Baxter Springs is a cute little town on route 66, and we really enjoyed our time there!
The town has the remnants of a fort. This is Fort Blair. 
Fort Blair was a garrison for housing soldiers who were guarding the military road that ran through here.
There is a lovely park here,
and it is within walking distance of the Baxter Springs Museum.
There is a Phillips 66 visitor’s center, where you can find info about the area, and route 66…
And while we were in Baxter Springs, we celebrated Daniel’s 13th birthday! I can’t believe he’s 13 either!!! It’s exciting – do you know what turning 13 means (no, it doesn’t mean he’s a teenager – we don’t do teenagers in this house! lol) – it means that in a year, from May 6th, he will be 14. That’s super exciting because at 14, he will be able to volunteer with Samaritan’s Purse! 
We took the volunteer’s pics by our favorite DR (disaster relief) unit pic ever…
They tell me they are friendlier to the homeowners 😉
and all I wanted was one nice, everyone smiling pic. Just one. And after we took a dozen ‘nice’ ones, I humored the kids and took a few fun ones.
Naturally the fun ones turned out better than the ‘nice’ ones. Not sure what that says about my tribe… 😉 
Anyway, after our week of volunteering was over, Vaughn took off for a few days and drove one of the SP trucks, pulling a shower unit, back to the Samaritan’s Purse headquarters. They flew him back to Joplin, which is just 12 miles from Baxter Springs, then we loaded up the next day and hit the road for Montana. We took 3 days to get back to MT, then just a couple of days later, Vaughn and Jake flew out to Alaska, where they are helping Samaritan’s Purse to build a staff bunkhouse at Operation Heal Our Patriots. Vaughn has been putting photos up on our TicknorTribe facebook page if you want to check them out! It’s always some sort of adventure around here.
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