Whatever happened to Kansas?

So I am back from my little vacation! I could have used a few more days...okay, who am I kidding???? I could have used a few more weeks! But at this point I took what I could get. I didn't hear from the person downtown so I THINK all went well with the application process. I will get an interview as all inner office applicants will so I am not going to be too excited about that. The real tension comes After the interview is over. Thanks to all you who sent well wishes!
Soooo... I won't bore you with an interminable Slideshow of MY FAMILY VACATION but it was a beautiful little spot to go, as Talei Loto of Musings of an Aspiring Scribe would call it, "Glamping in a Tent". And though I am not much of a camper and might hesitate to give it such a name, I felt that once you take champagne with you, you are no longer just camping, you are indeed GLAMPING!!! 
We hit the road early and  made our way to Kansas. WHY KANSAS you ask???? 
I was asking the same question!
After all I grew up in Kansas and I know very well that Kansas looks like this:

  miles and miles of it! Not exactly the scenic vistas and lovely peaks we live within hours from. And when your driving on the plains the joke becomes "Didn't we just pass this farm?" because it feels as though you keep passing the same place over and over, never getting anywhere. At any rate, once we got there, it quickly became obviously that we had fallen in
A HOLE IN KANSAS!!!

 Down we went to find blue skies, a lingering sunset over a scenic lake and canyon walls to view the horizons from. All quite picturesque and most definitely unKansasie.

We pitched our tents..

Did some hiking, swimming (the water was a trifle cold for me, which surprised me as the water in Kansas is usually warm in the summer!!!) and the kids went out on a little canoeing adventure...

Mo's son Aubrey is in front, girlfriend Nisa in back steering and my son in the middle 

We sat out at night and drank champagne (as all cultured campers do) and watched the dragonflies put on a show and (thank god!) keep the biting gnats off their delighted audience (me!- who also played the part of gnat meal- yikes!).

Then later we watched as a Great Horned Owl swooped down so quick and low under a tree, I was convinced it was a fox. Then he flew up into a tree and down onto a table in an attempt to catch something we couldn't spot but the night hunter most definitely had his great eye on dinner! And when the sky was finally filled with a canopy of stars and the last droplets of liquid gold were gone, we went to our tents to listen to the whistling wind and the night calls of the coyote until at last we fell asleep. It was like living in an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Oh and by the way... I have a surprise coming up on my blog which I am hoping everyone will enjoy. Keep your eye out as I don't post on regular day (although I don't really think that matters. Would you remember if I said I was going to post certain days? It seems like it would be hard to keep track anyway so I've never bothered to try. Let me know if you think it would be helpful!)

So how was your weekend?