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!
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