Monday, August 15th, was a stay at home day. I spent most of the day on some minor chores I needed to get accomplished. I finished scanning the last of the photo albums from my parent’s collection. I now have all their pictures, from the 1930's through 1997, digitized and stored. I am going to send DVDs with all the pics to my four brothers. I also did some minor repairs to the coach and, of course, published the most recent installment of our blog.
Tuesday we decided to go catch another movie and went out for an afternoon showing of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” I have to say it was a very enjoyable movie, although the plot seemed to drag just a hair in the first third. I was very impressed with the way the script was carefully crafted to integrate with the original 1968 film. There were a couple of quick references to a missing space mission, which could easily have been overlooked by someone not familiar with the original plot, that made the first real link. It was all wrapped up in a neat little package with the final vignette that actually appears after the credits start to roll. The first “end” scene of the movie actually had me saying to Jackie, “well, that was a somewhat unsatisfying ending,” Then a few moments later it is all tied together. Brilliant. I was also pleased by the homage to the original movie with the line, “take your stinking paws off of me you damned dirty ape,” one of Charleton Heston’s iconic lines. All in all, a very good movie, even if you aren’t old enough to remember the original. After the movie we went back to the coach for the rest of the day.
Wednesday, August 17th, we went out after lunch to do some shopping in preparation for our scheduled departure from Amarillo on Friday. We will be heading up into Oklahoma and Kansas for a couple of weeks and will be in rural areas for the next couple weeks. Our first stop was the local Sam’s Club for what we had hoped would be a booze run. Unfortunately, after we got into the store I realized that Texas was one of the majority of states that doesn’t allow the sale of hard liquor (“spirits” in the nomenclature of the liquor laws) anywhere except a state approved liquor store. Regular stores can sell beer and wine, but no spirits.
We are so used to being in California and Arizona where all liquor can be sold in any store that gets an license. New Mexico also allows sales in retail groceries, so I hadn’t even given it a thought when we walked in Sam’s. But, no sprits for sale. We made a stop at a regular liquor store after leaving Sam’s and found the price there to be almost exactly 50 percent higher for the large bottle of Absolute at a Costco or Sam’s in New Mexico, Arizona or California. Oh well, we will buy it when we need it rather than stock up. After Sam’s Club we went to the local Walmart and stocked up on groceries before heading back to the coach for the rest of the day. I did go down and spend a little time in the hot tub before dinner.
Thursday, August 18th, we stayed at the park for the day, for them most part relaxing. We did do our laundry at one of the laundry facilities in the park and I spent a half hour or so cleaning up outside to be ready to travel tomorrow.
Friday, August 19th, was a travel day. We packed up the coach and left Amarillo about 10:00 a.m. heading North. We are headed for a little town called Hooker, Oklahoma, located in the middle of the Oklahoma panhandle on U.S. 54. We had a very nice drive, most of which was in the panhandle of Texas. Much of the route was four lane divided highway, relatively flat with little traffic. Once we crossed the border into Oklahoma, where they grow a lot of corn and wheat, we started seeing a lot of grain trucks on the road.
We arrived in Hooker about 1:00 p.m. and found an open spot in Alice’s RV Park, the only RV park in Hooker. Alice’s place is on a large corner residential lot which has been set up with six pull through RV sites,
of which two were open. We discovered Alice’s place in the Passport America book. It does not appear in any other travel guide, such as Trailer Life or Woodall’s. Passport America (PPA) is a program that we have used since we first started traveling full time and provides information on RV parks that offer half price camping. Each park has it’s own rules such as how many days you can use the discount, seasons, holiday exceptions, that sort of thing. Alice’s was listed as having
full hookup 50 amps sites, regular price $30 per night, $15 per night for PPA members with no time limit. We found a pretty level grass and gravel site with the advertised 50 amp hookup along with water and sewer connections. Other than the sites being pretty close together, enough room to get the slides out, but not a whole lot more, the sites were very good. There is no one on-site at the park, only a self serve station with a lockbox in which to put your registration and money. When I got the envelope out I found the regular price had been reduced to $20 per night, which meant the PPA price was $10. For a decent full service site this was an absolute steal! There aren’t even any Elks Lodges that are that inexpensive. I registered for three nights and put in a check for $30.
