Travels with Serendipity: Open Your Eyes

Leaving Kansas City, we finally turned our back on Bleeding Kansas, visiting Osawatomie, Kansas as our last stop. Osawatomie was John Brown’s unofficial headquarters in Kansas. His half-sister and her preacher husband resided there and it gave him a place to retreat to during his forays into southern leaning communities. From there, when he felt he had succeeded in his mission… Kansas was accepted into the Union as a free state, he headed back to Virginia where he lead the botched raid on Harper’s Ferry and found himself caught, convicted and eventually hanged for his efforts to steal the rifles there and lead a slave rebellion.

Heading east into Missouri after bidding good bye to John Brown and his ilk, we got a bit mislaid and instead of finding ourselves in Lake of the Ozarks, we ended up at Pomme de Terre State Park. Pomme de Terre lived up to its name… apple of the land. The park was wrapped around one of the many tributaries leading out from Lake of the Ozarks and we had it almost to ourselves with a great view of the lake through the trees. Mama geese and lots of baby goslings wandered through the campground, far outnumbering the campers.

We were supposed to find ourselves in Little Rock the next night. But along the way, we found ourselves crossing Buffalo National River and had to stop. It is our goal to see as much of the out of the way treasures as we can on this trip. Buffalo National River is definitely a treasure. In June it seems quiet, we had no trouble finding a camping spot near the river. People come here to float down the river, in canoes, in kayaks, in inner tubes, or just put a chair in the river and cool their heels. There are a few hiking trails to be sure, but the slow current and shallow water make it the perfect place for a family water vacation. Thunderstorms kept us from renting a kayak, but when the weather cleared we donned our water shoes and headed down to the river ourselves to frolic in the water then stretch out on our towels to just enjoy watching the floaters and dragon flies and rippling water going by.

9 days in and at least 3 days behind schedule, we are thoroughly enjoying our slow jaunt across Middle America. We were watching the Jimmy Fallon last night while finishing our laundry and one of the comics was disparaging Kansas. "You can fall asleep for three hours behind the wheel and never hit anyone, just run out of gas." He's obviously made no effort to find Kansas. There's lots to see and lots to learn about American history if you choose to open your eyes. The same can be said of any of our states, and we intend to open our eyes and do just that.