On The Meandering Road: July 3, 2015

It was overcast again. We wanted to do a quick sightseeing in and out of Sedalia early before checking out of the campground by 11 am.

First trip was to survey the area west of Sedalia on US 50 to see if there is a boondocking site we can park at for tonight. There was a long line of train cars with cool/eye popping graffiti. This was the first time we saw so many cars with wonderful artwork.

We did not see any available place to park our Lil’ Home (LH) and it was a bit further away from Sedalia than we would have liked and would not feel safe to leave the LH alone for several hours.

We turned around and went east on 50 back to Sedalia and then out of the town to check out some barns that we saw yesterday. We found one that is really neat. An abandoned, big barn with two silos that are covered with vines and greenery. There was a road leading to it and Edith got out of the car, walked carefully because of low lying areas that are filled with water. Since we did not take along the tripod she was not able to take multiple exposures for HDR effects. Mind you, she took so so many pictures of the barn from different angles. It was still overcast, so the background did not look appealing, but that was the best Edith could get pictures of.

On way back to the town there is an antique/flea market store and across from it is another abandoned barn, but there is a "No Trespassing" sign. Edith was able to get a shot of it, but not at close range.

While Edith was busy shooting pictures Erwin went inside the antique store and was hoping to find some paperbacks. Realizing that there is not much time to dillydally in the store before we go back to the campground and check out at 11 we hurriedly left the area.

After checking out of the campground we turned left on W. Main St, then right on Thompson Road to park the LH at a warehouse site that is vacant. The sun finally peeked out and the blue sky appeared. Erwin said to Edith “We need to go back and take more pictures of the barn with two silos”. And we went back there.

The background looked much better for the barn. We realized that someone had driven on the property after we left, leaving tire marks on the wet surface. Edith had to tiptoe among the wet tall grass because of water puddles. The barn was a hidden gem! It is easily seen from US 50, but you will need to cross the railroad tracks and turn left shortly after.

Going back to Sedalia we looked around downtown and some churches nearby. There were two interesting looking churches. Edith wanted to go take a look inside the churches, but they were closed. There are lots of old buildings in downtown and one of them is a historic Hotel Bothwell. We took a peek inside the hotel and it is very lovely, has lots of old furniture and old-fashioned telephone booths.

First United Methodist Church

Old Baker Hotel

Hotel Bothwell
It was built in 1927

The lounge inside Hotel Bothwell

Listening for head noises?

Across the hotel is a courthouse and there are several statues around it. One of them is a replica Statue of Liberty, of course on a much smaller scale!

Trying to ride a bike that goes nowhere!

We wanted to check out Sedalia Katy Depot, which was built in 1896 to be a fully functional railroad station. It is now Sedalia's official welcome center and has the railroad heritage exhibits. This is the place where there is a trailhead to the Katy Trail State Park.

"Syncopated Rhythm Piano" sculpture - The piano celebrates the ragtime heritage of Sedalia
See all the sounds coming out of Erwin's mouth?

We were worried about not finding a good place to park overnight. After moving the LH, we went to check out the fairgrounds to see if there is a place to park there. Saw a cop and stopped to ask questions and he told us that there is a convention going on in Building #3 and told us how to get there. Off we went and upon arriving found out that there was a Passport America Rally going on. We are members of that camping club and didn't know about the rally. We entered and registered and the hostess asked if we had a reservation. Nope! Are we members? Yup! Would we like to sign up? Yup, but how much? We had already missed 2 whole days of the Rally so she gave us a discounted price that included 2 nights with full hook-ups and 3 meals, ice cream social that afternoon, cake social next day. Sounded good to us so we signed up. There were several informative workshops that will be going on the next day about care and maintenance of our RVs. There were several booths selling parts, equipments and supplies for RVs. We bought a few things.

Ice cream social!

We went out to pick up our LH and bring it to the Fairgrounds to park. The site where we parked had electricity and water hookups. And we were near the tree that gives us a nice shade in the morning.

Afterwards we went to the Farmer's Market near the front entrance of the fairgrounds, took a look at all booths. We did not buy anything.

Pizza was served for supper. They must have ordered over 50 boxes of pizzas to feed Passport America members. We sat with two couples, one from Florida and the other from Texas.

There was a raffle drawing for prizes, but because we missed the first two days we were not eligible for drawings. After the drawing they had casino tables set up for us to play, but we were tired and decided to head back to our LH.