Sunday, June 24, 2012

We're not in Kansas Anymore...

  Tooie and Buster, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.
Nope, we're in Missouri.  Close to Kansas City..which is not in Kansas..hmmm I'm getting a little "corn"fused.


Truman's home.
We made it out of Colorado and as they say..."We swam the wide rivers and crossed the tall peaks.  We camped on the prairie for weeks upon weeks. . . .   I was not looking forward to our trip across Kansas, but low and behold....a land of neat and orderly farms, no trash, no junk, nice people... I'm loving Kansas.  We had our rv worked on in a little town just south of Kansas City.  They did a nice job and we were able to stay on board while they worked on it.  That means a lot to full timers who have two little dogs with them.  When the temps hit the high 90's, it's scary to go away and leave little dogs locked up inside an rv.  If there would be a power failure....yikes, I don't want to even think about it.  But all went well and we moved on up the road to Independence, Missouri.


We visited Truman's home in Independence, Missouri.  It was a large  house, but there are many other large homes and even several "mansions" in this small town.  By comparison, Truman's home was quite modest.  It really wasn't even his home until later in his life.  He lived here with his wife, Bess, and her parents for most of his life unless he was in Washington.  He ran a clothing store, which failed and attempted a few other careers before he became a judge, ran for Congress and eventually became vice president.   He became president when Roosevelt died of a stroke in Georgia.   Truman had a lot of surprises to deal with ... like...what in the heck do you do with the atomic bomb???


Truman would leave the farm and stay in Independence in this house with family members.
The love of his life lived across the street.

                           Truman was a good looking guy!
All right, I can never see enough of old houses.

All items in the house were exactly as they were when Harry and Bess lived there.  Even his car is still in the garage.

downtown Independence.
do
Cindy found the best ice cream parlor.  Truman used to work here when  he was a kid.


The church where Bess and Harry were married.

Truman's library.  He had an office here.


Truman and his wife were more than avid readers!

hmmmm tell the Republicans that.

Unions were popular fighters for worker's rights.


Abilene, Kansas and Eisenhower


Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II, President of Columbia University, 5 Star General, Supreme Commander of Nato, Chief of Staff under President Harry Truman, and we could go on and on.  He came from a family of 6 sons, each son was a successful man.  His Mother was nominated Kansas Mother of the Year for the successes of all her sons.  His smile reminded me so much of my Poppa David's.  His home was very  modest and I've included some pics of the inside.   His Presidential Library was captivating.  Very well done displays of life in the 50's, Cold War, fallout shelters, etc.  All of this is located in the town of Abilene.


 

Eisenhower's Library with World War II groupie posed in front.

Now that's a good question...and it's still a good question.  The kids in the 50's knew that all you had to do was get under your school desk and kneel down.  LOL ha ha ha
or you could hide in your fallout shelter.  hmmm but what about all that radiation?  They don't mention that.

Burial site of Dwight and Mamie

Ike was a painter in his retirement!

Add caption
Can't you see Dwight jumping off the back porch?



Eisenhower's more formal living room.  The boys had to ask permission to go in.  Good idea!
The family would listen the war news on that old radio.
Ike's old car from the war.
 Eisenhower boyhood home.
Our old tank...we'll our parents paid for it anyway.

I had to include this pic.  My parents had two of these panthers on the mantle!!

Kansas


We're out of Colorado (and all the high winds) and into Kansas..which we all know can have some REALLY high winds.  So we are hoping that we don't get into one of those swirling things...  So far...no problems.   We are heading to Abilene  to visit Eisenhower's Presidential Library.


Our first stop in Kansas was near a railroad stop where they were unloading and building these huge wind generators.  The rv park was filled with workers from all over the US who came from everywhere to get these jobs.  
Some are making use of all that wind.


Had to have a pic of the Kansas wheat fields.
A stop along the road for lunch and guess what?  a Historical Marker


Thought the little building on the left was a train station, but it was a bank with a Raymond James office.











We enjoyed the ride through Kansas and headed into Abilene to visit the library and home of Dwight Eisenhower.

Pagosa Springs, CO

Pag O0 SAh means healing waters in the indian language.  We found a great rv park and it is the first one that supplied an internet connection that worked.  The world's longest, largest hot springs is located here and it was featured in one show by Oprah in her across America series.   We walked along the river in town and the river flowed right past our park too. 
This is the San Juan River going past the hot springs spa area.  You can see the blue sun umbrellas around all the individual hot spring pools.  You could also go in the river which was quite a temperature shock!

You could walk through a hot spring on this bridge.
There were lots of goldfish in the water and the bridge led up to another hot spring pool you could sit in.
It was a pretty walk along the river.
This is the original hot spring in front of the hotel/spa.  It is much too hot to even try to enter.  It's app. 145 degrees!

  There was a nice walking path along the river in town.

 I loved these small mountains of minerals that are deposited as the hot water bubbles out of the ground.  They were quite colorful.

Rafters came down the river here.  The rapids are not that dangerous and it looked like a lot of fun.
Hot stone rub anyone?

Dale and I enjoyed many of the pools and tried to stay around 107 degrees.
Water was constantly being added to the pools and drained off into the river.  It must have been difficult to keep the temperature even.  A pool man told me they have to adjust the amount of hot spring water and add water from a hose to cool it off.
 You can see people in the hot springs behind this pic.
Minerals are deposited as water flows up and out of the earth.  There are mineral "mountains" like this in several areas.


You can't beat the view from your pool.
This is the original hot springs which is 145 degrees.  It was a pretty shade of turquoise and colorful mineral deposits around the edges.


This is the view of the spa from the river.








We had a nice RV park site along the San Juan River.