A Day Night Brightener

Denny and I had been touring the Oklahoma History Center (a post for another day) when I received a telephone call from the RV service center. They had finished replacing the roller assembly under the kitchen slideout and had been able to do it without removing the entire slideout. The bad news was that to replace the vinyl flooring as we had requested they would have to remove the entire slide (yes, that had been discussed and pre-arranged) but now they were telling me that to remove the slideout and lay the flooring would take an additional eight to ten days. WHAT?????? The alternative would be to see if the flooring installer could splice in a new section that would stay in place despite the fact that the kitchen slideout would be pulled in and out much more frequently than the normal weekend user of a RV would do. Or we could just take the rig to someplace warmer and have THEM pull out the slideout, which would still mean removing all the cabinets from the slideout, as well as the TV, the stove, the microwave, the refrigerator, blah, blah, blah. Which is not how it was explained to us in the first place. Long story short, we said we'd go for the splice method of repair. At which point the service manager told me he'd tell the installer when the man arrived to confirm whether or not he really could splice the flooring. Which was the last we heard from him until they closed at 5:30 PM to say that the splicing could be done if that's what we wanted. Yes, that's what we want. Okay, he'll call the installer first thing Friday morning to get him to come out and work on the floor. AAARRRGGGGHHHH. All of this dinking around is why we've been here two weeks waiting for something to happen.

After my dinner fiasco in which the rental cabin's oven did not work properly, thus leaving me with a sadly undercooked pork tenderloin, I was ready to have my spirits raised. I asked Denny to drive us to Yukon Oklahoma for their Christmas in the Park light show; four million lights and about 360 light displays, some of which are animated. Weekends there are horse drawn carriage rides and on nights the weather permits there is also a "train" ride through the park. The lights are set up in three separate city parks; the Yukon City Park, Freedom Trail Park and Chisholm Trail Park. There is no entrance fee for any of the three parks, although at the Yukon City park and Chisholm Trail park there are volunteers (and very friendly and welcoming ones, I might add) to graciously accept any donations. Entering any of the three parks you are bombarded with lights and moving figures on all sides of you and even in the trees (make note of Santa in the flying saucer in the collage below) as well as glassed in picture boxes with winter and Christmas scenes, Nativity sets, light displays donated in memory of loved ones, trees that dance to Christmas music on stations 107.1 and 106.1 and more. You can drive through the parks but the nice thing is that you can also park your vehicle and walk the 2 miles of trails through the parks to see the lights and displays "up close and personal". The city of Yukon has done a wonderful job of creating a fantasy-land of lights and I left smiling and singing along with the Christmas carols playing on the radio. It was just what the doctor ordered.