Hello from Natoma Kansas

Hello from Natoma Kansas

Draft started Saturday morning,  July 26, 2014   (First post of this travelogue)

Completed and published Monday July 28

This has been a bit of a crazy whirlwind trip.  More about that in a minute.

I need to add a note or two about our  trip to Salt Lake.

As we noted, we diverted from a direct route back home from Salt Lake so that we could visit our two grandsons who attend college in Gunnison Colorado. 

We drove from Salt Lake to Grand Junction and stayed the night at a Holiday Inn Express.  Monday we drove to Gunnison and again stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.  We were able to have lunch with Austin and then Dinner with Thomas and Klara.  It is so fun to see that these young men have matured so much and are doing well in College (both will be seniors this year).

We arrived home Tuesday.

On Wednesday (7/23) I drove the bus to Natoma, Kansas to stay at a friend’s house.  Natoma is north of Russell and Hays on Kansas highway 18.  Since this was mostly a boy’s trip, Pat stayed home.

The reason for this trip was to attend the KKOA Leadsled Spectacular in Salina, KS.  The KKOA website is here.  I have been a member since the early ‘80s and have attended this event many times.  Indeed, I completed the ’56 Chevy in ’87 and the whole family drove to Springfield IL for that event.  Pat made poodle skirts and sweaters for her and the girls (see photo).

For many years they held the event in various cities in the mid-west (including three different Springfields – IL, OH, and MO – Pat and I attended them all in the ’56).  I have not driven the ’56 in several years – maybe next year.  They have now settled on holding the event in Salina, KS because it is just about in the center of the country.

The car count dwindled over the years, as have many major car events.  However, the count has picked up in the past couple of years and it appears that there were over 1,000 registrations this year!

The show was great!  Wish I could say the same about the weather.  It was 106 degrees in Salina on Friday when my friend and I attended the show!!  Can you say brutal? 

I had a good time visiting with my friend John.  He has 20 acres with a fairly large percentage filled with out building with all kinds of good stuff in them .  He also has a large number of buses and 50’s era trucks on the property. We visited a one of his friends whose family used to own a GM dealership in a close-by town.  The person has a huge collection of neat old cars, many of which were very low mile trade-ins that the family kept.

I returned to Evergreen on Saturday.  The bus did fine and it was fun not to have a toad behind me.

That is all of now.