10/14/07 (Sunday): Where to begin?! I guess a map would be a good starting point.

We left Branson yesterday morning. We were impressed with the highways--many of them had been cut through the limestone to level them out. We spent last night near Tulsa, Oklahoma.

We're about half way there! We're at a KOA in Clinton, Oklahoma, just west of Oklahoma City. Tomorrow we'll be in Texas. Today was mostly a driving day. We had planned a couple of stops, but none of them worked out.

The museum we wanted to visit was closed on Sundays and Red Rock Canyon's road was closed to big RV's. I walked partway down the road, which was really steep and had hairpin turns. I could see an oil well off in the distance, and the rock walls really were red. I think we'll have to go back to this one sometime when we don't have the RV with us!

An impressive thunderstorm just went through with tornado warnings up for our county until 10 PM. It seems to have passed through now, although the TV is broadcasting the usual fear-inspiring warnings.

We saw our first oil wells in western Missouri and they were quite common here in Oklahoma. They sit in the middle of cow pastures and even in the front yards of some farm houses. We also saw our first wind farm--a large number of big windmills standing in rows beside the highway. I saw a documentary about them once. They generate a goodly amount of power. They actually looked very pretty. The wind here is intense and reliable. I wasn't able to get a picture because we were on the interstate. Hopefully we'll see some more in a location where I can get a shot of them.

Yesterday we stopped at a huge Pro Bass Store in Springfield, Missouri--even bigger than the one in Orlando. Springfield is where the Pro Bass Company began. Next to the store was a museum/nature center. It was fantastic--live animals, huge fish tanks and dioramas explaining the various ecosystems in Missouri. The aquariums were my favorite.

Our next stop was Wilson Creek National Battlefield, southwest of Springfield, Missouri. There was a museum, visitor center and 5-mile drive around the battlefield. The Civil War actually started long before the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter. As early as the 1850's, all along the border between Missouri and Kansas, there were skirmishes over the expansion of slavery into the Kansas territories. The settlers in Kansas were supposed to vote on the issue, but there were no length of residency requirements, so lots of pro-slavery people Missouri and anti-slavery people from as far away as the northeast states were enticed to go to Kansas to vote.

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow we want to go to the Route 66 museum (if it's open) when we leave here. The next blog should be about Texas. Stay tuned (and keep those comments coming)!