September 15, 2019 – Milford, Kansas (outside Junction City)

I wrangled chickens out of a barn for hours one summer!!!!

We had a nice, easy drive Saturday to Carthage, Missouri.  We decided to stay the night there instead of hoofing it to Milford which is about 9-9 ½ hours in one day.  We stayed at the Big Red Barn RV Park.  It had level, big sites and we were put next to an open field where the dogs could do a little running – they definitely needed that!! (ED. NOTE – And, finally, some trees!!!!!!) When we pulled up to the office, there were four people sitting in rocking chairs, enjoying the shade, I suppose, because there was no breeze to be had!  When we left Sunday morning, those same four people were out rocking again.  What a life!

Sunday’s drive was especially good for me!  The hubs drove the whole four hours and I knitted up a storm!  I’m working on my niece’s fall sweater and hope to be finished by the end of the week.  Here’s how I’m progressing:

 

Weird, it’s like in the middle of the country, which we have now criss-crossed 3 times!!!!!

We’re having a great visit with Josh and Taylor – I love that where we’ve been traveling takes us across Kansas, so spending time with these two is so easy 😊.  The park we stay at here is the Acorns Resort at Milford Lake. (ED. NOTE – NOW we’re staying here – we learned our lesson from the first time!!!)  We’ve stayed here before and love it!  The sites in our area are HUGE.  They are not as close to the lake but we’re not here for boating, so don’t really care.  Since this is the off season, we have an entire section to ourselves!  I mean literally, there is not another rig in this section.  We’ve been able to let the dogs wander a bit and not have to listen to them claim their territory (barking like crazy) at every other person and dog around.  The other plus is the lovely breeze we’re getting!  The evenings have cooled off and we’ve been able to eat dinner and sit outside for the first time in at least 6 weeks – Heaven!! (ED. NOTE – Yes, now that we are away from the steamy hell that is the Southeast!!!)

Hmm, wasn’t expecting this!!!

Josh and I visited the Milford Nature Center which is set on the other side of Milford Lake from were we’re staying. We drove back into what I would call “the country” to get there and noticed that the land was grassy and flat on one side of the road and had an unnatural looking hill and spigots along the other side.   Before we turned off towards the nature center there was a fairly large cliff.  It was just kind of odd.  We turned into the nature center and didn’t think much more about that. (I’ll get back to that later.)

Is a bird still a bird if it can’t fly???!!?!

The Milford Nature Center is run by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism.  They are a rehabilitation and education center.  Outside were cages for different birds of prey that could not be released back into the wild; a turkey vulture, bald eagle, golden eagle and owls.  I’ve always thought of owls as being mysterious, I think because you rarely see them in the wild and whenever I have, they were off in the distance.  There were 4 different types of owls – 3 outside and 1 inside.  They are so beautiful and unique!

After wandering around outside, we went into the main building.  There was a small screech owl in there – it was so tiny, only about 8 inches tall!  As I moved around, it would cock its head, then sit very still until I moved again.  We later saw it flying around – adorable!  There were snakes native to Kansas, some poisonous and some not.  AND I learned something new – years ago, I learned that the shape of a snake’s head would tell you whether it was venomous or not, but the Milford Nature Center had a sign pointing out that the pupils in a venomous snake’s eyes are elliptical and a non-venomous snake’s pupils are round!  I had no idea – but could actually see this from the snakes in the different cages.

Would a conga line of walking sticks just be a branch????

The other thing I found fascinating was a cage of walking sticks.  There were at least 3 walking sticks that were around 3 inches or so – I’ve seen these in our backyard in Little Rock.  But there were tons of baby walking sticks – some smaller than an inch long!  I wish I had taken a picture because they were amazing.

We saw a turtle names Margaret, who was someone’s pet at one time but apparently did not get the correct nutrition and her shell was not formed properly (honestly I could tell) but she was moving around in her habitat.

There were drawers with animal furs, feathers, claws and skulls for touching and exploring and several areas showing “stuffed” animals in their natural habitats. It’s geared towards small children but it was just as interesting to us. (ED. NOTE – If you will recall from earlier episodes, she’s like a little kid with the touching and the grabbing at these places!!!  It’s so weird!!!!)

Another cool and totally icky thing we saw was a doll playhouse set up for Madagascar cockroaches – ewwww!  Zoom in and you can see them!

And now for the rest of the story!!!!!!

We left the Nature Center and decided to drive down to check out a building that was surrounded by razor wire. (ED. NOTE – The last time Boudreaux and I suggested that, you said no!!!!) (THAT’S a discussion for another time!!) as we got closer, we realized it was a dam building and decided to drive over the dam.  We were so surprised when we realized that on one side was the lake and on the other side way below the dam was the road going into the Nature Center we had just left.  So, that’s what the spigots must have been for – something to do with the dam!  If I’d known we could be washed away if the dam busted, I might not have visited the Nature Center!

It was great fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it and appreciate Josh hanging out with me 😊.