The Proof is in the Paint - And Another Old West Cow Town

It's Monday (Aug 29th, 2016) and New Horizons is making good on fixing the bad paint job.  They got us in first thing, we should be out of here in a few days.  And that's good because we got a call from our Daughter saying that their house in the Grant Park section of Atlanta is going on the market and it looks like a quick sale.  The market is pretty hot in north Georgia and they are looking to get in on it and make a move out to the northern suburbs.  We are planning a route that will get us back to Georgia in time to help with the move.

We will drop back down through the Texas Panhandle and check in with John's mom one more time and then take less traveled roads south and east to Atlanta.  The quick, straight shot would be to take TX 287 to I-20 and just go, but that is a boring road trip.

But first we have one more stop in Kansas.  We are going to play a little bit and hit an old west tourist hot spot, Dodge City.  The paint job on the blow out repairs looks right this time and after nearly three weeks of being in a parking lot or metal building we are not dilly-dallying about getting packed up to go.  But getting a campground to stay in has been a bit of a challenge.  Options aren't too great and the one park, a private one, that has the hook ups we want and roads big enough for us to get through is run by one person that by all appearances is suffering from burn-out.  She might get us in, she might not.  We'll just have to show up and see.

Gunsmoke RV Park is on the western edge of Dodge City.  We wheeled in about three and a half hours after leaving Junction City.  The place was not exactly packed full, the high season was over.  It's September now and school is back in session with summer vacationers having all returned to their routines.  It's just us and a few other "senior" RV'ers.  But that didn't keep our campground manager from making us wait to check in.  I guess that putting incoming calls on hold was not an option because she took about five of them before acknowledging we were even there.  Eventually we got checked in.

Below is a picture of the pool from Gunsmoke RV Park's web site.  I can assure you it looked nothing like this.  There was no water in the pool and the deck around the pool was way more run down with lots of leaf litter and wind blown trash.

We pretty much had our choice of spots and were easily able to find a pull-thru with trees positioned away from our satellite dish.  Utilities are solid but we sure hope it does not rain because these dirt roads and grass sites will turn into a mud hole.

After setting up we drove around Dodge City a little to get the lay of the land and scope out what we want to do tomorrow.  Like all the other Kansas towns I've written about the last three weeks, this one is a cow town too.  But it is not as old as the others.  The first building to occupy the area known as the city today was not until 1871 and things didn't start forming up as an actual town until another year later.  But it came along early enough to be in the middle of the Indian Wars and have famous  old west characters such as Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday.

After our first night outside of a factory parking lot we were enjoying the smell of grass and not having to turn our rig over to somebody at the crack of dawn.  But we want to get to town and catch the first trolley tour of the day.

It's a brisk morning, the summer heat has finally broken.  At least for this morning.  The enclosed trolley is perfect for our 90 minute narrated tour.  Our driver/narrator wound his way through the old part of the town and went all the way out to Fort Dodge and then to the stock yards.

Just for the tourists they keep a pasture stocked with Longhorns.

Having grown up in the panhandle of Texas we were all too familiar with feed
lots, but listening to other occupants on our trolley it was clear that this was a revelation to many.

 Back in town, the city has recreated the old main street of 1870's Dodge City.  It was closed for the season now but just a couple weeks earlier it was open with a fully functioning mercantile shop, ice cream parlor, cigar shop and the setting for quick-draw gunfights.  The only thing open now is the tall building on the far left, Boot Hill Museum (and gift shop).

Cyndee is not going to let a gift shop get by without being shopped so in we went where we were able to find a sew-on patch for our travel blanket.  We've been fairly consistent with finding patches and our blanket is getting pretty full.  Cyndee's sewing machine is a little worse for the wear after working on those thick patches.  She's going to have to start sewing them by hand because the machine just isn't getting it done anymore.

This picture of our travel blanket was taken in 2014.
It is practically solid with patches now.  Trying to decide if putting
patches on other side is an option.

In 1929, at the new city hall, a statue of a cowboy was erected to honor what all the cowboys had done to make Dodge City what it had become.  By 2012 it was in need of restoration and there was a fund raising campaign that was successful and restoration was completed in 2015.

Inscription on bronze plate:
On the Ashes of  My Campfire this City is Built.

 The location of the cowboy statue is atop the original boot hill that has so famously been portrayed in countless movies and TV shows.

The Mueller-Schmidt House, 1881
Listed on the register of National Historic Places

The Mueller-Schmidt house is a house of distinction being built atop a hill with a bird's-eye view of Dodge City.  It is the sole remaining 19th century structure on its original site.  As well it should be with 23 in thick limestone walls.  The original builder/owner, Mueller, was a successful boot maker in town and eventually invested in other businesses in town and three cattle ranches.  But a blizzard in 1886 wiped out his entire herd of 75,000 cattle and he had to return to boot making to make ends meet.  Unfortunately there were three disastrous fires in downtown Dodge City and he threw in the towel and returned to St. Louis in 1890.  The house was sold to Schmidt in 1891 and remained in possession of family until 1965 when it was sold to Ford County.  The Ford County Historical Society is the curator of the house that is now on the National Register of Historical Places.

While on our trolley tour we noticed a number of classic and muscle cars as well as a couple of hot rods passing by us as we were making our pass by Fort Dodge.  Shortly after our trolley returned we decided to drive out to Fort Dodge and take a closer look at the fort and see if there was something going on with the cars.

To our delight there was a car show in progress and admission was free.  Just our kind of activity.  The cars were assembled on what I took to be the old parade grounds of the fort.  It was an open, grassy area surrounded by large limestone block buildings from the 1870's up to the late 20th century.

This A/C Cobra was not even in the show.  Somebody just drove it in to attend the show.

Fort Dodge parade grounds covered in classics

There was plenty of customization to go along with impeccable restoration.

We have enjoyed Dodge City but probably would have gotten more out of it if everything had not been closed for the season.  Oh well, good reason to come again.

We are going to drop down into Texas tomorrow and begin our journey to Georgia so we can help our daughter's family move to their new house.