Stone
Fence Posts |
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Back in the old days in
Kansas, there weren't very many trees around there, but they had
plenty of stones that they could cut up and make fence posts, so
that's zaktly what they did.
They found out reel fast
that you can't hammer in the regular fence staples to hold on the
barbed wire, and nails jest bent over, so then they invented a way
that they could tie the barbed wire on with some other kind of wire
called "hay wire."
While on the subject of "Hay
Wire," let me jest tell you that those farmers fix
everything with it. That's why whenever something would break
down on a farm, they say that "it went haywire," which
meant that it would have to get fixed with that special wire. |
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The New Camera |
The old folks bought a new digital camera so they could take a lot
of cool pitchers on this trip. It's also easier for us guys to
use it cuz we don't have to worry about the film falling out when we
open up the back to look to see if the pitchers we jest took turned
out. Every time we do that it seems like the pitchers are way
too dark, in fact you can't even see any of the pitchers when they
come back from the drugstore that develops the film. (The
pitcher above isn't the reel camera, cuz I couldn't figger out how
to take a pitcher of that camera without having another camera).
The reely cool thing about this
camera is that it doesn't use no film at all, jest a funny
looking computer thingy they call a "Flash Card."
That flash card is about 1-1/4 inches square and 1/8" thick,
and it holds over 500 pitchers, and if you are like us guys
and jest want to take a bunch of funny pitchers, like somebuddy with
milk dripping from his chin, or with jelly all over his face, you
ken set some adjustment thing in that camera that makes the quality of the
pitchers lower, and it will let you put a couple of
thousand pitchers on that same flash card! Also, as soon as you take the pitcher you ken jest look at the
little TV on the back and see how good it is, so if you messed it up
you ken jest erase it and make a new one.
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Who went on
this vacation:
Us guys look a lot like Stuffed Animals,
and that's how we get away with all the things we get away with. Every time the old folks decide to go on
vacation, they have to decide which of us gets to go along, cuz we ride in
the van, and pretend to be jest Stuffed Animals.
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Hiram--"The Old
Feller," who always gets to go on vacation. |
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Sparky--I always get to
go on vacation, too. |
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Sniffy--He also always
gets to go on vacation. |
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Dexter--He gets to go on
vacation sometimes. |
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Scruffy--This is only his
second vacation, and if he doesn't get lost cuz he's so little, he'll get
to go again. Actually, he stowed away this time, cuz he wasn't
supposed to come along cuz only 4 of us are ever supposed to go on any
vacation! |
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Ty--He has
been going along on vacations, cuz he's reely cool and likes to check
things out, too. |
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By Sparky
We left Denver on April 13,
2003, headed for Kansas the first day. We jest blasted through, cuz
Gloria grew up in Park, Kansas, and both she and Jim had already
seen some of the sights before, and the others they decided wouldn't
fall into the "Heart-Pounding" rating that I
developed. By late afternoon we arrived
at Salina and checked out Marymount College, where Gloria Went to
college. In case any of you are thinking about going to
college there cuz it's recommended by Gloria, you ken jest forget it
cuz it closed in 1989 and now it's the Kansas Highway Patrol
Training School. Of course, if you decide to be a Kansas
highway cop, then that's probably where you will go.
Then we checked out the rest of the
city and finally went and checked into a motel, but I forgot
the name of the place, cuz us guys was so tired from traveling that
day.
I do remember that the motel had what
is called a "Micro Fridge," which is a refrigerator with a
microwave built in on top. It was reely weird, cuz it was
making some noise, so I checked it out, and decided to unplug it and
it got quiet immediately. Then I plugged it in again, but I
put the plug in upside down, cuz it had the kind of plug that lets
you do that. It was still quiet after that, so I sure did fix
it. Then Gloria decided to heat up a cup of coffee cuz she
likes it reel hot, so she put it in the microwave and pushed the
button. After about 3 minutes, she opened the door and the
coffee was frozen solid. We opened the door to the
refrigerator, and it was reel hot in there, so when you plug in a
"Micro Fridge" backwards it works backwards, so don't try
that at home cuz I already did and now you don't have to!
