Waterville, KS

Wednesday, May 9

Seeing Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks has been on my bucket list since I was a kid. Growing up in Nebraska, it seemed like everyone I knew took family vacations to an enchanting place called “The Ozarks.” My family never did, but when I realized we’d be driving by there on our RV trip from Florida to Wisconsin, I knew I wanted to stop and see it for myself.

Well, I can’t say The Ozarks is the hot-spot destination I imagined it to be in my mind! Perhaps it’s because we visited early in the spring - before the busy tourist season began - that it seemed a little sleepier & run-down than I expected. At any rate, Andi and I decided we wanted to do something on the lake while we visited the area. He produced photo shoots for work near Osage Beach in the past, and arranged to have one of the guides he’d worked with previously to take our family on a half-day fishing excursion.

Wednesday morning, Andi and I packed up our campsite at Lake of the Ozarks State Park and drove into the town of Osage Beach so he could get a cell phone signal for a conference call scheduled that morning. While Andi went inside Starbucks to take his call, the kids and I sat inside the RV out in the parking and did school on the computer. I can’t tell you the number of lunches we’ve eaten or school sessions we’ve conducted in parking lots all over the United States! That’s one of the greatest benefits to having a “home on wheels.”

After Andi’s call ended, he joined us back in the RV and we checked the weather forecast. Storm clouds were rolling in and the weather predictions expected it to rain all afternoon. We were all looking forward to fishing that afternoon, but determined it best not to risk being out on the water. So, Andi called the fishing guide and cancelled our afternoon adventure.

Plan B: Andi offered to drop me off at an Anytime Fitness location nearby so I could do my daily workout while he took the kids to Hy-Vee for groceries. It sounded like a win/win to me! While streaming my workouts online has been super convenient while traveling and allowed me to stay consistent with my workouts no matter where we are in the world, I have to admit that I’m growing tired of exercising outside in varying weather conditions. Sunshine = fantastic. Rain/mud = not so fantastic.

Since our fishing plans were cancelled, we needed a new game plan for the afternoon. After Andi picked me up, we pulled over in a nearby baptist church parking lot so we could eat lunch & figure out where we wanted to go next. We had plans to meet my family in southeastern Nebraska over the weekend, so that left us 1-2 days to get there. What did we want to see along the way? Next stop: Kansas.

My brother lives in Kansas City, but unfortunately our schedules didn’t align and we weren’t able to meet up with him. Alternatively, we decided to either go to Manhattan, Kansas (home of the K-State Wildcats) or go to Abilene, Kansas (the birthplace of Dwight. D. Eisenhower).

It was a long five-hour drive across Kansas — the longest travel day we’d had on this trip so far. The rainy weather followed us the entire way, and by the time we hit Kansas City around 5:00pm, we were all ready to be done driving for the day. Abilene was another 45 minutes past the highway we’d follow toward Nebraska, so at the last second Andi made an executive decision by the steering wheel to go to Manhattan for the night. Since it was still raining, we took a quick spin around the K-State campus by RV and then made our way to the nearest campground just outside city limits: Tuttle Creek State Park.

As Andi drove to the campsite, we contemplated if we should continue on to Abilene. We wouldn’t be biking around downtown Manhattan as we’d planned since it was raining. If we went to Abilene, at least we could tour the inside of the Eisenhower Museum and the kids could earn another Junior Ranger badge. But, it was already close to 6:00pm so we decided to just park it for the night.

As we pulled into the Tuttle Creek State Park campground, Andi blew past a beat-up orange baracade barely blocking the roadway, then screeeech! Andi locked up the breaks of the RV just as we pulled up to the lake completely covering the remainder of the roadway. The campground looked to be completely underwater. Andi tried calling the state park phone number, but no one answered.

Now we weren’t sure where we’d camp for the night! There were no other campgrounds near Manhattan, so our option was to either drive to Abilene 45 minutes southwest of Manhattan (the opposite direction of where we needed to be on Friday) or to continue further north. It was already 7:00pm, getting dark outside and we’d been in the car for 7 hours by now, so we didn’t want to go any farther than we had to.

Frustrated, we decided to travel north to Waterville, KS. It made more sense to drive in the direction we needed to go vs. back-tracking for a museum we only half-cared about anyway. I was bummed that our time in Kansas was such a bust. Had we made plans ahead of time, we might have made more of our time there. Ot the other hand, having the freedom and flexibility to travel wherever the wind takes you is one of the parks we love most about RV’ing. For the first time on our trip through the southeastern park of the United States, not having a plan bit us in the butt a little bit.

Onward North we traveled! Andi and I rallied our spirits as we hit the road for Waterville, Kansas. The tiny town of 680 people, just south of the Nebraska border, had a campground in town with electric hook-ups. Pay the box on the honor system $10, please and thank-you.

Our campsite in Waterville wasn’t nothing special, but it ended up being perfect. Aden was thrilled when he saw a grassy lawn filled with “wishes,” as he calls them. He ran around chasing fuzzy dandelions while Andi grilled steak and asparagus for dinner. As the sun set

Tomorrow, we’d venture on toward Nebraska to spend a long weekend with my family.