Location: Colorado Springs heading to Kansas, N in Atlanta planning his move to college, C in LA
Audio Book: Adventures in Odyssey episodes and Little House on the Prairie: What better book to listen to while riding through Kansas?
Mileage: Hit 8888 when pulling into the campground
Weather: High 80's, scattered thundershowers
After much research we realized that we couldn't make it to our friends home in Kansas City in one day, so our goal today was to get part way through Kansas and stop at a KOA. But first, before leaving Colorado Springs, we had to stop at the Welcome Center of the ministry that has had such an impact on our family, Focus on the Family. Our intention was to stay for 2 hours, but we found plenty to do to keep us there for 4 hours and still didn't see it all!
***K disappearing into Narnia through the Wardrobe.
We began with a tour of their administration building in which we learned some history of the facility and the scope of their ministries. (http://www.focusonthefamily.com/) We also saw the studio where the daily broadcasts are taped and spoke with John Fuller, the co-host of the daily "Focus on the Family" radio program. D thought the most impressive thing was that the ministry is debt free which enables them to use all their donations directly for ministry. Everyone appreciated the free magazines that were offered at the end of the tour. By the end of the 40 minutes the younger ones had enough of adult conversation and were ready to explore the Kid's Korner. This area is the basement of the building decorated with the scenes from Adventures in Odyssey, Last Chance Detectives and Narnia. There were puppets, costumes and books as well as playground equipment such as a 3 story corkscrew slide (named A-Bend-A-Go) and a replica of a B-17 bomber. We also watched some other visitors in a sound booth trying their hand in creating an Adventures in Odyssey episode. The kids spent a lot of their time searching the rooms trying to complete a scavenger hunt in order to get a free Adventures in Odyssey tape. Being Adventures in Odyssey fans one of the things we looked forward to was eating ice cream at Whit's End. Though we didn't see Whit or Connie, we enjoyed our ice cream. L was brave enough to try the Wodfamchocsod (World Famous Chocolate Soda). It was too chocolaty for L but the rest of us had no problem finishing it off.
By 2 we realized we had to leave. D summed it up later when talking to his Dad, "It's a place that you want to go back to if you go there." So with those thoughts we were headed out of the mountains and into the plains. Listening to Little House on the Prairie, we could see exactly what she meant when she described her covered wagon as always being in a circle that never changes - just a circle of tall grass as far as you can see. We enjoyed being able to see such distances and watching the thunderstorms we passed by.
By 9 (we lost an hour coming into Kansas) we were watching the sunset and the fireflies glowing above the fields. As we were settling into the campground, the kids were running off steam. They spotted the playground and began to slide, swing and climb. Bikes were ridden round and round the grounds. Even still it was hard to settle these active bodies after the sun went down.
***Our view from our campsite
