September 9, 2021 We left Keystone park early in the morning and headed north toward Wichita, Kansas. Still obsessing over socks I wanted to stop at REI in Wichita. Once again REI did not have socks in my size. But I ended up getting some sport performance sunglasses and some gloves.
It was a long drive. I worked on my novel on the way. Kansas scenery doesn’t change often so I didn’t feel like I as missing out on the view.
Next stop was Cheney State Park situated about 30 miles east of Wichita Kansas. The weather forecast for the next four days called for extremely hot weather up to 100 degrees all the way to Canada. We decided that we would hang out at Cheney State Park for the week end.
The camp spots were huge with nothing behind us but a huge meadow. We could see the lake from our spot. The facilities were ok but seemed to get infested with dead gnats and live spiders every night.
My Birthday would be in a couple of days we wanted to relax.
We were tired from packing up and getting ready to go. It seemed like the first real restful rest we have had in a long time maybe ever.
I still worked on my novel every day while we were at Cheney State Park. I was so close to finishing I still thought I could make the dead line for my editor. That didn’t stop us from having fun.
Cheney Sate Park has a ten mile long trail plus plenty of lake beach to explore. It was hot so we hiked early and late. Our Air Conditioner work perfect in our camper van. We stayed nice and icy inside during the heat of the day.
Cheney State Park has a sail boat marina. As you would imagine Kansas has plenty of wind making a wonderful sailing environment.
We enjoyed the uniquely Kansas atmosphere of the area. Unusually shaped Junipers lined the road while sunflowers decorated the shore of the lake.
Cheney State Park has a nice swim beach. It was very hot that day and so was the water. IT was too hot to swim in. It was also very murky so I skipped the swimming and settled for a wade.
One day we decided to walk along the beach from the campground to the Marina. Mostly it was easy but we had to cross a pile of driftwood about 15 feet across. As soon as we stepped up onto the pile of driftwood an animal swam very fast out from underneath the drift wood like a swoosh. I looked out to see a beaver pop its head up about 40 feet out into the open water. We had walked over a beaver dam. The beaver eyed us suspiciously from a safe distance. Eventually it was met by another beaver that swam into the cove from the open lake. The two of the watched us and stayed in the center of the cove. We made it to the marina before they made their way back home.
It was a wonderful and relaxing Birthday. I got to rest up from all the process of getting ready to go. I am glad we got a chance to refresh ourselves. So far we had hiked 3 miles at Natural Falls and 6 miles per day at Cheney State Park. Our hiking miles already tallied 27 miles not including shopping and bike rides and we were just getting warmed up! We would be hitting serious mountains in the coming weeks!