What Really
Happened at the motel: Gloria doesn't remember
anything about the Micro Fridge incident, although it was
making some noise so we unplugged it. The rest of the
information above is true. |
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Tourist
things we passed up along the way:
• The world's
largest prairie dog, near Oakley.
• Castle Rock, 14
miles south
of Quinter.
• Oil Well Museum at Russell.
Plus untold other
heart pounding sights available at:
Attractions
in Kansas |
Small, regular size prairie dogs. The one in Oakley
weighs 8,000 lbs. |
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Welcome
to Oklahoma!
The next morning we got
up early and blasted off, heading for Oklahoma. We
got there about the normal time, and stopped at the Welcome Center,
and the lady there said, "Welcome," so we knew that we
were in the correct place. Unfortunately, everything that
looked like we should stop and see it was a hundred miles somewhere
else, so we jest blasted on through.
Click here to find out all the
information you care to know:
Oklahoma
Tourist Information
Welcome to Texas,
"Y'all!"
After about 250
miles or so we got to Texas and stopped at the Texas Welcome Center,
where they lady also said, "Welcome, Y'all," so we knew
that we was in the correct place there too. We were in
"The Y'all Belt," and that belt extended for quite a long
distance throughout the south.
Click here to find out a lot more
about Texas:
Texas
Tourist Stuff
There's also a cooler website here:
More
Cool Texas Tourist Stuff
That afternoon we got to the edge of
Dallas, and checked into
a La Piñata Motel next to the freeway, actually about 30 miles from
downtown Dallas. That traffic was reely bad, even at 3:30
p.m., so we decided not to try to go into downtown.
There was a feller also at that
motel, who figgered out how to beat that bad traffic. He went
to the auto supply store and bought himself some train adapter
wheels for his pickup.
While the old folks was eating dinner, we saw him pull out and look
at all that traffic, then he went around the back of the motel and
we watched him drive that truck up onto the tracks and put down
those train wheels on the front and back of his truck. Then he
got up on top of the truck and looked up the track jest to make sure
there wasn't no train coming. Next he got in his truck and
took off, and it was smooth sailing fer him clear out of site...and
all those other people were still stuck in traffic!
The next morning we took off for
Kilgore, Texas, which is almost to the Louisiana border. In
Kilgore we went on a tour of "The East Texas Oil
Museum." They really have a lot of cool pitchers on their
website, so you ken jest click here to see them and read all about
that reel cool museum:
East
Texas Oil Museum
That museum had a lot of cool
displays of oil well drilling tools and equipment, and me and Sniffy
slipped in without getting caught, so we was able to sneak around
and check things out. Whoever set up that museum sure did a
good job, cuz none of the things we messed with fell apart or broke
or caused any trubble, fer a change! That's the main reason I
totally recommend this museum...it's both educational and
safe! (And we found a pack of cheese crackers down behind the
candy machine, so they were a bonus as well, but they're all gone
now, so jest go there fer the museum!) They also had a reel
cool gift shop, and also had a lot of Stuffed Animals fer sale, but
none of them as cute as us guys!
Louisiana
We got to Shreveport,
Louisiana later that afternoon, and checked into another La Piñata
Motel. It was reel hot outside so us guys jest plopped down in
front of the air conditioner and took a nap before dinner, cuz none
of us likes it when we get over tired and get grouchy. (There's
nothing worse than a grumpy Stuffed Animal).
While the old folks
was out eating dinner, me and Ty went outside to check things
out. We heard some laughing and loud talking out behind the
motel, so we jest natcherally had to go and see what was going
on. There was 8 or 7 guys watching another guy, and he was
trying to cook an egg on the sidewalk. After about 15 minutes
of the other guys betting each other that it wouldn't work, sure
enough, the egg got cooked, but nobody decided to eat it, so they
left it there and walked off. Me and Ty talked about eating
that egg, but that sidewalk looked pretty dirty, and we didn't want
to catch hydrophobia or nothing like that, so we jest left it, and
pretty soon in jest a couple of minutes, 2 noisy birds landed there
and they finished it off in nothing flat! I don't know if they
got hydrophobia, cuz we got out
of there pretty fast.
