Sunday 5-3-26 New State, New Park and Site Seeing

 

Kansas welcome sign

We had a beautiful day.

The sun was shining and there was a lite wind. There were no clouds until 4:00, when they rolled in but we didn't have any rain. The morning temperature in Crete, Nebraska was 52 degrees. The high temperature in Belleville, Kansas was 79 degrees.

Tuxedo Park in Crete Kansas was a great park to spend the night. It was very peaceful and the kids weren't noisy at all. We didn't notice when the kids left their prom. Today we decided to move on.

Tuxedo Park

I woke up at 8:00 and got dressed. We weren't in any hurry. We put things down and secure. Then we had a quick breakfast. After breakfast Larry unplugged us and we were on the road again by 9:00.

Today Larry drove 95 miles, mainly two lane highways through small towns. We saw a lot of farmfields. We started in Nebraska and ended up in Kansas. 

Before leaving Nebraska we stopped in at Hebron. In their city park they have the World's Largest Porch Swing. The original paint was red, white and blue, it was built 1985 and moved in 1991 from the Hebron CC Camp, it has a capacity of 16 Adults or 24 Children. It is very cool. It's very heavy and you can still swing on it. The park has a very nice playground and a memorial statue of a bear. The bear was in memory of Marcia Virgin Williams Class of 1959. The high school mascot is a bear. 

World's Largest Porch Swing 

Sitting in the middle of the porch swing

Playground

Memorial Bear

After swinging on the World's Largest Porch Swing we were back on the road. 

Our destination was Belleville, Kansas, we arrived about 10:30. We wanted to visit the High Banks Hall of Fame, which is the National Midget Auto Racing Museum. It did open until 11:00 so we had some time to kill. We drove to the city park to check out the RV park where we planned to camp for the night. 

Afterwards we went to Love's and had lunch at the Subway. We shared a 6" Spicy Italian sandwich and chips. While eating lunch two ladies showed up with a horse trailer with two beautiful horses. They unloaded the horses and walked them. Then they took the blankets off them and brushed them down. One of the ladies walked their dogs and the other one swept out the trailer and put covers on the horses legs. They weren't there too long but we had free entertainment.

After lunch we drove back across the street to High Banks Hall of Fame (National Midget Auto Racing Museum). It was a free museum and the gentleman, who is in charge of it was very nice and knowledgeable about the cars on display. He walked around with us and explained the background of the cars: who drove the car, when they drove the car, how successful the driver was and who owned the car. He wasn't a racer but his father was. The museum had two rooms. It was a great museum and had a lot of midgets and sprint cars on display. We were glad he took the time and walked around with us and explained each car.

Sign you can see off the highway

      Entrance to the museum

Carved Model of a Midget by John Boyer

Carved Model of a Sprint Car by John Boyer

Midgets on display

Shupp 97 (owner and driver Robert Shupp)

More cars on display

8 Ball Midget (built before WWII and raced until the mid 50's)

 

#98 car is a mid 1930's Sprint Car

Larry checking out the Nance Titanic Sprint Car built in 1992 (last one built)

Belleville High Banks 1/2 mile dirt race track (built in 1910 and still being used)

After the tour of the museum we went to City of Belleville Rocky Pond Recreation Area. We didn't have any problems finding a spot for the night. Each site is full hook-up. Some sites get a view of the lake. We decided not to get one of them because there were already people in some of the sites and we didn't want to crowd them. It's a great park with a dog park, fishing pond with a fountain, day area with picnic tables and bridge that takes you on the other side of the pond. It has bathrooms with a shower. It is $20 dollars a night. Each site has a gravel pad for your RV. The sites, that look over the lake are pull-throughs and the other ones are back-ins.  It's very well maintained. 

We set up the Minnie for the night. We may be here another night. Then we walked around a little bit and I took pictures. The locals were fishing off the dike of the pond and people were having picnics. While in the Minnie we saw a constant flow of people using the dog park.

City of Belleville Rocky Pond Recreation Area

The dike to fish from

The lake

The fountain on the pond

Larry finished reading a book he started yesterday. I read for a couple of hours. I continued reading The Curse of Pietro Houdini.

Relaxing with a good book

I played my games. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong from yesterday and today. The event was Event: Two Game Tango Mini of 10 games (5 Klondike and 5 Tri Peaks). It took me 38 minutes and 35 seconds, which put me in 18th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2. 

I didn't feel like walking around after dinner so I ended up doing 3,000 steps. Just having fun.