Halloween 2013

Halloween was celebrated here on Saturday night.  The folks didn't get home early enough to help us into our costumes, so we just had to walk around with the other kids without them.  It was fun, but didn't seem like Halloween to us. 

We thought we would share photos from our favorite Halloween which was in 2011.  We were camping at Meramec State Park in Missouri.  It was a festive time as most of the other campers had decorated their sites. There was trick or treating at dark and we dressed up and greeted all the kids.  We had a great time.  I dressed as a pirate because I had my leg in a cast and I wore a boot to protect it.  Scout wore a pumpkin hat. She is not much for dressing up.

I've been told that I look like George Washington here.  BOL!

Our pumpkin

It has been raining for three days.  It is supposed to end sometime today.  I sure hope so.  We are tired of the rain.  Mama says we should be thankful that it is rain and not snow.

Yesterday, we took some photos in between the rain showers.  These were taken with a cell phone, so not that great, but it is pretty here right now with the fall colors.

 

 

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Has A Big Day Tomorrow

A Visit To Harry Truman's Home

Saturday, the folks headed back to Independence to tour Harry Truman's home.  They had tried to tour it the weekend before, but it was sold out.  Tickets have to be purchased at the visitor's center which is a different location from the house. The tickets are $4 a person and only eight people are allowed on each tour.  A short film is shown at the visitor's center.

The folks said they really enjoyed the tour.  The only downside is that no photography is allowed inside.  All the items inside the home belonged to the Trumans'.  Mama liked that because some homes she has toured have had items that did not belong to the family.  

President Truman died in 1972 and Mrs. Truman died in 1982.  Mrs. Truman gave the home to the National Park Service after her death.  She asked that no tours be allowed in the bedrooms until after the death of her daughter, Margaret, to protect her privacy.  Margaret died in 2008, but the state has decided not to open up the bedrooms.  They say it is still for privacy reasons, but the tour guide told us that it was due to the age and condition of the home.  He said the steps were not in great shape and they really don't want people on them or the second floor.

Here are photos of the outside.  Isn't it pretty?  The home was built by Mrs. Truman's grandfather.  She moved into the home with her mother and brothers after her father committed suicide.   Harry moved in after they married. 

Dad said that Harry was a humble man.  The vinyl on the kitchen floor is damaged, but he didn't see a need to replace it.  The kitchen has wallpaper that he picked out.  It happens to be red, white and blue.  It is on the walls and the ceiling.  Mrs. Truman painted the wood in the kitchen a light green.  The house on the inside is decorated simply, but looked to be comfortable. There is a formal sitting area, but it is not nearly as fancy as some others that she has visited.  It is a home that was lived in and not on display.

Mama said it was touching to see Mr. Truman's coat and hat hanging at the door along with his cane.  He loved to walk through the neighborhood.

This house is across the street and it was where the Secret Service stayed to keep an eye on the Trumans'.

This house is also across the street and belonged to Harry's aunt and uncle.

Mama has been able to find some photos of the inside of the house.  Here is a link to the downstairs.  Here is a link that has photos of the bedrooms. Truman home second floor photos.

It sounds like the folks will be headed back to Independence to do a few more things. There is so much to see and do in that area.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Has A Big Day Coming Up This Week

Spooky Photos!

We dipped below freezing last night and now it is raining leaves, black walnuts and acorns.  We have never seen leaves fall so fast.  It really sounds like it is raining when you walk under trees.  The black walnuts are falling too, but we are staying away from them because they may hurt when they hit. Leaves bounced off my nose and they just tickled.  I bet walnuts are not as much fun.  BOL!

Our neighbor's hose sprung a leak last night and water is all over.  He stayed here last year, but he said he rented a camper.  He bought a new fifth wheel for this winter, but he is definitely a newbie when it comes to setting it up.  He has been having a heck of a time.  We thought he had his hose hooked up okay, but something happened.  I guess it is possible that he didn't have his heat tape or whatever it is called plugged in.

The campground is having Halloween festivities this weekend. They are having a pumpkin launch, hayride and trick or treating.  We may dress up and participate in the trick or treating.  We will have to see how cold it is tomorrow night.

Ready to see our "spooky" photos?

"Are you being abducted, Scout?"

"Spooky!"

"This is so strange. It is touching me now."

"It's okay.  It is just the sun causing a neat effect with the camera. That was close."

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Thought Something Super Natural Was Happening To Him

Dallas or Houston? Decisions, Decisions

We made a decision early in the summer that we would be spending our winter in Houston at the campground we stayed at last winter.  We learned recently that we may have trouble getting reservations.  Dad told Mama to hold off making reservations because he wasn't for sure on our arrival date and it was possible that he might be sent some place warm.  Mama decided to email a friend that lives in the Dallas area and ask her about the winters there.  We really liked when we stayed in Arlington, but Mama was scared of the ice that they get.  Mama's friend told her that they get ice maybe once a winter and it lasts at the most two days.  She told Mama of a nice campground near where she lives.  Mama checked out the campground and it is super nice.  They have activities for the campers and it is a safe area.  The price of the campground is more than we normally pay.  Mama called to see if electricity is included in the monthly rent and it is.  Well, that made the campground even more tempting. 

