La Quinta Inns & Suites Dodge Dodge City

Short ride today into Dodge City 55 miles into the wind but we had a good pace line and made short work of it. The headlines in the local "Gazette" was the wheat harvest is almost in. We saw the giant combines thrashing through the fields and the corn is about half up for as far as you could see. After the first SAG stop we entered the town of Cimarron which was made famous by Oprah on her tour of middle ...

... to spend as much time in the museum as possible because she avoided being headline news in the local paper (again !) it seems a visitor from outside the US to Dodge warrents a story in the local paper but if they come back a second time it could be headline news !! So naturally we milked the sightseeing as much as possible and turned up at her Dad's just in time for us to go out for dinner and ...

... miles. We arrived at Dodge City past the Cemetery to see a sign for Fort Dodge. Now a veteran's home and living space after the Fort was abandoned by the US Military, the Kansas State took it over to provide a place for veterans to live. We walked around this place to view some of the old buildings, the museum was closed for renovations, (Must be our day to discover closures) but we did gain some insight from a cleaner that was a local, he filled us in a little about ...

... my tongue starts to gag with conflict - what is the meat taste with oatmeal consistency? I swallow and smell closely. Dang that smells like sausage. The clerk has returned to the desk in this lobby so I ask what is this in the pot? She smiles, "Why it's gravy for your biscuits, ma'am." Wow. I discreetly bin the bowl and finish the biscuit with jelly. I know if I spent more time here I'd learn so much more.

... in the fields. This would be the place to have acres of windmills. In Dodge, the motel is OK and just a couple of blocks away I finally had a switch from regular fare at a Thai restaurant that was welcome, tasty relief. A shower, aspirin and the Sox game while I roll those Chinese balls to relax my hands is the order for the evening.

... at walmart overnight but it really was too windy and too hot. Steve sniffed out the city fairground/ rodeo grounds which often have a camping area that is not generally advertised as one. We found someone there who looks after the grounds who lives in an RV. She was lovely and charged us $15 for a site with power and we also had access to the showers etc. not posh but great for our needs. It also meant that we could run our air ...

Why I ask you.... WHY? I know the railroad is the bloodline of America but why do motels, both the cheapies and the flash ones, insisit on being so close to railway lines. Result not much sleep last night due to passing freight trains which took a minimum of 5 minutes to pass, occassionally shaking the bed. On the plus side they didn't blast their horns, unlike the ones we have ...

I left Meade today and I am sitting in the truck at a gas station... My eyes burn. I couldn't keep myself from actually crying when it came time to leave... I tried to be strong, but you know, it's not easy telling these 4 kids who i have watched grow up these past years goodbye. I love my nieces and nephew. and when it got to telling the last one, Gage, goodbye, I lost ...

... every night. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the excessive number of dead cattle I saw on the way in. (eek!) I did the tourist thing on the last afternoon there, and would highly recommend the tour. I'm not sure there is enough in Dodge to justify flying several hours, but if you are in the area, it is pretty good.

... You can see a couple of wide depressions crossing over the area. We crossed into Rocky Mountain Time Zone just before getting into Colorado, even though my cell phone didn't recognize it until we were well into Colorado. We came under some clouds and could see in the distance lightening and rain. The wind kicked up so much, I thought that there may have been a tornado nearby. The news didn't say anything about it ...