The Birthday Bash...round 5

It's become a staple of our lives.  We will attend this rally every year until the organizers decide not to do it anymore or move the location out of reach for us.  It's the Birthday Bash.  It was in its 5th year this year.  Since Bash 2, little has changed and that keeps us coming back year after year.  Why mess with perfection?  Total relaxation around a lake that we have all to ourselves.  Kids' activities, adult activities, food, drink.  It's so good that we even brought an SoB family with us this year and they've caught the bug.

This year, we even participated in the un-official pre-Bash at PennWood Airstream park.

Then, on to the Bash 5.  I'm not going to put a lot of description here.  I think the pics speak for themselves.

Friends of Dorothy Rally and Hot Springs, AR

There is a Airstream rally called the Friends of Dorothy Rally.  In the past couple of years, we have watched the discussion and pictures of the rallies and decided that it was something that we wanted to attend at some point.  The location, near Hot Springs, AR, isn't exactly a weekend trip for us, so we know it would be a long-term plan to get there.  It fit nicely with our central states road trip both location and timing, so we decided to make it a stop.

Bottom line...one of the best rallies I've been at.  I wish we would have taken more time to see Hot Springs, though.  We took one rainy afternoon and went into town.  The rest of the time was spent doing rally activities and enjoying the absolutely awesome campgrounds and pool.  I doubt that I would have shelled out the money to stay at this place on my own, but with the rally we got a pretty good discount.

The rally itself was incredible as well.  Lots of very social people, excellent food, excellent drinks.  The late night party on Saturday was one for the records, especially for Andrea.  Let's just say: what happens at the FoD rally stays at the FoD rally.  It will be a rally that we reminisce for a long time.

This is the lone picture that we have relating to the National Park in Hot Springs.  The park / area isn't so much a place to take pictures, especially with the storm moving through.  But it's a place to see the way people used to live and enjoy life.  They would take a vacation to this town with natural hot springs and spend time in saunas, walking through the gardens, socializing, shopping.

So then there was the rally

The site was nice.  Our neighbor captured a cool picture of the storms passing by north of the campground.

 The pavilion is ready for people and food

Throughout the time at the rally leading up to the grand finale which is always Saturday night, we kept hearing things about how "the sign wasn't there" and "she forgot the sign".  Turns out it was there and just talked-up so that when it was turned on it was a surprise.  The folks that owned this Airstream really did it well.  I took no pictures of the inside.  From the outside, it appears to just be a well kept 70's Sovereign.  But inside is very theme decorated and clearly ready for a party.  I hope to find this trailer at another rally soon.  Nothing like 30 adults at the very end of a row in a campground having to be told to keep it down...twice.

This has nothing to do with the rally, but Mason just happened to be really thrilled after breakfast for some reason and it was the morning of the rally before heading home.

We've now been to KS and OK and that's about all I can say about that

As I've mentioned a few posts ago, one of our goals is to visit all 48 states.  We knew that we had to find something in KS and OK to do.  In line with another goal, we sought out National Parks to visit.  We hit a few, but amazingly took pictures of none.  So here were the highlights of the 3 days we spent in "almost"-KS, KS, and OK.

Our first leg of this journey was to get on the west side of MO in order to stage ourselves for our trip across KS the next day.  So, what better place than Kansas City, MO.  There was to be some cool stuff downtown, so we spent the morning and an hour or so after lunchtime travelling across the state of MO to our campground outside of KS-City, MO.  After unhitching, we proceeded downtown to the old central station, which still is a functioning railway hub.  There was a nice overhead gateway to the shopping mall and LEGO land.  We didn't go into legoland because the one hour of remaining open time didn't justify the entry fee.  Nevertheless, our kids spent about 30 minutes in the LEGO store trying to find what to buy.  Mason wanted everything.  Parker, as usual, couldn't decide what one thing to buy.

So the highlight of this trip was where we had dinner.  Andrea consulted her trusty Yelp app and found a gourmet pizza place (http://www.yelp.com/biz/spin-neapolitan-pizza-kansas-city).  GPS got us there and we didn't want to leave.  Beautiful wine selection, wood fired pizza, kids' menu, ...  We ordered a salad and a pizza, kid's pizzas for the kids, a carafe of the house red, and proceeded to the patio.  There needs to be more places like this.  The kids even got a gelato with their meal.  We waxed European and sat on the patio for about 2 hours enjoying the weather, food, and wine.