Mama spent the weekend debating between Houston and Dallas.  She checked out the average temperatures for Dallas and they are about 10 degrees cooler at night than Houston and that makes a huge difference because they do get below freezing.  However, Dallas is 3.5 hours closer than Houston and we would save time and gas money by staying in Dallas.  The rent is $200 more even with the electric being included in Dallas.  We know people at the Houston campground and it is fully fenced and there are three fenced dog areas.  Decisions, decisions!  Mama decided to call Houston and if they had a spot for us, we would stay there. 

Mama called Houston on Monday morning and the manager remembered her and Mama's friend, Becky, was actually at the front desk.  Yes, they have a spot for us, so that is where we are staying!  Mama says it feels right.  It will be nice to see how many people that we met last year are still there. 

Dad is hoping that he will be able to join us in January or that he is sent some place warm where we can all be together.  We did consider staying here through the winter, but it is just not practical.  We thought about staying in a motel when it gets really cold, but what if Dad is sent someplace warm and the motor home is snowed in?  That would be really bad.  It would also be a pain living in a motel room.  Scout said they did that a few years ago and it was not fun.

We decided that staying in Texas was the best thing for us this year.  We may do something different next year.  It seems like our plans are constantly changing.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Excited About Returning To Texas in December

Almost Wordless Wednesday - 10/23/2013

Joey and Scout,
The Greyhounds Who Smell A Change In The Air

Prepared For Cold Weather

The campground here has a list of rules.  It has a list of rules for short-term campers and an even longer list for long-term campers.  The rules keep the campground looking nice, so I guess it is a good thing.  The one thing on the list that surprised us is that all sewer hoses have to be off the ground.  Dad said it is so that they can cut the grass without worrying about running not the sewer hoses.  However, one of the rules is that each camper must maintain their site and they have lawnmowers available for us to use. Mama was not happy when she read that rule.  Dad told her not to worry about it because the grass is not going to grow anymore and if it does, he will force them to tell us to cut our grass.

Dad always has to be different and he didn't want to buy the regular sewer hose lifters that they sell in the store.  He made his own. It is a plastic gutter.  It works quite well and it does look nice.  The water on the ground is not from the sewer hose.  We have a small leak that Dad couldn't fix on Sunday.  It is on the project list for this coming weekend, I think.

Dad also had to insulate our hose so that it doesn't freeze.  It is a requirement to keep our water turned on.  Mama was a little nervous last Friday because it was a cold, rainy day and we didn't have it insulated yet.  The windchill was 32, but it didn't actually freeze here.  We may need to plug in the "water heater thingy" this week though as the temps are supposed to dip slightly below freezing.  We are lucky we left Sycamore when we did because it is looks like it has gotten below freezing there and the water has probably been turned off in the section we were staying.  Mama didn't know they turned the water off there until right before we left. Can you imagine how miserable she would have been if they turned our water off?  Okay, so back to the title of the post, we are prepared for winter now that our hose is insulated and our hose if off the ground.  Last year, our sewer hose froze in Denver and it turned into a messy experience for day.  BOL!

Another one of the rules here is that we are not allowed to have a clothes line.  That is pretty common because it can look trashy when people leave their clothes out.  Dad made Mom a "clothes line"a few months ago. She started using it here on Sunday and so far, she has not gotten in trouble for it.

The clothes hanger hangs underneath the slide.  It is held up by suction cups.  It works quite well.

Mama hangs Dad's pants to dry off the ladder in the back of the RV.  If it is a windy day, she doesn't have to iron because the wrinkles fall out. 

We are backed to the woods, so no one sees the pants. She ties the hangers on with bungee cords.

We are settled into our new campground.  Scout and I are enjoying the dog park. We also enjoying the trails through the woods.  We have to climb a big hill to get to the top and then we can stay on the main trail or we can move down to another trail that is at a lower level.  There are so many squirrels here.  I could just stare at them all day long!

Bunny asked us which apple orchard the folks visited when we were in Sycamore.  They went to Kuipers Family Farm. The folks enjoyed it.  She also asked if the folks have been to the Abraham Lincoln Library/Museum.  Yes, they have. They really liked it.  It is not considered one of the "official" libraries though.  Mama can't remember why.  The official ones are:

• Herbert Hoover Library
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
• Harry S. Truman Library
• Dwight D. Eisenhower Library
• John F. Kennedy Library
• Lyndon B. Johnson Library
• Richard Nixon Library
• Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum
• Jimmy Carter Library
• Ronald Reagan Library
• George Bush Library
• William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum
• George W. Bush Library

I was also asked if I got my walk in yesterday.  Yes, I did!  I didn't even edit my post, so I hope it was okay.  All work and no play makes Joey a whiny boy.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Saw A Really Fat Squirrel Today

Harry S Truman Library/Museum

The folks enjoy visiting the Presidential libraries.  On Saturday, the folks visited the Harry S Truman Library which was number four for them.  There are 13 in total.