Now, the reason we are stopping in Hooker, Oklahoma, population 1,200 or so, is to visit Don and Wanda Fischer. We first met Don and Wanda at our first FMCA rally in Minot, North Dakota in 2006. They are also members of two FMCA chapters that we belong to, the Elks International Chapter, and the Full Timers Chapter. The Fischer’s at that time were in their late 70's, but very active, very friendly people. Don is a very outgoing person who hugs everyone he meets and he called himself “the Hugger from Hooker.” Over the ensuing years we often ran into Don and Wanda at various rallies and FMCA Conventions. Because of Don’s outgoing personality and his self imposed moniker, they were easy people to remember. We only saw them at rallies, so we didn’t become close friends, but we were always happy to see them and always had time to chat with them when we ran into them.
While we were staying in Amarillo I was looking at a map, plotting our next route, which was originally intended to take us to Dodge City, Kansas. I noticed that the best route from Amarillo to Dodge City took us right through the panhandle of Oklahoma, and right through the town of Hooker. Naturally, we thought of Don and Wanda. We were afraid that we might miss them since the FMCA Convention was going on in Madison, Wisconsin the second week of August, while we were in Amarillo. Jackie called Don and found that they were, in fact, at the rally in Madison, but they planned to leave there at the end of the week when the rally closed and head for home. Don anticipated they would be back home in Hooker by Friday, August 19th, the same day we would be passing through town. At that point we modified our plan and made Hooker our destination.
Hooker came to be in the very early 1900's when the Rock Island Railroad ran a line between Liberal, Kansas and Texas, near what is now Texhoma. Texas and Kansas were already states with set boundaries, however what is now Oklahoma was just a territory. At that time the strip of land between the State of Kansas and the panhandle of the State of Texas was called No Man’s Land. When the railroad went in through No Man’s Land in 1902 towns started to pop up every ten miles or so along the rail route and Hooker was one of the them. The town was named after a local cowboy and cattle ranch foreman named John "Hooker" Threlkeld. His nickname, Hooker, came from his ability to lasso, or“hook,” a calf on the first throw of his rope almost every time. The town was laid out in 1904
and the name has stuck. Don Fischer’s family came to Hooker about 1915 and started farming and ranching in the area. Don, who is now 80 years old, tells us he now lives in a house only two miles from where the house in which he was born used to be. A fourth generation of Fischer’s still works a very large farming operation just outside of town.
We got settled into our spot at Alice’s and called Don and Wanda to invite to our coach for cocktails later in the afternoon. They came over about 5:00 and we had cocktails and some great conversation.
Don loves to tell stories and talk about the history of Hooker and we really enjoyed learning about his life here. Later in the evening we went with them to a local restaurant on the main street of town. The restaurant is called the Hooker Soda Fountain and Grill and is decorated in a very 50's retro way with all kinds of memorabilia on the walls and counters. They also had a good menu with everything from hamburgers to steaks and Mexican food. Jackie and I both had rib eye steaks which were quite good. After dinner Don and Wanda took us on a driving tour of Hooker which included a huge amount of trivia and historical information about Hooker and it’s residents. We very much enjoyed the history lesson. Don and Wanda finally dropped us off at the coach about 9:00 and we crashed for the night.
Saturday, August 20th, we drove out to Don and Wanda’s house about 11:00 a.m. They live on a county road seven miles West of town. There are only a couple of houses on this road between their place and
the edge of town. Their closest neighbor is about three miles away and their house lies on a corner of a section of land (one square mile) that Don still owns. Although Don is now retired and no longer actively works on the farm, he is still a farmer at heart and never throws anything away. He proved that to us when he opened his garage and showed us a very nice 1958 Ford Thunderbird hardtop sitting in the back of garage. It is pink with a white top and is 100 percent intact. It would still take a lot of work to restore since it has been sitting in the garage for over 20 years and the interior leather and fabric would be rotted and dried out, but there is no body damage, all the chrome and glass are there and even the paint appears to be in good shape. Needless to say, as a car guy, I was awestruck that he had such a jewel in his garage and didn’t seem to have any idea what he was going to do with it. 1958 was the first year for the four seat Thunderbird and the car is gorgeous. I envy whatever relative eventually gets that car.
Don and Wanda then proceeded to take us on a five hour tour of the surrounding area, including the two Fischer family operations. We also stopped at the Hitch Feedlot, which is the largest cattle feedlot in the area with a capacity of some 80,000 head. Since he knows everyone in the area we were able to go inside the control room of the feed mill where they mix their
feed and also in the equipment room to look at the grinding machines and the grain elevators, sorters and mixers. It was a fascinating tour. The entire time we were driving around looking at various parts of the operation Don was explaining everything in great detail. The two family operations were typical farm lots with dozens of machines, tractors, trucks, trailers and other equipment parked all over the place.
