water and a nice view of the lake which plays host to waterfowl, Hawks and owls passing through. Late at night we can hear coyotes singing in the prairies, reminding us that this is true grassland and ground zero for tornadoes and other landscape changing events, but not this week.

Earthquakes in Oklahoma

In our first visit to Oklahoma we were about to go to sleep in the small historic town of Guthrie when we experienced our first earthquake. No such experience this time but I was shocked to learn the number of quakes that happen in the area have increased from 2 per year four years ago, to 585 last year. Until recently the local government was in denial over the reasons for the massive change. But now the state is admitting that the injection into deep underground wells of fluid byproducts from drilling operations is behind the quakes. This wastewater injection a byproduct of fracking, impacts Oklahoma’s underground faults and began in 2010-11. New reports describe for the first time how injection-induced earthquakes are occurring at a higher rate than ever before and pose a much greater risk to people living nearby and are likely to increase from the current magnitude of 3.0 to 5.0 or greater in the very near future.

Osage Hills State Park

We have two new parks from this Years adventure that go on our list of places to stay in the future, Hillsdale State Park near KC and Osage Hills State Park near Oklahoma City. The pictures in this post are from Osage which sits in the heart of the Nation of the same name. Just a small park, a little out of the way, but well worth the stop. Plus, it gave me nice subjects to test out our new camera, a Nikon Coolpix. I loved my old Kodak but today's cameras give you so much more in options which I will use as a photographer want-a-be.

Heading south

As we do every year, we have left the north for warmer weather this winter. Well, it was very nice when we left home but in Minnesota the weather can change in just a few hours. We had a beautiful fall and stayed longer than usual to enjoy it, but the clock was ticking and we headed out for the South West. Making short work of Iowa we enjoyed a new park (new for us) just outside KC, a few days after the Royals won the World Series, and tonight are already in OK at Osage State Park. If you know us, you know that we like state parks over RV parks and at this time of the year many are empty leading to very nice long walks with our cat. He gets into a routine very quickly and wants to go outside as soon as we turn off the engine. He is a great little traveling cat and I consider myself lucky. Not many cats take to traveling this well. Stay tuned for more travel blogs with good hikes and new places to explore. Along the way if you have suggestion for us please drop us a note and give us your feedback. We love to hear from everyone.