Amy's Rear View Mirror

Melvern Lake, Kansas - OZ 6

June 2003

 
The GTG was absolutely a blast! The weather was perfect ... warm, sunny, breezy and dry. Jean did a great job on our name tags. The Outlet at Melvern Lake is a gorgeous campground. It was really great to visit with everyone. Two days wasn't long enough. Here are the details:

Friday
I got up at 4 AM so I could be at the airport by 5:30 AM to catch my flight. I had time to grab a high priced bagel and cream cheese at the airport before boarding and boy was I glad I did! All I got on either leg of my flight was a 1/2 oz bag of pretzels and a cup of juice. My connection was in Dallas and as soon as I got to the connecting gate they were already boarding my group number, so I walked right on the plane. I knew it would be close, but didn't expect it to be that close. Then they had the plane sit on the tarmack for about 45 minutes because of the storm passing through.

I landed in Kansas City about 1 hour late. But that gave Peggy time to find the car rental place and pick up our car. I had just walked out of the terminal to look to see how to get to the car rental place and Peggy pulled up to the curb. What great timing!

We had a 2 hr drive to the campground, gabbing all the way, and arrived around 5 PM. We got settled and then said our hellos to everyone ... so many hugs! At 7 PM we had an appetizer/dessert potluck. It was great food as usual. We spent the evening at our gathering spot (between Shari's site and the Stamp's site) just chatting away, catching up and telling old stories ... the Axeman, the Colorado Stripper and Tom told his sewer story from last year. Lynn & Tom played their dulcimers for everyone.

When we went in for the night Lynn showed me how to change the strings on my dulcimer.

Saturday

Bill brought sausage gravy and biscuits for everyone for breakfast. A few others provided jam/jelly, orange juice and fresh fruit. It was really good. After everyone was finished eating Peggy presented Michael with a present for his 50th birthday ... a Superman T-shirt with the number 50 inside the logo.

Then we sat around visiting some more. Around lunch time the ladies decided to go to the truck stop ... some wanted to download email, others wanted to buy postcards that had Kansas on them, and others just went along for the ride. On our way out, Tom & George asked where we were going. Lynn said to the truck stop to find a real man. George asked what we'd do with a real man if we found one. We told him not to worry about that. Well, while we were there we saw this guy ... he must have been 6'6" ... in full cowboy leather: hat, jacket, chaps, boots with spurs. It took some doing, but I finally got a picture of him. We took it back to the campground and showed the guys that we DID find a real man. LOL They're probably afraid to let us galavant around town now. <g>

We spent the afternoon with more visiting until people had to start cooking for the potluck. Tonight was the big potluck ... we had salads, entrees, side dishes, desserts ... 3 tables worth. All the food was fantastic as usual and we ate more than we should have.

After everything was cleaned up we presented Tom with his surprise based on the sewer story that happened at OZ last year. Jane started everything out by saying that Tom only thought that no one saw what happened last year, but that wasn't true. And we had the shirt he had thrown away. (Shari did such a great job creating this sewer t-shirt.) Shari had Tom put the shirt on while the rest of us gathered around him and Wayne, the toilet paper cheerleader, came out from hiding. Then we broke out into this little rap that we performed for Tom.

I think everyone enjoyed our presentation. Once everything calmed down we played the dulcimers. I played several songs with Lynn and Tom. And then we spent the rest of the evening gabbing.

Sunday

We spent most of the day hanging out in the campground visiting with everyone. At 2 PM we all went to the truck stop to take the guys out to eat for Father's Day. Most of us are leaving tomorrow so this evening was our last chance to hang out together.

Monday

We got up early and were ready at 7 AM to head for the airport to go home. It was so hard to say good-bye to everyone. OZ will continue ... we've decided that much. The flight home went smoothly. I didn't have to change planes but we did stop in Dallas. I got home around 3 PM and Lady was absolutely thrilled to see me. I missed her too.

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