Harry S Truman Library/Museum

The museum was dedicated in 1957.  President Truman visited the library often and had an office there. He oversaw the building of it.  He along with his wife are buried in the courtyard.  His daughter and her husband are cremated and their remains are also there.

Mama said the museum was very interesting.  She really did not know much about President Truman before she visited.  He became President when President Roosevelt died.  Actually, the Democratic Party knew that President Roosevelt would not live long enough to complete his last term and they chose Harry S Truman to be his running mate because of that.  President Truman faced so much in his first few months in office.  He became President in April 1945 and in August 1945 he ordered the bomb to be dropped on Japan.  Then there was the Cold War. He was not a popular President when he left in 1952, however, public opinion has changed since then. Mama said that President George W. Bush has said many times that history will determine if he was a good President and it looks like that was true for Truman.

Statue of Harry S Truman

Famous photograph

Bess, Margaret and Harry campaigning by train.

Eternal flame in courtyard.

President Truman's grave - it was wet and that is why it looks strange.

Mrs. Truman

His daughter and son-in-law.

Did you know that his daughter, Margaret Truman, was a writer of mystery novels?  Mama didn't realize it was her.

A little bit better photo of the grave.

Presidential china.

Buggy owned by Harry's family when he was a child.

Harry bought these two cars when he became senator.

This is what the Oval office looked like when he occupied it. Mama is not a good photographer.  BOL!

Harry S Truman said "The Buck Stops Here".  He also said "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

The folks both really liked this museum.  Mama didn't take many photos because a lot of the museum was reading, watching videos or listening to audio. It was not boring at all, but she washed her hands a lot because she figured there were germs all over the audio phones and buttons. BOL!  

The price of the museum is $8 a person, but Mama found a coupon on the Internet that was buy one get one free.

What does the S in Harry S Truman stand for?  Well, he doesn't really have a middle name. He said that the "S" did not stand for any name but was a compromise between the names of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.

Did you know that there was an assassination attempt on President Truman?  It happened in 1950. The President and his wife were upstairs in the Blair House when two men tried to bust through the door. A police officer was killed but not before he killed one of the assassins. The other one was sent to prison.

The folks are planning a return visit to Independence to visit his home.  He lived there from the time he married until his death, which was about 50 years.  They tried to visit on Saturday, but the tours were all full. The home is just a few blocks from the library.

Mama is a little sad that we are not staying in Independence.  She said the town is really nice and she would be able to ride Buddy all around. They looked at the campground on Saturday and it is really plain and small, but nice. The reason they chose to stay here is because it is so close to Dad's work.  The roads here are too dangerous for Buddy. We are on a two lane road with hills and curves.

The folks did a few other things while in Independence but we will save that for later.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Tired Of Writing And Wants To Go For A Walk NOW!

Where Are We?

I think we stumped everyone this time with our destination. 

This is entering Iowa.  It rained for a few hours as we made our way across Iowa.

Mama didn't realize that there is a Presidential library in Iowa.  It is Herbert Hoovers'.  She was sad and would have liked to have stopped but there wasn't enough time and it was closed due to the government shutdown.  She hopes to stop there sometime as she wants to visit all of them.

This was taken at the first rest area in Missouri after leaving Iowa.

Same rest area in Missouri.

We arrived at our new park at 4:45 p.m.

This is our site. We paid extra for a concrete pad. The gravel sites are not level.

The park has a lot of things for kids to do.  Here is one of the playgrounds.

The country store is really nice.  They sell a lot of groceries, camping items, wine, beer and they make pizzas and chicken wings.  They even deliver the pizza and wings to your site.

The park is decorated for Halloween.

The pool.

Cute sign.

Outdoor movie theatre.

What is that? Could it be a fenced dog area? No one told us about this!

It is a dog area!!!  Mama is more excited than us, but we like it too.

Scout likes it!

The outside is even decorated.

Yep, we like this place.

Okay, so have you guessed where we are?  We are in a small town near Kansas City, MO!  the Presidential Library that the folks want to visit is the Harry S. Truman Library/Museum.  They have stayed in this area before but were not interested in the Presidential libraries then.  Dad's work is just seven miles away.  He said he just takes back roads to get there.  It was really strange for Dad to go to work yesterday as he and Mama usually have a day to go exploring.  We spent the day exploring the campground with Mama.  This morning, Mama and I found a trail that went through the woods.  We had to stop a few times due to the hills. There are so many hills here.  We are used to walking on flat ground.  BOL!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Happy That There Are More Than Three Squirrels Here