We finally made it to Lawrence, Kansas!

We crossed four states to get from Nashville to St. Louis in the same time it took us to cross Missouri to get to Lawrence, Kansas! That was a big state....but we were so happy to finally have the opportunity to visit our friend's, Maria and Brian's favorite place and while they were there. They had arrived about a week before and warned us about the crazy cold snap they were going through - which was definitely happening across the entire area we had been traveling; I wasn't thrilled but what can you do?!

Our drive there was filled with a little excitement as Bill had been fighting crosswinds all day and when we were about two hours from our destination there was a loud bang from the driver's side of the RV. We both looked at each other in surprise and Bill peered into his side mirror and saw part of the slide-out awning flapping against the rig. We immediately pulled off the road at an exit and we pushed out the slide and brought it back in again seeing that the awning rolled up. We held our breath as we drove off, not 10 minutes later it happened again - we stopped and did the same thing, but this time we couldn't get the slide to come in - oy! We were on a bit of a slope so we put down our jacks and tipped us over a bit and in she went.  We dropped our speed drastically and rolled into Lawrence without another incident. This was NOT good. These were our new slide-out awnings we had installed at Evergreen RV in New Braunfels, TX, and of course we were no where close to there. I got online to do some research and found out that it might have something to do with the tension not being set correctly. But I wasn't convinced because we had driven from Texas to Florida and from Florida to Missouri without an incident. We made an appointment at Remax RV in Topeka, KS, to see if they could fix it on our way out of town.

Brian and Maria had been street camping and were going to stay with us at Clinton Lake State Park while we were there. It is so nice to have your friends as neighbors - just doesn't get better than that! We both arrived at the campground around the same time, got set up and Maria drove us around to see Lawrence and the University of Kansas campus. Brian and Maria travel only with their bikes, no car, but Brian had left his car in Lawrence so they now had wheels! And fortunately, while we were in Cedar Key, Bill had found Brian's DMV registration in the campground mail.

Stanley parked next to us....tripping around the KU campus,

Monday was a working day and in the afternoon I saw a post from the Lawrence hashers, "Larryville H3," that they were meeting at Freestate Brewing for some "drinking practice" - well, we could all use a little "practice," so we piled into Brian's car and headed downtown. Well, that didn't work out so well - but it worked fine to drink more of their fabulous beer. And we ended up having some good conversations with the locals while there.

Maria captured a great shot of my tasters - fav on the right is the Bohemian Rhapsody.

The temps were dropping fast and the wind blew with torrential rains all night - we woke up the next morning to snow! Unfortunately it was predicted for the following morning and we had left most of our plants outside the night before. When we looked outside several had fallen off the table in the wind and all were covered in snow. Thankfully we had brought our new little pepper seedlings in so no damage to them. It turned out to be a great day to hunker down and I don't think I ever got dressed...even with Maria's beck and call to come out and play; Bill needed a day to do nothing and I always need one!

The next day we woke up to clear, but crisp skies. I got some work done while Bill did errands and then we headed downtown to see more of Lawrence. Maria was working at a coffee shop and Brian joined her while Bill and I strolled Mass (Massachusetts) Street. We both love college towns and had fun poking our noses in the doors of some cute stores. Bill took off for the brewery and after I joined him for a beer we ended up at the Antique Mall. This place was two stories and huge! We split up and I let Bill know what items I was looking for.

The jelly jar is a perfect match for my Flintstones glass I got awhile ago - SCORE!
And Bill found this 8 track tape for the new Cheddar Yeti.

We all met up for some good salsa and guac at La Familia and $1.99 margaritas...from there the pub crawl continued on to The Sandbar where we were treated to some sickeningly sweet Shark Attacks. They come with some sweet drink in a mini shark that you pour in....fun, but omg who could drink a whole one - oh wait, the couple next to us had been pounding them all day and provided fabulous entertainment for us! Next up was Henry's - you'd never know this place existed as it's upstairs from a little deli, a nondescript door leads you up a very narrow staircase to a super cool bar. There are little rooms where you can sit and sip and most have a great view as well. I tried my first Boulevard beer, Farmhouse Ale - Tank 7 and Bill had a perfect martini made from a gin he had never heard of before. Maria still had work to finish up and we had a big driving day ahead of us so we called it a night, but not before stopping at the discount liquor store on the way home where we could load up on some Lawrence brews!

Thanks to Maria and Brian for a great intro to Lawrence, there is still more left for us to explore and to hash there as well.... we'll see you guys on the west coast soon enough!

We're now off to Montezuma Hot Springs in Las Vegas, New Mexico!