May 16th Heading across Kansas

Yesterday, we left our campspot early heading towards Pratt, KS, a town of about 6000, where we planned to attend church services and spend the night.  It was kind of nice to leave all the rain behind as we had an uneventful day of driving.  We arrived in Pratt to sunshine and nice weather.  After checking out the church location, we made our way to the Super Walmart.

Life on the road is taking some adujusting for me, in a good way though.  I have been in the habit of keeping too much food on hand so I didn't need to go to the store very often.  Since we left Denver 5 weeks ago, I have been trying to use up all the odds and ends of things I originally packed.  My goal is to buy less, more often and keep a minimum of meals on hand.  I have actually been doing quite well.  Since January, I have scaled down my freezer space considerably.  I used to have a small chest freezer and the side-by-side refridgerator/freezer in our condo.  When we sold the chest freezer, I got everything out of it into the side-by-side.  When we sold our condo and moved across the hall I scaled down again to a smaller fridge with a little top freezer.  I probably don't need to tell you what it was like to move into the trailer and have a 10 cubic foot refridgerator/freezer.  But, believe it or not, I am liking it and managing just fine. 

After stopping at a little local park to enjoy some ice cream and watch some little kids playing in the mud we headed back to the church.  We 'boondocked' in the parking lot behind the large church building.  Unfortunately, we 'did not get the memo'.  The sign out front as well as the answering machine and their website said their evening services were at 6 PM.  Six o'clock came and went and no one showed up!  It appears to be a very active church for such a small town.  Quite different than the church we attended last week in West Fork, AR.  They only had 30 in attendance.  The church where we attended with the Elliotts in Rogers, AR is very active.  For a long time they had too many in attendance to fit in the auditorium so they had different services and split the congregation into the auditorium and the large fellowship hall.  They have now 'planted' another congregation on the other side of town and still have 2 services at the Southside, the main congregation .  We are looking forward to attending different churches around the country but are also wanting to settle in somewhere down south this winter for several months and be able to find a chuch home where we might be of service to the brethren.

Today we are don't have a definiate plan on how far we are going to drive.  It seems that for the first time we are going to 'fly by the seat of our pants' with no plans of how far we will drive and where we will stay tonight.  See you next time!