Those of us who arrived later are in temporary sites until they finish the new area. However, no one knows when that area will be finished. To be perfectly honest, I really like where I am. We have electricity and the honey wagon comes by three times a week. The only thing we don't have at each site is a water hookup. We're taking care of that by leaving one site open that does have a water spigot so that we can either pull in and load up or possibly even attach extra hoses to reach our sites. Several of us have extra water hoses, so that might work. Beats unhooking.
Here's our "temporary" site. Several of us want to stay here as it's quiet, near the playground and bathrooms, and is on gravel with grass behind us. I'm at the very left end.
Here is a picture of the "new" sites. It had just rained heavily and they don't have gravel in yet. We'll see.
Here are a few pictures of the part of the park closest to me. Those are pecan trees and there are still pecans all over the ground, just ripe for collecting. I understand there's a place in town that will shell them, so will check that out.
This is the view from my kitchen window.
One of the pecans on the ground
This park is home for rodeos, fairs, and other special events, so they have a variety of buildings, such as livestock barns.
And of course, the necessary sign near those barns:
An interesting fungus - lots of these on the grass the other day after the rains. I think it looks like a flower.
Several days ago I shared a few websites with you regarding the flood and oil spill here last summer. The nearby Verdigris River overflowed. To add to that, the nearby refinery spilled oil into the already flooded waters, making for a disaster. Here are the websites that describe the problem better than I can.
http://www.mahalo.com/Coffeyville_floo
http://www.taylornews.org/2008/07/03/coffeyville-flood-one-year-later/
The flood pretty much inundated this part of town. More later on today after we walk around a little and I can take some pictures. There were many, many homes and businesses destroyed. There has been some rebuilding already, but lots and lots of concrete foundations and sidewalks with no buildings and many boarded up stores and other buildings.
Here are a few pictures showing how high the water got.
This is one of the buildings in the park. The little sign with red printing is the high water mark.
Another park building with a sign.
A pecan tree right outside my window--the mark is the black ring about halfway up the tree
Several pictures of the now-innocent looking Verdigris River.
I drove into the nearby city of Independence the other day to finish my paperwork for Amazon and passed the company on the way back. Apparently it's Amazon's largest fulfillment center in the world.
And here's a field of yellow on the way back into town. Still need to find out what it is are there are many fields like it around here.
Last night I attended a free presentation of "The Odd Couple" done by students at the nearby Coffeyville Community College. Hilarious! They were really good.
Subscribed to the local paper today and they'll actually deliver it right to my door here at the park--$13 for three months, every day except Saturday and Monday.
Found the laundromat on the other side of town and did a week's wash. That's the place to meet other workampers--talked to about 7 more - very interesting and fun people. Got a library card and stopped at the Chamber of Commerce for maps and other stuff.
We're going to have a workamper get-together Saturday afternoon in the main campground - BYO everything.
I'd forgotten how much I enjoy small towns. Lived in Coquille, Oregon for seven years and was able to get immersed in the activities of the town. Am finding the same thing here.
More later. A friend and I are going to walk downtown in about 20 minutes, so better look at least presentable.
My new friend and I drove all around town today, stopping at the newspaper office, library, post office, the old jail, Chamber of Commerce, two laundromats to check prices, and a Sonic, where she bought us both lunch. I'd never been to one. We also decided to drive around the city residential areas because we've both fallen in love with this area. I've even got a line on a possibly perfect part-time position, with benefits, at the local community college. However, will take it slow and easy and not rush into anything. Anyway, I mentioned earlier there were many vacant lots still with foundations because of the flood last year. We saw a lot of them and I took a few pictures. We found one site with two lots together and she called about the price. Get this: $1,000 total, or $500 each. If nothing else, we could most likely put our RVs on them, perhaps a modular home or two. Will need to find out about zoning, insurance possibilities since this is the area that was flooded, if there's water, sewer, and electricity available, and so forth. But any way you look at it, $500 for a city lot is pretty decent. I look at it this way: this area of town is in the process of rebuilding and when that's done, property values should go up quite a bit. Need to do a lot more research, though, especially finding out why the price is so very low for these two lots.