As I said before, farmers never throw anything out, including old equipment. There was a 1950 and a 1952 Ford pickup parked on the lot, just sitting there - great candidates for restoration. There was even a WW-II era truck that they use as a winch truck. It is amazing the amount of money that farmers and ranchers have invested in equipment. We saw easily several million dollars worth of equipment during our tour of the two operations.
We also stopped for lunch and again went into the Hooker Soda Fountain. Lunch was also pretty good and I bought a Hooker Car Show tee shirt. Had to have something from Hooker, Oklahoma. We then went to the Hooker Chamber of Commerce gift shop and found a whole collection of Hooker tee shirts.
Hooker has made the best of their name and everyone who lives there calls themselves a Hooker. They have a tee shirt at the shop that said “Hooker, Oklahoma” on the front and “A Location, Not a Vocation” on the back. Very funny. I did buy another Hooker tee shirt there, but not that one. I bought one that has a replica of the famous Las Vegas welcome sign with the slogan “what happens in Hooker, stays in Hooker” lettered underneath. Very funny shirt. We then went back to our driving tour of the area.
After several hours of touring we went back to the Fischer house where we sat and talked for a little while before we left. We left their house about 4:30 and decided that we would drive to Liberal, Kansas to visit the Elks Lodge. We knew that they were open on Saturday, but not on Sunday or Monday, so this might be our only opportunity to visit there. Liberal is only 20 miles Northeast of Hooker on Highway 54. There is also an Elks Lodge in Guymon, Oklahoma, 20 miles Southwest of Hooker, which is the lodge Don has belonged to for many years. However, that lodge is only open sporadically and Don had called and found that they would not be open today. We arrived at the Liberal Elks Lodge about 5:30 and found a very nice building with a very pretty bar. There were a lot of people in the lodge, but they were all in the back room playing in a Texas Hold’em poker tournament. There were only a few people in the bar, but they were all very friendly. We had a cocktail and talked to the bartender about lodge pins, but she was unable to locate any.
While we were sitting at the bar enjoying our cocktail, we made the decision that we were going to extend our stay in Hooker a couple of days to give us time to explore and do some geocaching on our own. While we have enjoyed our time with Don and Wanda, and learned a lot, we also wanted to do some caching and spend some time exploring on our own. Since Alice’s is so inexpensive, and we had no set schedule for a couple of weeks, we saw no reason not to stay for another couple days. We told the bartender that we would be back to the lodge on Tuesday and asked if she would try to find someone who might know where we could get a lodge pin. After our cocktail we drove back to Hooker and stayed in the coach for the rest of the evening.
Sunday, August 21st, we got up and left the coach a little before 11:00 and went to church. As our regular readers will know, we are not regular church goers, but Don and Wanda had invited us to go to church with them and we thought that was very nice of them and agreed to meet them there. They attend the United Methodist Church, which is in the middle of town, just a few blocks from our RV park. It was a very pretty church, built in the early 1950's, and we were welcomed by everyone in the congregation. Don and Wanda were very gracious to introduce us to everyone and we felt very welcome. The service was very nice and the pastor’s sermon was based around his recent trip to the Holy Land and was accompanied by pictures projected on a large screen. Very interesting and reminiscent of a similar trip made by Father Ned and Reverend Kathy, the priests in our church back in Indio. They went to the Holy Land several years ago and told many of the same stories.
After the church service we went back to the coach and changed clothes so we could go geocaching later. We then followed Don and Wanda back to Guymon for lunch. We were joined by Wanda’s son and daughter in law, Doug and Diana Brown. They were very nice people, just a little younger than us. We also enjoyed the fact that they had done a little geocaching and were very familiar with the hobby. They helped us explain the sport to Don and Wanda. After a good lunch at a local Chinese place, the six of us went to a park a few blocks away to find a geocache so as to be able to show Don and Wanda what we did in our spare time. After finding that cache we said bye to everyone and went off on our own for some caching in Guymon. We ended up with a total of six new finds. These were our first caches found in Oklahoma. Yea, another new state for our stats. We stopped at six and headed home because it was getting close to happy hour and it was getting hot. It was only about 93 degrees, but the humidity was up and it was pretty uncomfortable. We drove back to Hooker and settled into the coach for the rest of the night.
