Columbia, MO to Home (Day 22)

The last day. Wow, How could that be? It seems like this trip should last forever, but alas, here it is, the very last day of driving, the last destination is back home. While it is bittersweet, and with all the lead up and planning, it just doesn't seem possible that it could be complete, but I guess the staying in a different hotel, sleeping in a different bed almost every night makes you crave your own. I guess if travelling were like being in your own home, we would stay on the road all of our lives. There really are so many wonderful things to be seen, touched, experienced, that a trip like this only makes you dream of the next.

We took our time this morning getting up and getting out the door. It was that sort of fear that the sooner we left, the sooner it was over, I guess. Mom and Tony, who are always the first to start moving, were still the first moving. Jon and I were awakened a little later, thank goodness. Those guys get up so early that our days of leaving the hotels at 7, were "late" to them. Jon and I, we like to sleep in a little when we can! Once we rolled out of bed, Jon headed off to make him one last breakfast in a hotel. He has really gotten good at that, and when I went to check on him, I found him standing there with the Waffle Maker waiting patiently!

Amazingly, his waffle was as close to perfection as it could have been! I am so proud!

Once we got our plates fixed, they came in to start closing down the breakfast bar, so we had great timing! We asked Jon if he wanted to get one more swim in before we checked out, but he was ready to get on the road. So with that, we posed for a few last minute photos at the hotel and packed up the car and off we went. Next stop, home! It would take nearly 7 hours to get there even without our stops, so we got on with it.

We made a few stops along the way, but decided to push back lunch and make it more of an early dinner once we crossed in to Kentucky. We knew we were in the south then as we stopped to have our meal at a Cracker Barrel in Paducah, KY.

It wasn't long then until we crossed into Tennessee, and Jon let out a welcomed cheer! The familiar sight of trees lining the interstate welcomed us into our home state! What a sight they were! When you drive across the country, you really see the vast differences from state to state. One will be flat and barren and another will be covered in mountains stretching to the heavens. Still others will be dry and hot with sand and rocky cliffs popping up from the desert with flat tops or vast canyons carved through layers of different colored rock. This country is beautiful, truly beautiful. When we were on the Pike's Peak Cog Railway, our conductor told us when we reached a certain point that we were seeing Inspiration Point, the place where Katherine Lee Bates got the inspiration for the song America the Beautiful, well, she may have gotten the inspiration there, but I bet if she had seen the wonders that I saw on this trip, the song may have been slightly different. 

Getting this opportunity to travel as we did came from a lot of hard work and planning. Tony put in countless hours at work and I put in countless hours online planning. Being able to take our son and my Mom with us made it a priceless family vacation with enough memories to last a lifetime. We would also not have been able to do it without my sister and my nephew Felix helping us out. They took care of our dogs and watered the plants and even mowed the grass! As we pulled into the driveway and made our way to drop Mom off, it was surreal. Nothing had changed at home, but we had sure been changed by the experience. Now the planning can begin for other vacations, because now we have the "bug". 

Colorado Springs, CO to Dodge City, KS (Day 20)

Driving from Colorado Springs, CO to Dodge City, KS doesn't take too long, a little over 5 hours, so we were able to make it to the hotel and still have plenty of time to enjoy the town. Honestly, Dodge City was bigger than I had imagined. When I think of Kansas, only a few cities even come to mind (Topeka, Kansas City, Wichita), to be honest, I didn't know anything about Dodge City, but Mom and Tony did, and it was a dot on the map that was close enough to Colorado Springs to make a stop and cut down the mileage for the last stop in Columbia, MO. Tony was the one who mentioned stopping there, and since he and Mom had watched Gunsmoke, they at least had some clue as to what the town was all about. Me, Gunsmoke was just one of those many Western shows Dad watched and the opening sequence and music was my cue to head on outside to play.

We were met at the end of town by this awesome sign. I should have stopped on the way in to take a photo, but I was making a beeline to the hotel. This actually was one of the first times that Tony had handed over the driver's seat, since the passenger's seat puts him right to sleep, and let's face it, I am a much better navigator than him.

 Once we got checked in at the hotel, which had a jail cell right in the lobby, we were told to go check out the Visitor Center for info on the Dodge City Days that were being held that day. Jon had to get a couple photos in the jail cell first, though.

We got back in the car and headed over to find the visitors center, and we also found the Boot Hill Museum. Of course Tony wasn't a great navigator, and it is hard for the driver to read the signs on the road and watch for traffic as we cross the street, so we passed it the first time. Then we turned around and went to the Boot Hill Museum instead of the visitors center, but we figured it out, but not until we had to pose with the train.

Once at the visitors center, we found that the night's festivities at the Dodge City Days for the evening consisted of a carnival with rides and such. Well, knowing that the Williamson County Fair would be going on when we got back home, we decided to skip that. The lady at the visitors center did tell us about the Boot Hill and that they have a dinner, gunfight and show every night. We grabbed some info on it and decided to check that out. Jon in the meantime, managed to tick the lady off when he pulled a pin out of the map on the wall. She wasn't too nice, even though I apologized. She said what good is it to have a sign to not pull them out? I said, he is 10, excited to be here, and he just didn't read it. Jon scrambled to put the pin back somewhere as she handed me another pin. Really, is it THAT big of a deal? I decided to grab a few of the freebies in the place (a deck of cards) and gave Jon one of the chalk sticks to go write on the sidewalk with to "leave his mark". With that, he grabbed a few postcards and we were out the door. He did have to try his hand at roping a cow, though.

We headed over to the Boot Hill to check on the dinner and show and Mom bought us all tickets to go. We decided, since we had a couple hours, that we would go on back to the hotel and let Jon get some swimming in. He has really loved the fact that most of the hotels have had pools for him to swim in and he has taken full advantage of it. We headed back to the Boot Hill to check out the museum before dinner, but found that we should have gone back earlier, because it was much bigger than we had anticipated. We did get to see most of it, although Tony would have loved to have had more time to check out the massive gun collection! Jon also found another jail, so he had to get Tony to take a photo with him.

The museum was interesting, but with the limited time before dinner, Jon and I flew through it snapping photos along the way. We waited patiently at the end for Mom and Tony to make their way though, before we ran over to the dinner hall.

We had BBQ Brisket, corn, slaw, potatoes and rolls for dinner with apple crisps for dessert. It was a great meal, even though Jon didn't care for most of it, of course he had eaten his leftover Subway sub right before he went swimming, so he wasn't too hungry. After dinner, we went out into the yard to grab our seats for the gunfight. I will be the first to tell you, those things never get old. I don't care how many I have seen in my life, not to mention this was the second one for the trip, they are still really enjoyable. This one was top-notch! The acting was good and I jumped every time a gun went off! The guy playing the town drunk got a lot of laughs as well!

After that was over, they sold photos and autographed them. They also posed for those who wanted to take photos with them. Jon was first in line for the autographs and the photo op.

Then we went into the Long Branch Saloon to watch Mrs. Kitty's show. It was really good, funny as well. We drank a sarsaparilla while we watched, that was my first sarsaparilla, not too bad!

By the time all that was over, it was nearly 9 and the place was closing down, so we headed back to the hotel for the night. The drive to Columbia, MO and then home will be two LONG days driving. Nearly 7 hours for both days!