Newton KS – Two week break.

Recent blogs I have said I wish we could have a decent train run as recently they have been fairly short ones. Well I soon began to think 'be careful what you wish for' as we heard a rumour that it would be a 5 day train run. Luckily this wasn't the case and it was just a two day run. Long enough for a long water stop in Kansas though for the animals (and humans) to stretch their legs.



The circus has a two week break just before the summer and people generally go home or go on holiday somewhere. Of course there are always exceptions to this, like the train crew, animal crew and the pie car that still work as some things still need to be done in a place this large even without a show going on. Going home for three of us would have been really expensive and there was nowhere we wanted to pay to go in the US that we hadn't already been to or were going to. We thought about Canada or South America but in the end decided it would be more relaxing doing nothing. Tweedy very rarely does 'nothing' and we thought it might be a nice change.

So we heard it once again 'we are parked in the middle of nowhere' and for 3 weeks with no way of getting about any where. We though we would have to hire a car for at least a bit of the time here. Once again though we were happy to find we were not in fact in the middle of nowhere but actually it was a really nice little town with really nice friendly locals. Being a small town in the middle of nowhere though it was very plain who was not a local, even without the red hair. The first couple of weeks when most people were not here was quite strange. It was a very quiet circus town.



There was a nice little High Street that you could walk easily and had pretty much everything we needed. There was a really nice health food shop called Prairie Harvest. They sold a great date slice which may not sound a big deal but I have had cravings for date slice recently and this one really hit the spot. There were antique stores and thrift stores galore to rummage around in, and find a bargain and at the end of the High Street was a Dillons grocery store, very handy. You could even walk to Walmart if you could be bothered. There was even an Amtrak right next to our train, though the only Amtrak trains were 3.30AM. Yes I typed that correctly AM!

We joined the video store and made good use of the first month half price offer and all the free kids movies and educational movies. We often left the store with about 5 DVD's and it only cost us 54c.

Willow was completely in her element here, I have never been anywhere with so many play parks. It seemed every few blocks there was another one. We could even see a small one out the train window. We visited a lot of them.

There was a really good bar very close to the train called The Red Dawg which quite a few people went to. I didn't actually go to the bar but did meet the owner who was a really nice guy called Frank. He took us to East lake one day which was lots of fun and we hung out with his family who were all really nice. We went back to the lake a few times and had fun swimming and played about on the dingy which we had bought from the thrift store for $10.



We also used it on another lake which wasn't as nice as East Lake (you certainly wouldn't swim in it) but it was walking distance from the train and next to 3 large play parks.



Very close to the train was a small indoor pool which Tweedy and Willow went to a few times but this was really only while we waited for the outdoor pool to open on Memorial Day. The outdoor pool was better than the indoor one. There was a main pool and a kiddie pool and it had slides and diving boards, which the Russians all made use of to show off their acrobatic skills.



With the lakes and swimming pools we did a lot of water stuff which was great as it was so hot but that didn't stop water fights. Willows highlight of the water fight though was when two little puppies appeared and attacked the water balloons.

We could see the Library out our train window and Willow went lots to read and use the computers to play games. It was a nice library with a really big children's section but the staff weren't that friendly. They didn't do anything wrong but then you could say they didn't do anything right either. Having spent a lot of time visiting library's with Willow that we are not members of, both here in the US and in the UK I have got use to the staff being really friendly and helpful to us even though we are from out of town. You just didn't feel the love here.

The train being parked right next to the main tracks at a cross road is a real pain as the trains sound there horns when they cross the road as a warning and it is really, really loud and it is all day and all night. You sort of get use to it but every now and then one will wake you. One sight out the window here which was pretty good was a bunch of planes being taken somewhere on a train.



Oh and we had Alex's keys to his room as we were magic dove sitting. Which meant we had an entertainment room and somewhere to blow up the dingy. We also filled it with balloons before he came home.