... on to Winfield, Milford Lake, Topeka, Guthrie, Albuquerque . . .

We left Portland at 6:00 pm on Sunday night, September 14th, and after a concentrated effort, arrived in Wichita on Tuesday, September, 16th. We spent one night in our own bed and then were off to the 37th annual Walnut Valley Blue Grass Festival in Winfield, KS. This is a major blue grass festival that people from all over the world come to. Les has come to it since 1994 and I’ve gone since 2003. Anyway…. We had been getting weather reports from family and friends since Kansas had quite a bit of rain this year. The bottom line is that it flooded big time and the camping area at the festival itself was flooded out and they had to relocate the campers at Oxford City Park and Winfield Lake. Our group split in to two groups and we ended up with our friends Bill and Roxy, at Winfield Lake which is about 15 miles away from the festival grounds. Sadly, the other half of our group was at Oxford which has about 8 miles away from the festival grounds – on the other side of the city – as well as the group we like to visit and listen to their music in the days before the festival starts. It was a bummer not to be able to enjoy the pre-festival jams, but we had some wonderful musicians in our camp, namely Bill and Tim, see picture above, who we listened to as much as they’d play. Saturday, Les’ daughter, Susan, came with her little girls, Taylan and Kandance, and spent the night – really livened up the campsite. We spent the day listening to the music and enjoyed the festival. We left the festival the day it ended, Sunday, September 21st, and all agreed that they’d be glad to return to the Pecan Grove at the Winfield Fairgrounds.

This time we stayed three nights at our house before we headed to the Casita Rally at Milford Lake, which is north of Wichita and straight west of Topeka. There were eleven Casita’s that were there during the weekend. It was a lot of fun to get to meet with other Casita lovers and see what they’d done with their Casita’s. We had so much fun and can hardly wait to meet up again next year.

We left Milford Lake on Saturday, September 27th, drove on into Topeka and stayed at Les’ nephew and niece’s house (Adam and Fawn). On Sunday we made our annual trip to the Bonner Springs Renaissance Faire. It is too much fun going back in time on Sunday at the fair, eating Turkey legs and drinking Mead, seeing Fairies (see unnamed fairy above) and pirates, watching the shows, visiting the vendors, including my favorite jewelry shop!, and spending time with Adam, Fawn, RJ, and Alias - see picture below.
Monday I got a treat from Mother Nature. Fawn planted Milk Weed plants in her flower beds to attract Monarch Butterflies. She ended up with a lot of chrysalis in her plants and on the side of their house. We’d looked at them the day before and thought maybe they’d start hatching. I came over before we left for Wichita and found that three butterflies had just emerged and a chrysalis was looking very different than it had yesterday. I went back to look at the just emerged butterflies, took some pictures, then turned back to the chrysalis and saw that it had cracked at the bottom. I got my camera reading and on movie mode and started filming. I got a great little video of the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis! The first picture below is of the chrysalis just before I started filming, the second was minutes after I stopped and the third was just before we left for home.
October 2nd we were on our way to Guthrie Bluegrass Festival in Guthrie, Oklahoma, meeting up with the Peggy and Lennel, the sisters we met in Scotland in 2001. We stayed four nights there at Guthrie, listening to the music and just kicking back with our friends. Les and I had our first taste of volunteering at a festival. Free T-shirts and admittance tickets for the whole festival – what a deal! While we were kicked back and drinking a bit, when Peggy got a call from her travel agent who had a great deal on a cruise in January… before we knew it we were booked for a cruise – January 25, five nights, to Progresso and Cozumel, Mexico. Early Christmas present to ourselves for after Christmas. I am sooooo excited as I’ve never been on a cruise before (neither has Les). What a great group to go on a cruise with. Peggy, her beau, Gary, and Lennel. Part-ty!

After Guthrie we headed over to New Mexico where we were slated to help crew our friends, Lauren and Suzanne’s, balloon ("Call Me Crazy" picture to the left) at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta We took our time and arrived in Albuquerque on Wednesday. On our way to our Wednesday night campground we were treated to a view of the balloons that had launched earlier that morning, floating down the valley, in plain view of the freeway. We laughed at the news reporter that suggested the locals go out and check their back yards for balloons, but saw that a couple of the balloons looked to be landing in the area. On down the road we visited the Petroglyph Monument and went on for a 2 ½ mile walk, seeing up to 200 petroglyphs that were reportedly several hundred years old. They were interesting, but Les and I couldn’t help but think that the petroglyphs we saw in Alaska were much more impressive. Also, it looked to me as if some of the petroglyphs were made by vandals, rather than the local ancients. How sad!

