Don't know why, but I have been excited about going to Dodge City ever since I started planning my return trip to Oakland. I suppose it is due to all those Saturday afternoons sitting in the Uptown Theater at 42 nd and College in Indy watching the westerns. Ward Bond, John Wayne, Roy Rogers good times. My mother loved John Wayne so of course we all made fun and hated him and deservedly so for the most part. But he was a character actor that made a lot of movies.
He made the same movie twice about 40 years apart - Stage Coach. The first version, made sometime in the 1940's was I believe a John Ford movie. John Wayne made a second version about 30 years later. Bing Crosby played the alcoholic doctor in the second version. Dialog is about the same in both movies. They used many of the same film locations as well - Monument Valley and other locations around Four Corners. I wonder what the local Indians thought of all those movies being made showing them as the bad guys. I have read that some of them, when speaking in their native language during the filming, were actually making fun of the "white man". Too funny. The Four Corners area including Monument Valley is on the Navajo Reservation. Very ironic.
Later in my journey, I will go to Monument Valley where a lot of those Westerns were partially filmed. If you are young enough to remember those Saturday Westerns, Monument Valley will bring back those movies. It seems that they made movies all over the Southwest. There is a hotel just outside Moab that has a Hollywood museum where you can watch the movies and the commercials that have been made in this part of Utah. There are quite a few from what I am being told. Unfortunately I doubt I will get to go see that museum. But I will put it on the itinerary for the next trip.
Dodge City - you smell if before you see it - which is the case for many of the small towns in this part of Kansas. They have feedlots all over the area and a couple of large meat processing plants in the area as well. You can tell when you are approaching a small town in this part of Kansas if the wind is blowing in your face.
Before starting on our journey to Dodge City, I want to show you my abode. I actually slept in the tent for the first time in Lawrence, KS. I was supposed to sleep in it a couple of times going to Indy but the weather was always so bad or threatening to be bad, I would get a Kabin instead. I have included a picture of my home away from home.
Most of the KOA Kampgrounds name the streets of the kampground so that you can find your way if you arrive after the office is closed. To my surprise upon waking and heading to the shower, this KOA has named most of their streets with names that tie to the Wizard of Oz. It seems, Dorothy, that in fact we are in KANSAS. :)
Setting up the tent the night before was just miserable. It was dark and hot and humid. The insects were just going crazy with the fresh meat. The flashlight and the profuse perspiration just made the directions to the buffet all that much easier to find.
I finally had to sit , own and put the fan that I have for inside the tent, blow on me for 20 minutes just to cool off a bit. This was a harbinger of things to come. This was probably the coolest it would be for the next two days and it had to be 70 degrees at 11 PM. Since 70 degrees would be a hot day in Oakland, I was really feeling the heat.
While breaking down the tent the next morning, this little butterfly would from the car to the bottom of the tent I was rolling to my pants leg. The car is black, my pants were black that day and the tent bottom is dark gray. I wonder why the black color attracted the flutterby? There were some flowers near by and some small blooming weeds in the grass, but it chose to land on the dark color. One of those - hmmm, this is interesting, things.
The first stop of the day was to be Topeka to photo the State Capitol building. They had interesting statues on the grounds. The first one is dedicated to the Pioneer Women of Kansas - mom - that is always a good subject matter for a sculpture. Then my favorite, good ol' Abraham. There was no plaque of why they chose Abe, but it was still nice to see. And then finally, no not Dorothy, but the Statue of Liberty. The boy scouts or some other type of child social organization helped to raise the money. So we have Mom, Abe and the huddled masses represented - they certainly covered all the bases.
Kansas is not only using their Reinvest in America money on building and repairing roads, they are also repairing the Capitol Building.
What else happened in Topeka? Anyone? Take a guess - buzzzzzzzzzz, wrong. but thanks for playing - Topeka is the home of Brown vs The Board of Education. The school building - Monroe Elementary - is now a National Park site. They have an interesting museum and a terrific slide presentation in the school gymnasium. They do a masterful job on the case itself and the trials and tribulations of segregation. Now if they could just talk to the Mark Twain home museum...
On the way back to the Interstate I saw signs for the Overland Depot. In my mind that was a stagecoach, so what is another hour spent looking at America's West ward expansion. Buzzzzzzzzz, wrong again. It is the train depot for the Union Pacific Railroad.
An okay museum. I would have expected more railroad memorability. They had a large display of flags and a memorial to those who lost their lives in the course of battle. This display was the largest I have seen outside of Washington DC and was mostly flags, flags and more flags.
After having just left Brown vs The Board of Education where they did talk about it, I wanted to ask where the display was talking about the white and colored waiting rooms, but I didn't have time. I had little doggies to move so it was time to git along.
Since I was so far behind, I took the toll road to get to the south east part of Kansas. I was going to be cheap, but the toll road cuts across Kansas in a south east fashion so I spent the $6.50 and paid my toll and saved over an hour in windshield time.
Once off the toll road I was traveling down one of Kansas' state highways and came across this field of metal sculptures. Whimsy at its finest. Some of them had themes, some were named after people, which I think if you paid for it, the artist would make a sculpture and put your name on it. Of course I was there - but unfortunately the artist was not. Time to git along, them doggies is awaitin.
I have included the contact information if you are interested in a sculpture.
Finally! Made it to Dodge City! Missed the turn that the highway makes and passed one of the largest processing plants. By the size of the parking lot and loading dock, it processes one hellofaherd of cattle. But the smell makes the feedlots smell like Paris, glad I don't eat that stuff...
Dodge City - Boot Hill. The Dodge City Boot Hill is privately owned but worth price of admission. Unlike the Boot Hill in Tombstone, Arizona, which is free (or was many years ago). They also have a museum and a section that includes the Longbranch Saloon and a restaurant. They have a Gunsmoke Festival every year and some of the actors were going to attend this year's pageantry.
This is also the town of Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. Outside of the Boot Hill museum, the rest of the historical part of town is not worth seeing. Except that they have large medallions in the sidewalk spread out over the little downtown area. The medallions are for the famous, Errol Flynn - who played in the movie called "Dodge City" and Dennis Hopper who is a native of Dodge City; local people who have helped Dodge City become what it is today, and the infamous - Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday. The movie and TV actors have made these people larger than life, I wonder what they were really like?
Earlier in my travels I saw the 45th parallel in Montana. In Dodge City is a sign commemorating the 100th Meridian. Where the Arkansas River meets the 100th Meridian marks the corner of the Louisiana Purchase from France which Lewis met Clark in St. Lou to find a way to Oregon. Less than 6 degrees of separation between roast beef and Thomas Jefferson.
A couple of additional items for my friends at the phone company - the first public school in Dodge City is where the current telephone company building is located so they put up a plaque on the building.
One of the great things I am finding on this trip is actual stuff. Petrified dinosaur bones, Boot Hill grave sites, and now - actual wagon wheel markings on the prairie. Fantastic! Looking at the grass in the picture, about mid frame running top to bottom is some grass that looks gray, that is one indentation of where the the wagons heading west took the same route over the same ruts wagon train after wagon train. Just amazing that you can still make out the tracks. Living history.
Dodge City was an okay stop. But of course it is late and I head for the barn in Garden City, KS for the night. I will have a couple of more stops in Kansas before heading to Colorado. One is the Dalton Gang hideout. Very cool.
Until tomorrow, in those immortal words:
Happy Trails to you, until we meet again. Happy Trails to you, its crying time 'til then....
Thanks for tagging along cow pokes. See ya bright and early in the morning. We're burning daylight already....
Michael
No comments:
Post a Comment