So the next day was the KS tour.  We had a number of stops planned and had an itinerary to keep to make sure we could get to all places while they were open.  First up (no pictures...grrr) was Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site.  You can do the research yourself on the place.  Basically, I thought is was very well done.  The rangers were excellent.  We've been skipping the Jr. Ranger stuff lately due to mom & dad having to complete more of it than the kids, but the rangers suggested we try it and were awesome in motivating the kids and telling the history at a kid's level.  Might have helped that we were there on a weekday morning, too.

Moving on, we visited Tall Grasses National Preserve.  This place is "under construction" at best.  The visitors center was in a state of construction.  The grounds were in a state of construction.  Basically, if you wanted to hike in hot, windy weather; then this is the place for you!  Two kids, two adults in sandals, an itinerary to keep, and wide open grass land...not so much.  So we had a quick look around, lunch under a shade tree in the parking lot, and back on the road.

Next destination: underground salt mine museum.  Wouldn't have been my choice, but Andrea found good reviews for it.  It doesn't look like much from the surface, but in the end...was well worth it.  You get to go down into what is still a functioning salt mine.  About 600ft down, I think.  You get the full miner setup including an emergency respirator just in case something happens.  There's the museum down there, mining equipment and such.  A plug for the storage company that puts old movies, files, etc. in temp. controlled storage in the mines, a mining train ride, a golf-cart train ride.  Pretty neat, really.

After the salt museum, it was off to find our campsite for the night.  We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere so we found what was billed as an un-attended self-serve campground.  First, we had to battle the sand storm going on outside, though.  The was nasty.  I'm very comfortable towing pretty much any trailer, but the wind in KS made it a white-knuckle trip for the only about 15 miles to the campground.  The campground was everything we expected.  No frills whatsoever, but $15 in a drop box for full hookup.  Only 3 people there that night.  I really needed a drink from the drive, but there was an impending Tornado front on the west side of the state that we were watching on the news that kept me from my usual consumption in case we had to pull up anchor and move in a hurry in the middle of the night.  All of the forecasts for our area said there was nothing to worry about.  I guess the Ohio vs. KS mentality about tornadoes is a little different.  As it turned out, never a drop of rain at our site and in the morning we moved on toward OK City.

Our main purpose to go to OK City was to say we had been to OK.  We weren't really sure what to do, so we found a resort-style campground and opted to visit the local science museum.  I wanted to visit the OK City Bombing National Historic Site and Memorial, but I called ahead after viewing the area on Google Maps and inquired about parking a truck + camper.  I was pretty much told that I wouldn't be able to park.  The nice (and honest) person that I spoke with said that I could probably gets enough spots if I was lucky, drove around long enough, and was good at parking.  I've got the latter down pat, but the former two...not so much.  Also, it didn't seem as though there would be much to interest the kids there, which means mom and dad don't get to take in much, either.  So we hit the science museum.  Overpriced, as usual for these things.  This one was especially not good, though.  50% of the "exhibits" were broken or otherwise non-functional.  Those that did work were something that my parents would have used in a high school science lab.  The best part of this place was a newly built indoor multi-level "tree house" and a Segway driving track.  We made the most of these two and decided to split to the campground to use the pool.

Lastly for this wordy entry since I was lazy with the camera...the campground.  This was, by far, the highlight of the stop in OK City.  It truly is a resort.  A bit pricey as campgrounds go, but excellent value given the condition of the place and the amenities.  Although, I highly discourage use of the mini-golf.  It's nearly $30 for a family of 4 to play (in addition to the campground fee!) and the course sucks.  For $30 it better be awesome!  Some of the greens were not even kept up, had puddles, debris.  You could tell this was someone's "fun idea" that didn't pan out well.  It would be better off removed and the pool / splash area expanded.  Don't get me wrong...I'd surely stay here again if in the area, just wouldn't play mini golf.

