Settled in Topeka, Kansas

Drove away from Hannibal, Missouri this morning, sunny, beautiful day.  Weirdest thing - the time we spent at Mark Twain Campground, we never heard birds singing in the morning nor before dusk - every day we listened for them and nothing.  This morning - way different!  And we were serenaded during the night, a screech owl rested in a tree right near us and just scccrreeeeecccchhhhed then who-who-who sound they make.  The cats were beside themselves, stared outside to the trees right behind us for about 1/2 hour.  Then the pack of coyotes ran by.  Not once but 3 times.  Very loud.

Bye, bye Mississippi River

Samuel Clemons birthplace is in Florida, Missouri (about 50 miles away)

Long, straight lonely road 

Agriculture is certainly their business 

Noticed this CKC on signs - Chicago to
Kansas City expressway

No traffic at all, amazing

Southern Ohio?  Are you sure we are in Missouri?

And they were out 

Go figure, last day we are there and all the fun happened.  We decided in our drive to Topeka that we would take as many backroads as possible, avoiding Interstate 70.  We were told at this campground we are at now that I70 is a mess east of here to Kansas City - construction and amazing amount of vehicles.  Dave wanted also to avoid going through Kansas City because he spent many days and nights in the town doing work and he just wanted to see something else.

Lots of wind farms

Getting ready to cross the Missouri River into Kansas

Almost missed the state sign, crossed over in Atchinson

Missouri River - amazing to think Lewis and Clark traveled this river

We only traveled 265 miles, not bad.  No issues until......  we set up the RV here at Deer Creek Valley RV Park and as I was pressing the button to open the main slide (living room) heard a huge bang.  I thought maybe as the slide was coming out it hit something on the outside.  Dave was outside watching and he said, no - nothing here.  He came in and we looked at the slide's cable mechanism and one of them is now loose.  As I was pulling the slide back in after the noise, Dave said the slide was going in crooked.

Crossed over the Kansas River in Topeka 

Back following the trails again!

So, we were scheduled to be here only till Monday morning, hoping to catch up with Larry and Pam, neighbors we knew from their time at Picacho, but now we have a mobile RV repair guy coming at 8am tomorrow morning - hopefully to fix the cable/slide.  I extended our stay till Tuesday because we just don't know what's going to happen.

Hello capitol of Kansas

A new thing for us - we have never camped in Kansas before - it's a first!  Here's the states we have camped in - just this summer:  Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin (again), Missouri, and now Kansas.  And we are still about 900 miles from our winter home.  Of course there are more states we drove through but did not camp in - New Mexico, Utah, and Illinois.  Wow.