Oklahoma-Kansas-Nebraska

We started out the trip heading north into Oklahoma. On a spur of the moment we decided to eat at the lodge at Lake Murray, Oklahoma. Each member of the family has a different perspective of the quality of food, and service the lodge provides, but we all agree the memories are all great, and the view is terrific of Lake Murray, it was a mini-vacation to revisit a favorite vacation spot before heading onward. We drove on through Oklahoma City, and this turned out to be the vacation of unusual bathrooms. Maybe it was the 3 female ratio in the carload that provided for more frequent bathroom viewing opportunities, but we passed through some interesting ones, I wish I could remember them all, just 'in case' you ever need a reason to stop, but the one we hit up outside of Oklahoma City was pretty special, glittery purple sponge painted walls, ceilings and floors, and glittery purple puff paint grout lining the silver fixtures. After the bonus scenic detour we headed on to Wichita, KS for the night, where Kelly put us up for the evening....along with the 8 cats, 2 currently living in her apartment (Simon and Oscar) and 6 wild kittens outside. 2 apartment cats who made homes on her porch this winter upon their birth have now given birth to 4 more kittens (which were originally placed for 'safe keeping' by Mom in Kelly's chimnea. I got to play with kittens, and fortunately the rest of the journey ahead was too long for me to convince myself I needed all four of them.....we headed out in the morning towards Nebraska and Chimney Rock. I didn't have very high expectations, I mean, I wanted to see it, I'd stopped there enough times on my Oregon Trail game as a child, but it was just 'something to see.' What I didn't expect was how beautiful Kansas and Nebraska are, and how very cool it was to see the sites that so many had seen on the westward move, including the wagon train tracks they left in their wake. On Sunday morning we caught a wagon train to Chimney Rock. Holly and I even 'drove' the wagon for a bit (I wish I could insert the Little House on the Praire theme song right here). It was a lot of fun, and something I would definitely recommend. We crossed pastures and made it all the way up to 'the rock' where we were allowed to climb as high as legally allowed by the state. It was a lot better view than the one we later had from the visitory center. After an unsuccessful attempt to find Scottsbluff (we 'found' it, we just couldn't 'find' the way to the top) we then headed for Keystone, SD....