Day 6 - El Dorado Lake St. Pk, KS to Lake of the Ozarks St. Pk., MO

The drive ended up being one of the longer ones. I opted to make the run all the way to
Eastern Kansas to make up a little for our off day at Mesa Verde. Except for about 10
miles, the entire 370 miles was all 2 lane highway at 65 MPH, which is good except that at every single town, the speed would drop all the way down to 25 which seemed like we were going backwards.

The first place of interest that I saw was the border town right as hwy 54/400 crosses into Kansas. I really should have stopped and taken pictures at some of the original late 1800's
buildings that were still standing and being used. I thought to myself, "self, no big deal. We'll stop in Dodge City and take pics there". Yeah, right! Dodge City was the biggest disappointment! Granted, there were a few original buildings but everything we wanted to see was torn down in the 60's to make way for widening of the hwy and a parking lot.

Shit!!! We pulled into the Boot Hill Museum and found out that it was a cheesy little fake
western "town" that was built for the tourists. We walked around the gift shop and bailed. What a let down!!!

There wasn't much after that. We were following the Santa Fe Trail so every 10 miles or so
there was some sort of Historical Marker celebrating old dudes that we had never heard of
before. As we got closer and closer to Wichita, the scenery started to change from grasslands to a lot of trees and more water. Everything started turning green so we were very encouraged by what we would find at our park 40 miles down the road.

We were pleasantly surprised!! The park is huge and encompasses virtually all of El Dorado
Lake. We ended up in a site about 75' from the shore with grass all around and big green
maple kind of trees along the shore. The temp was about mid 90's, high humidity but the
wind was howling off the lake at about 10 to 15 MPH which made it quite bearable. We didn't
immediately set up camp but decided to get some food going and do a little Geocaching. Fun
stuff! We were successful finding one but there were a bunch of muggles at the other. The sunset was amazing!! The sun set below the humid clouds and provided us with a few
spiritual minutes. We rode our bikes back to camp and set up the tent before it got too dark.

So, we sitting at the table just kind of reminiscing about the day and talking about some of our troubles in life...both Dylan and I had been a little down during the day. Nothing too bad but it just wasn't like the other days. Anyways, Dylan says, "Dad!" "What the hell is that?", as he points off into the tall grass surrounding our site. I looked and thought I saw cat's eyes glowing...and then there were LOTS of cats!!...and then it dawned on me!! We were seeing fireflies for the very first time in our lives!!! It was one of the most magical moments I've ever had in my life seeing these little "shooting stars" jump out of the grass. They were everywhere! It was almost like a Disney movie or something. Truly remarkable and something I'll never forget the rest of my life! All Dylan and I could think about was how much Sandra would have appreciated it. I really wish she could have experienced this with us.

Though there was lightning in the distance, we once again, got lucky and escaped rain during the night. I had originally thought that we would just sleep in the truck if it started raining but being in there with the windows closed on a hot, humid night...no thanks!! I think we need to make another run to Walmart (which are everywhere!) and buy a tarp for the tent. Oh yeah, another thing that I forgot to tell you...so the camp host comes by our site and announces that she's collecting fees. I joked around and said, "$5, right?" She said, "no, it's gone up to $8.50." Alright, Kansas!!! The last place we stayed in Colorado was less than half as nice and was $26!!!! I like Kansas.

Today, we're off to Missouri. We're headed to Lake of the Ozarks State Park which will be a
relatively short drive of about 260 miles.

Ciao!!!