Monday, August 22nd, woke up to another muggy morning with a promise of temperatures over 100. We did, indeed, extend our stay and I wrote another check to Alice for $20 for two more nights. We went out after lunch to do some more geocaching in the area. When I say area, in this case, I mean a fairly large area. The caches were concentrated in four different areas which formed an almost perfect square about 16 miles on a side. We ended up driving about 70 miles total for the day to find eleven caches with no DNFs. We did several from one series put out by a local cacher that had a cemetery theme. All of the caches were hidden in local cemeteries, hanging from tree branches so one did not have to poke around near any grave sites. Like many areas in middle America, this area is dotted with small cemeteries. One we went to for a cache was the Lee family cemetery.
It was on the corner of a large farm field at the intersection of two dirt roads. It had a sign that said “Lee Cemetery” and about a dozen graves, all of which had Lee in the name on the tombstone. It clearly appeared to be just a part of the family farm set aside for a graveyard. For each of the caches the guy that put out the caches made up a photo for the web page that showed a black and white photo of the cemetery along with some ghosts. Pretty cool pictures.
We also found several caches around an area known as Optima Lake. The lake was built in 1978 by the Army Corps of Engineers, but the water level never reached more than 5 percent of capacity because of extreme
drought and evaporation in the area and the pumping of groundwater which decimated the flow of the Beaver River. Today there is no water whatsoever in the “lake” and the locals jokingly refer to it as the “water-free lake.” There was a park here at one time that included approximately 3400 acres of land along with approximately 4300 acres of Federal Wildlife Refuge. There was a campground at one time, along with several boat ramps and other recreation sites. 
There are paved asphalt roads throughout the park, however, the roads are nearly grown over with grass and weeds since the park has been effectively abandoned. About the only people who come into the area now are vandals out to finish destroying what little infrastructure is left, or geocachers looking for some of the three dozen geocaches hidden in or near the park.
After our geocaching we headed back to the coach for the rest of the evening. The temperature on the car thermometer was at 100 or higher for most of the afternoon, hitting a high of 103. However, because of the stiff breeze, it wasn’t too uncomfortable for caching and we had a good afternoon.
Tuesday, August 23rd, we left the coach at about 11:30 and went into downtown Hooker to have lunch with Don and Wanda. Since we will be leaving Hooker tomorrow this would be our last chance to spend some time with them. We again went to the Soda Fountain, which has really good food. We had a great lunch and a great visit with our friends. After lunch we drove 20 miles Northeast to Liberal, Kansas to take in the sights and do some geocaching. Our first stop was
Dorothy’s House and the Seward County Historical Museum. Dorothy’s House is actually an old, authentic early 1900's Kansas farm house. It has been tweaked a little to resemble as much as possible the house shown in the movie. It is also furnished with antique furniture authentic to the era. Next door to the house is a playground for kids, called “The Mutchkin Playground” and a large tin building that contains a diorama type display called the “Land of Oz” which is based on the original movie, Wizard of Oz. The Seward County Historical Museum is in an old Liberal mansion that was donated to the society and then moved from another part of town 
to the city owned lot. The museum has a lot of very nice displays outlining the history of Southern Kansas. There is also a couple train cars on display next to the museum. They are a steam operated crane and equipment car used back in the early 1900's by the Rock Island Line for track maintenance.
The historical museum is free and we spent about a half hour going through the displays. The tour of the inside of Dorothy’s House and the Land of Oz has a charge and we didn’t bother with that. After touring the museum and taking some pictures of Dorothy’s House we found the geocache that was hidden on one of the train cars.
As we were getting ready to leave Dorothy’s House to head over to the Liberal Air Museum we had a bit of a scare. As I was pulling out of the parking space we heard a horrible, loud screeching sound coming from the front of the Jeep. I looked around the wheels and tried to figure out what it was, but didn’t have much luck. It seemed to be coming from the left front wheel. Any movement of the wheel would start the screeching noise and it seemed key to movement of the wheel. I thought maybe a brake pad had come loose. Jackie had noticed that we passed a Dodge/Jeep dealer on the main street of Liberal, just a couple blocks from the museum, so I headed over there, hoping I wasn’t making something worse. I managed to get the service manager to come out and look at the wheel and listen to the sound. He wasn’t able to come up with anything either, other than to say he thought maybe the brakes were bad. He also told us that he could not get us in today, even to look at the problem. Even after we told him that we were staying 20 miles away and were just visiting the area. Great customer service. He suggested we go down the street to a local garage called “Safety Lane” and maybe they could help us. We drove the additional two blocks and found a small two bay garage. I checked with the guy inside and explained our situation. He said he could get us in to have a look in about a half hour, so we parked the car and waited. It actually took about 15 minutes and his mechanic put the Jeep up on the rack and took off the left front wheel. I walked out there as he was looking around at the brakes. He then took a large screwdriver, pried the brake caliper back just a little and took out a pea sized piece of gravel that had become wedged between the caliper and the wheel. He said, “there’s your problem” and put the wheel back on. No more noise. Great relief. To top it off, when I asked how much, he said, “don’t worry about it.” That’s customer service. I tipped they guy $10 and we were on our way. Anyone who reads this blog and finds themselves in need of mechanical assistance anywhere near Liberal, Kansas, remember The Safety Zone. They made my day.