We decided to go on over to our campground by the Balloon Fiesta, even though we were a day early and we were happy we did. We got in touch with Lauren and ended up having dinner with not only Lauren, but birthday girl, Alex, Thumper, Alan, Eddie, and met up with Dana’s sister, Debby and her husband, Greg. The next morning Les and I went onto the fiesta grounds and volunteered to crew with another balloon as Lauren’s balloon had sustained some damage and wouldn’t be repaired until the afternoon. What a great time helping launch “The Little Pirate”. It was hard for me to focus on my “job” while other special shape balloons were launching and flying directly overhead! It was awesome and a good thing there were more people than were needed crewing on that balloon! Lauren got his balloon back late in the afternoon. We had a potluck on the launch site and spent the evening watching the “Glowdeo”, which is when they inflate the balloons and then use propane to light up the balloons. They would light up individually and then in unison…. Major cool! After the balloons were put away then they had a wonderful fireworks display that impressed even me. (After the Fort Vancouver displays I’ve seen that’s a little hard to do.)

The weather started acting up and we were lucky that balloons were launched on Friday – we got to see the special shapes launching again and Lauren’s balloon was launched offsite. We walked around the Fiesta grounds with Doug and Dana, taking pictures and watching the balloon competition. Even got some pictures of Lauren’s balloon. We spent the afternoon visiting and enjoying the company of the whole "Call Me Crazy" crew (pictured on the right). Things slowed down after that as the wind picked up and there were no balloons launched the rest of the weekend.

If you ever have the opportunity to go to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, do it. It is indescribable! Even I am at a loss for words to adequately express just how awesome it was to see the multitude of balloons in the air at one time. After the special shaped balloons were launched from the fiesta grounds, then the regular balloons started coming in from the offsite launch sites. There were competitions set up, money and car giveaways for those who could maneuver their balloons close enough to grab the keys or envelopes set up on long poles. Scores of balloons were overhead in brilliant colors against the blue sky! For more pictures (no, not taken by me) here’s a website for ya! http://www.balloonfiesta.com/gallery_2008.html

We left Albuquerque on Sunday, October 12th, and headed up to Moscow, Kansas where my cousin, Danny lives. (That's Danny and I pictured on the left.) He’s 70 years old and lives on the Homestead that has been in his family for years. (How many years would that be, Clyde?) His mother and my father are siblings. Danny and Clyde are brothers – if you remember from my letters this winter we stopped by Clyde (and Jacquita)’s in Parsons, KS, on our way down to Texas. We stayed in Moscow two nights and Danny took us in to Liberal, KS, home of Dorothy (and Toto, too) to go to “Dorothy’s House” and to the Midwestern Air Museum. There I was, escorted by Danny and Les, walking down the yellow brick road! Just imagine! J They had a very nice OZ Museum and tour of Dorothy’s House. . . Oh, ya, the Air Museum was interesting too.
Wednesday, October 15th, we parked the Casita in the driveway.
. . . . and this blog is up to date! HooRah!
Take care!
Joy
And Les

Les’ Readers Digest Version:
-Drove 1700 miles from Portland to Wichita.
-Went to Walnut Valley Music Festival.
-Went to Casita Camper Rally at Milford Lake Kansas.
-Then over to visit Nephew Adam and family in Topeka. Adam and family were not home when we arrived, and I set off the home security system. Got to meet one of Topeka’s finest Police Officers. Oh well the system works……. We all went to the Kansas City Ren Faire, the next day, in Bonner Springs, Ks. A great family (their boys are such a hoot) and a good time.
-Went to the Guthrie Oklahoma Bluegrass Festival. What can I say, good music, good friends, and good hooch.
-From Guthrie we went to the Albuquerque to the Hot Air Balloon Festival. Good friends, way, way cool Balloons, sunshine.
-Stopped in to see Cousin Danny, on his farm near Moscow Kansas. I enjoy listening to what he has to say. Good stuff.
-I guess I’m staying home till after the first of the year. Joy is flying to Portland for Thanksgiving. Then we're off to Texas for warm weather. Then up the east coast, back to Lake Huron, and over to Prince Edward Island……..