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June 2003
Where does the time go? Workamping, outfitting our new home, enjoying visitors and sightseeing make our days fly. In June we were again busy with out-of-town visitors from San Diego. Gary and Myrna were here for a week. What fun that is. And we had a special visit from granddaughter Taylor for four days in early June. On Wednesday we drove 171 miles to the Kansas City airport to pick her up. Her Mom had a conference in K.C. and would join us at Osage in a few days. We filled every free moment with fun things with T. We "window" shopped one morning at The Landing and on the strip at Bagnell Dam. (She wanted to wait for Mom to okay her purchases of souvenirs for her friends back home.) We got her a few books from the local library. We spent a little time at an amusement area at the dam. That first evening T joined us at the Cox's for a "San Diego reunion/ cocktail party" for the six (plus one) of us here this week (joining us were the Moores-our workamping buddies from S.D.). Taylor and her Mom shopped "for real" when she arrived late the next morning. Bonnie and Steve were able to put in a few hours work that day. (We had traded hours with our co-workers to be with Taylor.) The Saturday of her visit we all toured the Ozark Caverns (saw bats, salamanders, crayfish and other "cave-dwellers"). We hiked a trail near the cave and "collected" way too many ticks! We had a picnic, then took a little driving tour of the area, including a harrowing drive over the Suspension Bridges (see pictures on May web page). We had reservations at the theater that evening. We had an encore of the show we'd seen last month. The show was still fun for all of us. Taylor filled up whatever leisure time she had by watching the nature at our campsite. We have a birdbath, and several birdfeeders for the hummingbirds, finches and many others. She spent hours with the binoculars and the bird book. She also saw chipmunks, squirrels and a giant turtle. T and her Mom left on Sunday just after our "farewell breakfast"...much too soon. Bad news about her visit...the camera acted up and we lost many photos of her! Our weather was gorgeous during Taylor's visit and for several days following. Temps were in the low 80's. The humidity was awfully high...normal weather for this area. Mid-June we had thunderstorms and some horrendous rain...4" one day. We were thankful, though, that there was no more severe weather to contend with. Last month's tornadoes were too close for comfort. The hard hit areas that are all around us are still dealing with the clean-up, rebuilding and insurance problems. The end of June brought typical central Missouri weather...heat (90's) & humidity. Our "jobs" are going good now. Bonnie is getting familiar with the office routine and it's actually fun most of the time. Steve is still painting his required 8 hrs per week. He is not "having fun yet", but he sets his own schedule. He works just a few hours in the cooler evenings and is adapting. He still has many, many projects in progress in our new home. Occupancy in the campground is down this year they say; but RV groups are coming in and weekends and holidays are really busy...had to put up the "No Vacancy" signs a few nights. We tried out more new restaurants and a few "old standards". On Mondays KFC was a regular stop for us. We'd go with the campground owners and sometimes the Moores would join us for KFC's "senior deal" at their buffet. Subway has specials on their footlongs on Tuesdays...always looking for those deals. We ate at a Mexican restaurant when Gary and Myrna were here. That turned out to be one of the best meals we'd had since coming to Osage Beach (great margaritas too! Somebody's gotta do it!) We made return trips to Lehman's, the Mennonite restaurant...for lunch one time with Gary and Myrna and another time for breakfast with our neighbors, Chuck and Jill. After our breakfast with C&J, we four went to the Tantara resort to see the "Boss Hoss" motorcycle rally and rodeo. Yee, hah!! Those are some BIG and expensive "bikes" They have beautiful paint jobs,V-8 engines and innovative body styles. We hiked a few trails at the beautiful Ha Ha Tonka State Park. That is
a wonderful park. We'll go back to hike some of their other trails while
we are in the area this summer. On the 22nd the RV Park had another potluck. This time we celebrated all the June birthdays among the staff. On the 28th, 29th and 30th we finally made that much needed trip to Indiana. Although it is a long drive, the 330 miles went smoothly in our new motorhome. We got "home" in just six hours. At Bonnie's brother's place, we had to use campsite #2, the primitive site. We were just a little too big. The short weekend was a whirlwind of activity. We had supper at The Hacienda with Roger and Nancy that first evening. Then on Sunday we walked the long walk (about a 6-mile round trip) to visit Mom in the nursing home. (She is doing great, by the way.) During our walk, we had the special treat of seeing many of the vintage planes: P-47s flying in formation and the bi-planes doing loop-de-loops and "whatever" over the river. The jets flew across the sky all that day. We had forgotten that it was "Thunder" weekend (hydroplane races, etc) in Evansville. We had not expected to see any of the "doings". What a treat! When we arrived back at Roger's, our daughter had just arrived from Nashville. We had just a short time to get ready for a cookout with all the rest of the family here in Evansville. What a great day. The next day, Monday, we had several errands to run...to the pharmacy, bank, AAA and even got new tires for the car before heading back to Missouri at 2 o'clock. Our drive back to Osage Beach again was a smooth one with the exception of hitting rush hour traffic in St. Louis at 5pm...very slow going! We arrived back at the campground just before dark. We managed to get set up before full dark and then we "crashed"...so tired after the busy three days. We both had to work the next day and it WILL BE busy. July 1st is the start of our busy 4th of July holiday bookings at the campground. We'll close for now. Talk to you again at the end of July! Emails from you are appreciated. Steve and Bonnie
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