With the car now once again quiet, we drove over to the Mid-America Air Museum adjacent to the Liberal airport. The museum is in a large hanger that we found out had once been an Beech Aircraft factory.
They charge a modest fee that allows you to wander through the dozens of aircraft that they have on display, most of which are inside the hanger and out of the sun and heat. The museum has over 100 aircraft and is supposed to be the fifth largest in the country. The interesting thing about it is that it emphasizes private aviation more so than military. Probably 70 percent of the aircraft are private planes 
of various vintage, including a couple Beechcraft planes made in the actual hanger in which they are now on display. The museum does have some military planes, notably a pristine F-4U Corsair in Marine paint with VMA-214 numbers. VMA-214 was, and still is, the Marine Corps attack squadron made famous as the Black Sheep. Col. Greg “Pappy” Boyington won the Medal of Honor commanding and flying with the Black Sheep in the Pacific during WW-II. There was also a 70's television show called Baa Baa Blacksheep based on his exploits during the war.
There is also a fully restored North American B-25 Mitchell bomber and a Grumman TBM-3 Avenger dive bomber. Outside on the tarmac are a variety of unrestored more modern military jets, including a nice Chance-Vought F-8B Crusader in Marine Corps paint. This is the same type of aircraft that I worked
on in the mid 1960's during my tour with the Marine Corps. We spent over an hour walking through the hanger and admiring the planes. I love air museums. We also learned that back during WW-II this entire airfield, which is now the Liberal Airport, was Liberal Army Airfield and was a B-24 training base. The museum had a big display with dozens of pictures from back when it was a military base. A very interesting place to tour, especially if you have a fondness for airplanes.
Another interesting display was a Beech Bonanza that was restored and painted to look like the plane in which Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in the early morning
hours of February 3, 1959. Fittingly, the display was titled "The Day The Music Died" in tribute to the Don McLean song, "American Pie." The display included a replica 50's soda fountain and other memorabilia from the era. A very nice tribute to a tragic event.
After looking at the planes we did a little more geocaching in Liberal. We found a total of six caches, with two DNFs, before we decided it was too hot. It was well over 100 degrees. About 5:00 we went back to the Liberal Elks Lodge with hopes that the bartender we talked to on Saturday would have found a lodge pin. No such luck. We did enjoy our visit, however, as there was a new, very friendly bartender, and a number of pretty interesting members in the bar. We had a couple of drinks before getting back on the road headed for Hooker again.
We finally got home about 7:00 or so and walked into the coach to find that it was stifling hot, well over 107 degrees. Smokey the cat met us at the door with his tongue hanging out. Turns out the main breaker in the park controlling our power pedestal had tripped. I reset it and got the air conditioners going again, but it was a couple of hours before the temperatures finally came back down to something close to comfortable. We also found that we had been invaded by ants. Actually, a skirmish, since they were only down by the cat’s food, but it was still annoying, especially since it was so hot inside the coach. I got the ant spray out, killed the ones inside and found their entry point, putting an end to their invasion. What a day! Thought we broke the car, thought we killed the cat, and thought we lost the coach to the ants. Yikes. But, everything turned out fine on all fronts and we just relaxed the rest of the evening.
Wednesday, August 24th, we packed up the coach and finally left Hooker, Oklahoma, after a great five day visit. Jackie called Don and Wanda one last time to say goodbye as we were driving out of town. We headed Northeast, destination Dodge City, Kansas, about 100 miles away. We stopped just before the Kansas border to top off the fuel tanks since we had noticed that
fuel was more expensive in Kansas than it was in Oklahoma. We got into Dodge City about noon and got settled into the Gunsmoke RV Park. After getting set up we decided to just relax the rest of the day and not go anywhere.
We will be here in Dodge City for about three days before moving on through the Kansas prairie, but I thought this would be an excellent place to stop this chapter and get it published. I will put out another chapter in a week or so when we reach Colorado again. Until the next time, remember what Richard Carlson advised in his book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. When you are facing an issue or problem, ask yourself this question: "Will this matter a year from now?" Probably not. See ya’ soon.
