Tuesday, September 18, through Sunday, September 23, 2012: Heading South:
On Tuesday, we traveled the 180 miles to Doniphan, Nebraska (all on I-80), which is adjacent to Grand Island, where my son’s in-laws live.

We are staying at the Grand Island KOA Kampground, a typically-nice KOA park.  We have a nice site.  It’s a little windy here, but we’ll survive.

We haven’t seen Ron and Una Von Behren in nine years. 

They are fun and very interesting, and we spent a great two days mostly partying with them.  Tuesday night, their granddaughter, Kaylyna,

joined the four of us for dinner at the Von Behrens’ home.  On Wednesday, Becky and Una took a ten-mile bike ride around Grand Island,

then Ron and Una visited us at our RV and stayed for dinner---surprisingly good pizza made at the RV park by the managers.

While Becky was on her bike ride, I tackled the problem of installing the new electrical converter that waiting for us when we arrived.  It turned out to be a lot easier to install than I had thought, once I had emptied our largest storage space to get access to its location.  And it worked!

Thursday, we trekked to Wichita, Kansas, a long but easy 260 miles.  We are staying at the USI RV Park, a nice place just east of town.

On Friday, Becky found a dog park so Ramsey could run a bit.  It was huge and very nice---and empty.  Almost immediately, another dog arrived (a beautiful Alaskan Husky), so we kept Ramsey on leash.  After a while, it seemed that he was OK with the new dog, so we took him off leash (with another dog present) or the first time in two years.  They played very well together.  It was great fun to see Ramsey playing with another dog.

Saturday involved an easy 139-mile trek to Guthrie, Oklahoma, about 30 miles north of Oklahoma City.  (Guthrie was the first capital of Oklahoma, by the way, giving way to Oklahoma City in 1910).  The first football game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, then known as Oklahoma A&M, took place in Guthrie in 1904.  Obviously, this place is full of fascinating history.  (A city has to be proud of something, after all.)  There are a number of beautiful old buildings here, said to have the country's largest collection of historic buildings in a downtown area.    

We are staying at the Cedar Valley RV Park & Resort (the "resort" is a 3-Par Golf Course).  It's very new, very nice, and quite compact.  There are 71 RV sites, all pull-thru.   

One reason for stopping here was to have dinner with our niece Lauren Carroll, who goes to school in nearby Stillwater. 

Saturday night, we met her and her friend Cheyenne at the Stables Cafe.  The food was good, seeing Lauren was fun, and meeting Cheyenne was interesting.  She's quite the independent, self-starter.

Sunday, we made the 139-mile trip down I-35 to Thackerville, Oklahoma, which was just a one-day stopover on our way south.  Thackerville is the quarter horse Capital of the World.  Yippee!  We are staying at the Red River Ranch RV Resort.  We were here nearly two years ago.  That time, Ramsey got stuck under the building housing the office.  It took us a couple of hours to coax him out.  We were very careful this time to keep him on a tight leash.  It’s not a great RV park, but it does the job.

Being off-season and Sunday, there were few people there and the office was closed.  So we just picked a spot, put some money in the drop box, and left the next morning---never having seen any of the park staff.

The new, big attraction in Thackerville is the Winstar Casino, a Chickasaw Indian project that is amazing. It is located just four miles from our RV park, and one mile from the Texas border.  At more than 500,000 square feet, the casino is said to be the second largest in the world.  (Nobody seemed to know where the biggest one is.)  The casino is astounding.

In spite of its being very new and very high tech, it still smells of cigarette smoke, though, like every other casino.  We went there primarily to see it, and secondarily to pick up dinner at the Panda Express, which is one of the many restaurants housed there.

It was a Sunday afternoon and the place was mobbed.  We were told that most of the customers were from Texas, and the license plates in the parking lot supported that.