When I did venture outside I was loving the view of the lake so I went down to take some photos of the view and to enjoy the morning a bit. My mom and Dixie were already down enjoying the water.

We have taken Dixie to a creek before (it was oak creek canyon north of Sedona, AZ) and she was so scared of the water. No matter what we did we could not get her in it so when I saw her wading through the water at the RV site I was amazed. I took photos, of course. We threw stick for her to fetch and she had a great time.

We got the whole group together for a traditional group photo at the campsite, I was feeling a bit artsy- see how I got some pretty flowers in the shot? I thought it was cool!

All the animals have behaved remarkably well on this trip. We have had 2 cats escape the RV through the screen door but we noticed and retrieved them before they got too far. Gabby and Hailey will sit with us while we are driving down the road, all my boys (my male cats) hide under the bed while the RV is moving.

Here is a funny video of Dixie, we stopped to take photo with a few giant fake farm animals in a park. Dixie was not comfortable with the huge cow.

We visited the Dodge City Museum before heading towards Emporia, KS and had a great time. We learned about the historic buffalo slaughter that occurred. Apparently the government felt that killing all the buffalo was a good way to drive the native Americans out of the area and to end the conflict between the cowboys and “Indians”.

While we were browsing the shops I was looking at the rag doll kits. With them you can make your own rag doll like they did back in the day on the wagons. This reminded my mom of one of our relatives who was orphaned during that era.

Apparently her parents feared for her safety while they were traveling by wagon (since the native Americans were attacking the “white man” who were attempting to take over the land). This relative was left on the side of the trail for someone fleeing the land to adopt and take to safety. The only thing this relative had when she was left on the side of the trail was one of those rag dolls.

Here are some the photos taken at The Dodge Museum, some are a bit funky because of the lighting in the place.

After we finished up at the Dodge City Museum we headed out on the 400 towards Wichita, KS to do our mystery shop. Along the side of the road we spotted some fun “whirly-gigs” in Mullinville, KS  (zip code 67109). We pulled off to admire them and take photos. Basically the owner of the land shares political opinions via a slew of entertaining and eye catching yard decor. It is sure a sight to see!

Next we drove through Greensburg, KS, This town is significant because about a year ago it was hit very hard by a tornado and now it is being rebuilt all Green (as in environmentally friendly and energy efficient). We pulled off to take photos and take the sights in. You can still see the devastation left behind by the tornado but they sure are rebuilding! As you exit the town you get to see a fun little sign.

Once we arrived in Wichita, KS we did a mystery shop at a tanning salon, N was the one tanning since he is he whitest one out of the two of us. He tanned for 10 minutes and was told he wouldn’t see results with such a short tanning time. The gal tried to suggest the most expensive tanning session to him and wasn’t educated about the process or eager to help him through his first time tanning experience. As a result he had an awful experience!

2 hours after his tanning he was looking like a lobster and was feeling like crap. They didn’t have him use a tanning cream or any kind of skin protectant and he was even talked out of getting protective eyewear. We are tanning salon people so we had no idea about whether or not you are supposed to burn to a crisp, he did…

Check out the next posts in the series:

• Road Trip Day 5 – Emporia, KS to Kansas City, MO
• Day 5 continued – Kingdom City, MO to Stanton, MO
• Day 6 – Stanton, MO to Evansville, IN
• Days 7-11, We are here but the chaos continues
• Sitting in the garage, watching Ike blow through.
• OMG, we are actually living in Evansville…

or you can checkout the previous posts in the series:

• Road Trip Day 4 – Dodge City, KS to Emporia, KS
• Road Trip Day 3 – Logan, NM to Dodge City, KS
• Road trip day 2 – New Mexico to New Mexico
• Road trip day 1 – Arizona to New Mexico.
• We pull out tomorrow…

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We called the rental company we are renting this place from, the scheduled an appliance guy to come out this afternoon to take the burnt stove away and to bring us a new one.Also, we contacted our gas company about unusually high gas bill we got and they are sending a technician out to do a gas audit, to try and find the culprit of our dramatically high gas bill.

So today is the day of technicians! I have to knock out 4 purses today to add to the 12 I have completed thus far… Only 29 more to make ;-o

Our house still smells of nasty fiberglass/ electrical burn, our lungs are probably filled with all kinds of unhealthiness now and the moral of the story is to always trust your sniffer! If it smells like bad news it probably is.

Oh and for those inquiring minds our stove was a Kenmore model # 79078612400 serial # VF43813329. They are researching any possible stove recalls that could provide information on how the wiring caught the insulation on fire…

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Eventually the smell got stronger and then this blueish smoke started to fill the kitchen. We hunted around trying to find the source of the smell. The stove was off but we were sure it was the culprit! We decided that it would be best to unplug it just to be safe…

Unfortunately unplugging the stove didn’t stop the outpouring of smoke and the noxious fumes and N thought it would be best to call the fire department. We secured the animals and called the fire department, they told us to get out of the house. So we put Dixie out back, locked the cats into the back bedroom, moved bunny and closed all the room doors.

I was chatting with my website host on the computer at the time so I put on my jacket, grabbed the lease, phone and the laptop and went out onto the porch to wait for the firemen to come. My mom would have been so excited that firemen were coming!

When the firemen arrived they agreed, the stove was some how on fire so they dragged it out the back door and proceeded to put the fire out. Turns out the insulation inside the walls of the stove some how ignited… Nice!

N came home for a relaxing dinner break and had to deal with toxic, flaming insulation fumes, about 8 firemen and a sheriff that all knew him because of his job. Now the house is freezing cold (cause we had to air it out) our stove is out back in the snow and the house is about 50 degrees.

Man our heating bill is going to hurt now but hey, makes for a good blog entry!

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