Continuing on our trip--Part 2

The stay in Miami and visit with Jim was very relaxing. Cynthia has tons of photos to share with her brother. Then it was on to Topeka , KS to spend a few days and visit with another Heavener classmate, John Marvin Wright.

John Marvin lost his wife Mieko a year ago in July, so he has struggled somewhat and it did him good to see some familiar faces from the old hometown. He was a very gracious host and even had a place we could park our RV, in a trailer park community near his house. He showed us around Topeka and even “arranged” for the Yankees and KC Royals to play on TV the night before we left, so I could watch my fave team play ball. We met John Marvin’s daughters, Donna and Shirley. Donna even came over one night to fix shrimp and steak all of us.

We drove to El Dorado Lake , near Wichita , after we left Topeka and lo and behold, one of Cynthia’s classmates lived in El Dorado – Lee (Johnson) Lewallen. Cynthia didn’t realize Lee lived so close to Wichita . Lee no longer had a listed telephone, instead deciding to go with a cell phone. Anyway, unable to get in touch with her, we found her house and went by. Cynthia was a little afraid to knock on her door (for fear we had not found the right house), so I agreed to knock on the door. Nobody was home, but they pulled in the driveway as I was standing on the porch. The man got out and with a puzzled look on his face, said, “Can I help you?” I said, “Well, I’m looking for Ken and Lee Lewallen, I’m John Inman from Heavener, Oklahoma .” Lee said, “Oh, I remember him.” About that time, Cynthia got out of the car. Lee recognized her, we talked for a few minutes and they made plans to meet the next day for lunch (photo on left) and they were able to catch up on old times.

So, in a few days time, I was able to see one of my classmates and so, too, was Cynthia. Oh, and our stay at Lake El Dorado, a Kansas State Park, was almost as enjoyable as Roaring River, not nearly as beautiful and certainly not as busy, either. But very adequate and again, relaxing. That was the main thing. Oh, have you ever heard the old joke about the wind in Kansas ... it blows southward because both Oklahoma and Texas s---k. Well, I don’t know about the latter part, but the former part is certainly true. The wind blowed and blowed for all three days we were there. So hard, in fact, the RV was almost rocking.