The next morning the
old folks got up early before it got hot and went for a bike ride
along the Red River on a cool bike trail. They stopped in
front of a reel big flower garden and they set up the new camera to
take a pitcher all by itself by
putting it on a 3-legged tripod that is reel little and it jest
stands on anything like a trash can or picnic bench. Sniffy
got to go along, and you ken see him sitting on Jim's bike if you
click on the pitcher and make it reel big.
Frogmore
Plantation 4-16-03 After the bike ride we took off for Lafayette,
Louisiana, and stopped at the Frogmore Plantation on the way.
It was cool to see how they used to grow cotton and they have a
special machine there called a "Cotton Gin," that pulls
the seeds out of the cotton, cuz if they made a shirt out of cotton
with those seeds still in it, that shirt would look pretty silly,
and if it got wet, you might find out that cotton plants were
growing out of your shirt. Anyhow, it was reel interesting,
and you ken jest click below to find out more about it:
Frogmore Plantation
Lafayette, Louisiana
We
got into Lafayette in late afternoon and checked into another motel,
like usual. Then we went to the Lafayette Visitor Center and
got some maps of things in the area. That was a reel cool
visitor center on account of it was build partly over a swamp and
there was reel big fish and birds and all other kinds of scary
things that lived in that water.
On the front of the visitor center
was a neat fence, and there was
a sign on it like in the pitcher at the right, and it said that the
Goodwill built it fer them. Some old geezer outside was
talking to another old geezer and he said that nobody ever throws
anything away around there, so the Goodwill never gets anything but
junk, so they took to building fences instead, and it is working out
reel good fer them. I don't know if that was true or not, but
I do know that it is sure true that nobuddy ever throws anything
away around there, cuz everybuddy has their own personal junk yard
near their house.
The next morning
we got up and we went to a place called "Vermilionville,"
which is sort of a little town that is also a museum, I guess.
Anyhow, we all got to sneak out and check things out, but there
wasn't nothing there that wasn't dangerous looking, so none of us
wanted to mess with anything.
Jim took a reel good pitcher of
Gloria standing next to a 400 pound bale of cotton. She wanted
to take it home, but it would have been too hard to get it into the
van, even if the guy at the museum would have sold it to us fer 4
bucks or something like that.
As always, or at least as most
of the time, or maybe only some of the time, you ken jest click below
for more information:
Vermilionville Website
or try: More
Vermilionville Information
Return
to Top Return
to Travel Directory
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Kansas
"The Sunflower
State"
Admitted to Union:
January 29, 1861, as the 34th
state.
Capital:
Topeka
Population:
2,688,418 (According to 2000
US census report).
Geographic Size:
82,281 square miles. Ranked
15th in geographic size.
Highest Point:
Mount Sunflower in western
Kansas--4,039 feet
Lowest Point:
The Verdigris River in
southeast Kansas--680 feet.
State motto:
“Ad Astra Per Aspera”
Latin for “To the stars through difficulty”.
State Tree:
Cottonwood, adopted 1937.
State Flower:
Native Sunflower, adopted
1903.
State Bird:
Western Meadowlark, adopted
1937.
State Animal:
The American Buffalo or
Bison, adopted 1955.
State Insect:
The Honeybee, adopted 1976.
State Reptile:
The Ornate Box Turtle,
adopted 1986.
State Song:
“Home on the Range,” by
Dr. Brewster Higley, adopted 1947.
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Oklahoma
"The Sooner State"
Admitted to Union:
November 16, 1907
Capital:
Oklahoma City
Population:
3,450,600
Size:
69,956 Square Miles
(Click at left for more information)
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Texas
"The Lone Star
State."
Admitted to Union:
December 29, 1845, at
"High Noon!"
Capital:
Austin
Population:
20,851,800
Area:
266,807 Square Miles
Favorite Saying:
"Y'all come back now,
Y'hear."
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Louisiana
"The
Pelican State."
State Capital:
Baton Rouge
Population:
4,468,980
Area:
47,751 Square
Miles
For more information
click on the link below:
Louisiana
Information |
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