A Trip to the Great Plains to
Attend FMCA Convention

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Spring 2001
Page 11

Saturday 4-7

T his was another day to take our time getting around. We would spend most of the day visiting with our families. First it was over to my mother’s place where we planned to visit with her for a while. My mother came downstairs to meet us where we went out to a picnic table next to her apartment building. It was a nice spring day, so the picnic table was a good place to carry on a conversation. My mother really enjoyed talking to Kevin and Tina.


We had a nice visit outdoors on a beautiful day

From my mother’s place we went to Kay’s parents house to see them and play with Pete. When we arrived Pete was excited as usual. When he was let into the house he was a bit too excited to leave in, so we didn’t get to play with Pete on this day. We had another nice visit with Kay’s mother getting more old pictures out to show off. It came time to leave as we were going to meet Jim and Steven at a restaurant for dinner.


A group picture before leaving

We said our good-byes to Kay’s parents and headed over to "Players" on west 21st street not far from Ridge Road. Jim and Steven were at a baseball game, but they were supposed to meet us in about 20 to 30 minutes. With the short line I figured that I would go ahead and make reservations and Jim and Steven would arrive just in time. As it turned out, they were delayed longer than expected, the four of us were seated and we would wait another 20 or 30 minutes.

We decided to go ahead and order our meals hoping that the two guys would arrive soon. One of my favorite things to eat while in Wichita is a grilled tuna steak sandwich. Unfortunately, the restaurant where I would normally order the sandwich was now out of business. So, when I saw grilled tuna steaks on the Players menu, I placed an order. Just as our food arrived, Jim and Steven showed up at our table. They sat down and quickly placed an order as they were already familiar with the menu.


Together for dinner Steven is checkin out a sporting event on TV

I think I’ve found my new favorite place to eat while in Wichita. When my meal arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find, not one grilled tuna steak, but two very nice sized pieces of tuna. Everybody seemed to enjoy their meals and we had another opportunity to visit.

After dinner we all gathered at Jim and Donna’s house. We hadn’t been there for very long when we saw severe weather warnings on TV. I stepped outside to see if there was any evidence of the coming storm. I could see occasional distant lightning flashes on the dark, nighttime horizon. On the TV we could see a large thunder storm system heading our way from the west.

The storm was moving our way fast and it appeared to be a large storm. This was Tina’s first time in tornado alley and she was a bit uncomfortable with the big storm moving in on us. In my case, I was looking forward to a good lightning display, what I call Nature’s fireworks. I wasn’t to be disappointed, even though the show would be short in duration.

As the heavy cloud formations filled the sky, they briefly became visible with each flash of lightning. Many of the jagged electrical discharges traveled from cloud to cloud while a few bolts hit the ground. It looked as if it was going to be a great show. All of a sudden, we thought of Tina’s little dog Mickey. This storm might frighten him, so we decided to head back to camp. We quickly said goodbye to Jim, Donna and Steven as we would be heading for home early the next morning.

As we all jumped in the car, the flashes of lightning were coming fairly often. Just as we left for the campground it appeared as if the storm system was beginning to split into two smaller systems. We raced to our motorhomes to keep Mickey company only to find that the storm had divided with one system going away from us around the southern end town. The other system was traveling away from us north of Wichita. The fast moving storm seemed to be over by the time we reached the campground, or so we thought. We said good night and retired to our respective RVs. No sooner than we got inside, a downpour hit us. It sounded as if we were parked under a waterfall. It was great.

I was looking forward to a night sleeping with rain on the roof. It wasn’t to be for very long however. The rain decreased almost as fast as it came on. Kay and I sat in our dark motorhome watching the lightning display fade away in the distance. I thought it was funny that the storm that Tina found exciting, I found disappointing in its briefness. This was the end of a fun and restful day.


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