St Louis was a way to check Missouri off of our list...turns out we'll be back, I think.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here before, but we have a goal to visit all of the lower 48 with the kids and the Airstream.  This past spring, we decided to add 4 more states to the "visited" list during a central states trip.  The first of those was Missouri and of course St. Louis.  Other than the arch, we really had no real plans in the city but figured we could find something to occupy 2 days in town.  As I now go through an blog it...this was the most eventful stop of the entire trip.

So first, we did indeed do the arch.  It's big.  The view is really good and we had a great weather day for the visit.

Outside the arch

When you ride up to the top of the arch, you must ride in a little pod to the top.  Not for the claustrophobic.

At the top of the arch, it's a bit like being in an airplane.  You have to lay down on the sides and look out of little windows.

The river on one side

St Louis on the other

During our visit, it was the 250th birthday of St Louis.  There were commemorative "cakes" all over town.  It just so happened that one was painted on the lawn below the arch the morning that we were there.

It was not a planned stop on our visit because we are more wine drinkers than beer.  But, what the heck, it's Anheuser-Busch.  It's a staple of St Louis.  Besides, they had Sunday tours and the reviews say it's kid friendly.  They were right.  Yes, the place makes beer.  But, the place is fully of history and they keep some Clydesdales there.  It's overall a highly commercial tour and not so much informative.  Nevertheless, at the end you rare treated to a full glass of whatever draft beer AB makes.  Some of them are only available at the AB BierGarten in St Louis.  I had a Shock Top Pretzel (one of the unique ones at the time) and I suggested that Andrea get the Shock Top Honeycrisp Apple since she doesn't like beer and I wanted to try it.  She finished hers before I did mine!  Thankfully, she gave me a sip and we promptly went to a store later and bought 12 of them.  The kids were allowed to have a soft drink, which for our kids is a treat since they do not often get them.  I think they were as happy with a root beer and a Sprite as much as Andrea and I with a beer.  In the end, a very good stop that was just a "what the heck" decision.

Same day or not...I can't remember, but we decided to hit "Pappy's" for lunch.  It's one of those BBQ places that's been on every food show so it's incredibly popular.  We decided to get there right when it opened in order to mediate the line as much as possible.  We were there at 10:20am; the place opened at 11:00am; and there was already a line of about 50 people.  We waited, and thankfully they opted to open a bit early.  Service was expedited in my favorite fashion: order and pay at the counter, go sit down, they bring your food to you.  No wait staff other than to bring you your food and refill your drinks.  It was good BBQ, but not so great that you need to travel to St Louis for it.  Any BBQ joint that doesn't fold after 3 months in business would be this tasty.

The final chapter of this visit, and one that makes me want to go back because it seems there is nothing else like in the country was the "City Museum".  We should have gone here first.  We would have never made it anywhere else in the city.  When we checked in to the mom&pop campground in St Louis proper no less, they were highlighting things on the city map and the guy said, "The city museum is just 4 blocks from here.  Definitely want to take the kids there."  We've been to kids' museums before.  Usually rather pricey for some over-sized science experiments that our kids don't take much interest in.  So I wasn't enthused.  Ever the online review reader though, Andrea pushed that we had to go there before we left.  So I gave in to the impending cost of visiting.  We went, found one of very few places that our tow vehicle could park in, and entered.  Even from the outside, this place was weird.  I didn't change much inside.  We were surprised by the suggestion that you write your cell phone number on your kids' wrist band.  We didn't do it.  We should have.  There's places in here that you kid can get to that YOU can't.  You will for sure lose your kids here.  All you can do is sit and wait for them to come back by.  Thankfully, there are employees stationed at key locations to make sure un-escorted kids don't get to places that they shouldn't.  After about 2 hours of our visit, I was ready to leave.  It was sensory overload for me and too many people.  Then we found the patio and the bar.  Now I was good for the rest of the day.  We found some chairs outside, a couple drinks, and let the kids continue to play.  We stayed until the place closed.  We would have been back the next day, but our loosely planned itinerary said we had to move west.  I plan to go back to St Louis someday while the kids are still young just because of this place.  I've looked.  There really is nothing else like it.