Leaving Branson, heading to Kansas/Oklahoma

On Thursday, we left Branson on our way west -- we planned to stop in Kansas for the night to "collect" an additional state.

On the way out of town, Carl got a picture of a large cross ("Images at the Cross") that stands up on a hill (https://imagesatthecross.org/about/).

On the way, we decided we should fuel up as we weren't sure whether we would be boondocking or have electric hookups for the night. We looked and saw on our "Open Roads" app that there were two TAs at the exit for Mount Vernon, with quite a price difference between them...

The one south of I-44 was listed as "Ozarks Travel Center"...

... but when we tried looking at the satellite view on Google Maps (we try to always look at satellite view to try to determine the location of the truck entrance), it looked like an open field. Uh oh, we don't want to try to take Gracie someplace that is under construction... so as we got to the exit, we watched carefully to make sure that there was a TA sign to the south of the highway. There was, so we went that way...

Thankfully there was a big sign pointing out the truck entrance!

There was also a huge directional obelisk...

... with directional information on each of its sides -- this was on the south side showing cities east of us.

The east side showing cities north of us (Carl is pointing out that Chicago is listed there!).

Carl thought that the obelisk might be in the wrong spot and was trying to move it a few feet west...

The cities to the west of us

... and the cities south of us -- Dallas is on there! (We had to do a shot with me very close to the camera and Carl kneeling on the ground...

... this gives a better view of how large the obelisk is!)

This was a HUGE, clean, beautiful, brand-new TA (we have come to expect to have to straddle or avoid huge potholes at TA stations). It was really nice! I guess they are providing a lower price to fleet programs to encourage trucks to come to this TA rather than the TA Express that is north of the highway.

We continued west -- we still needed to sleep in Kansas for a night to be able to "count" it as a visited state... I had read on a couple of RV tools that Downstream Casino and Resort had a Truck and RV parking lot, but the information was confusing - there was also mention of an RV Park, and that there were hookups, but they were free if you had a card from the casino... confusing... We decided to check it out...

The satellite view was intriguing (find it here) -- the area I marked with the red arrow is the Truck and RV parking, over to the left side (I drew a blue arrow) appears to be a gravel parking lot that is crossed by the Kansas/Oklahoma border, and on the right side is a location where the borders of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri all meet! Just think, if we took Gracie there, we could collect all three states in one night's sleep!

We got to the Truck and RV parking and found that there were some parking spaces lined out for trucks (where we could have parked if we did not want to hook up to electricity, but it would have been difficult to extend our slide outs without extending into another vehicle's spot), and then there were RV hookup sites with water and electric. We took one of those.

In front of Gracie was a fenced area -- Carl took a picture of this sign...

... and of the bison beyond.

A look back at Gracie and the hotel buildings beyond...

... and at more of the bison in the field.

From what I had read, you needed to have a "Welcome" players card at the casino to stay in this RV lot for free -- we asked a fellow at another RV parked, and he confirmed that we could get a players card at the casino and then go to the gift shop to register for the night.

We walked "over the border" (no passports required!) to Oklahoma to the casino.

We asked a fellow at the door where we could get a Welcome card and he directed us to a services desk where a young lady got a card for Carl (only one of us needed to get one). The young lady told us that we could activate it at a machine to the side, so we did that and the casino put $7 of value on the card, and there was another game we could play (pick up a duck) which provided $5 of value. We went to the gift shop and told them that we wanted to register and they took care of it with no problem. Free night stay - check!