Wichita Kansas via El Dorado

Good morning from Wichita Kansas. First, I need to correct a couple things from the last post. That "head cold" turned into a trip to a small community hospital in Fulton Missouri called Callaway Hospital. Everyone needs to write the name of this medication down: Azithromycin
Ask your doctor about it the next time you get a respiratory issue. They gave me a shot of the "A" drug and a packette containing 6 pills. You take two the first day and one a day for 4 days after. After only the shot and the first two pills, I felt tremendously better. This stuff is great!

Leaving Kingdom City/Fulton Missouri, we drove to Emporia Kansas. It was the first day we had any rain while driving. It rained almost all the way. We decided to stay in Emporia, which is real close to Wayne's hometown of El Dorado.

The next morning we drove into El Dorado and had a magical day for Wayne. He was telling me stories and relating memories all day. We first went to 1450 North Topeka Road where Grandad Watson the dentist lived. We got some pictures of the house, not so well kept of course as when Grandad and Grandma lived there, but still a stately looking house.

While we were driving slowly and clearly looking "touristy", a guy pulled up and stopped in the road just ahead of us. Out came Mr. Robert Wood. He said we looked like we were lost and he wanted to help. We were afraid we had looked suspicious and Mr. Wood wanted to check us out. He was the nicest man. Wayne told him the story and he shared some facts about the area as he knew it. We asked him where was a good place to have breakfast and with his toothless grin he said "True Lies"......of course Wayne asked him to repeat it a couple times before we could understand it. Seems that True Lies is a bar but according to Mr. Wood, serves great food. Ok, we're game. It's 9:00 in El Dorado Kansas and neither of us have had any alcohol for 7 years now, but we will go to a bar for breakfast!!!! Turns out it was a great decision. Our new friend Robert not only gave us directions, he said to follow him and he drove us right there. He parked, we thought he was going in for a bite to eat too, but after getting us inside and directing Wayne to the men's room (urinals on the left, stalls on the right side of the room), he said his goodbyes and left! He only went inside to help us get started with our breakfast experience! Coming back from the "left bathroom", Wayne tells me about a sign hanging on the wall...."if you need to take a crap, use the North bathroom"...........those were the words, with apologies for the graphics here.
Our friend Robert was right, the best biscuits and gravy you could ever ask for and the price was certainly right. I noticed the ladies were wearing t-shirts from the business, so I asked what I had to do to get one of the t shirts and she said $10 will do! So we walked out of "True Lies" with a great breakfast, 2 t-shirts, a $10 tip for the lady who went through the closet looking for our shirts and the whole charge was $40.27!!! How cool is that?! The breakfast alone at home would have been that much.
Off we go to other landmarks for Wayne such as the two houses on First street where Wayne's grandparents and his mom lived before moving to the big house on Topeka St. and his Aunt Edith and Uncle Edgar lived after moving from the Templeton farm outside of town. We located the hospital where Wayne was born, the church where his parent's were married and got pictures of both. We gave our GPS lady the address of Aunt Bess. She got us there perfectly and we rang the bell. Wayne was delighted to see Aunt Bess answer the door, he recognized her immediately. She wasn't sure who he was of course but when he told her a smile came instantly. She invited us in to her beautiful home where she lives with her sister Dot. A home care nurse was just completing her daily check of the sisters and made her exit. Not long after that the guy from meals on wheels brought their noon meal which both ladies informed us was "probably not very good anyway"......we were concerned that they wanted to talk and not eat. We didn't want their meal to get cold, but that didn't seem to bother them. Aunt Bess took us on a tour through the house and showed us the bedroom that Wayne and Jim stayed in when they visited long ago. She and Wayne reminisced about lots of past history, including the time Wayne tromped around in the tall grass at the farm and got a bad infestation of chiggers! She said that was quite the talk of the family for a long time. She remembered how Wayne would come up to the big house at the farm and play Monopoly with her girls when they were all children. She explained that the farm is now owned by the Taylors and we should go out there and they would be happy to show us around.

Aunt Bess is quite an accomplished artist and has lots of her paintings hanging in her home. She asked Wayne to select one that he would like to have. She took it right down off the wall and gave it to him! I told her it would have a place of honor in our home.

After saying our goodbyes to Bess and Dot, we drove out to the old Templeton farm. Wayne remembered the old days as we drove down the long gravel driveway to the main house. He pointed out where Edit and Edgar's house was before it burned down. The main house, John and Bess' house sat stately and beautiful after all these years. Wayne rang the doorbell but got no answer. We pulled down away from the house a bit and Wayne got out and walked down to the site where the other house used to be. I stayed behind and noticed a gentleman coming from the house. Mr. Taylor apologized and said he was upstairs in the bathroom and couldn't get down to the door before we walked away! He was delighted to see us and began to tell Wayne all about the farm today. Mr. Taylor is 87 years old and he and his wife still live there on the farm. Two of their 6 sons work with them on the farm. Mrs. Taylor came back home after a few minutes and we all had a very nice chat. They invited us inside and Wayne was just amazed, it was so much fun for me to see all the excitement in his eyes and see him reminisce with everyone about his childhood.
We got lots of pictures of course and then left the farm to continue our day and went to a small town called Burns just up the road a ways. Grandad and Grandma are buried in Burns. We located the cemetary and walked through, looking for the Watson markers. We did find them and Wayne was able to say hello once again to his grandparents.
All in all, it was a very wonderful day for Wayne and brought back so many warm and wonderful memories of his family and his early years of coming to Kansas during the summers.
We also located the Freeland farm, some family friends. Wayne remembered many visits to that farm as well.
After leaving the area, we drove to Wichita and found a nice Clarion to stay. We asked about the laundry facilities since we were to the point where we HAD to wash some clothes. We had been putting it off for days and now had to do it. The girl at the desk said there was no detergent and they were out. The only place closeby was a WalMart, we really didn't want to do that. A nice young man came by and said he had some in his car! When he went to get it, I asked who he was. The girls said "our general manager"......wow, the boss came walking back in with liquid Tide and said to use what we needed and leave it at the desk! How sweet are these people in the midwest. I'm telling you, things have just been falling into place for us like that.

Anyway, we are off today with clean clothes and fond memories remembered in El Dorado. We are headed for Dodge City and then up to Denver. We will make final decisions then on the final leg of our trip and our return home. We are both getting homesick and ready to get back.

When I started this today, I said I had a couple things to correct. Well, the second one is that we have now been in 17 states in total, not 15 as I said yesterday.

Love to all
Wayne and Colleen