National WWI Memorial (Sunday)

We woke up to another misty, cloudy day here on the Missouri/Kansas line.  We have a list of things to see here but many of them are closed on Sunday so we opted for the National World War I Museum.  Ray and Linda joined us on this tour.  This is a beautiful museum, with three floors of exhibits.  I spoke with one of the volunteers and he said they change out the exhibits on the 3rd floor every 3 months because they have so many.  I asked him why Kansas City had this memorial and he told me that this city had suffered more losses in this war than any other city of its size (it was a very small town at the time).  He added that a lot of cities had built memorials after the war but most of them not survived the depression, and so their exhibits were sent here.  Then, when it was declared a "national" memorial, more exhibits poured in, so their have an extensive collection.  He told me that only 9% of their collection was on display at any one time, and that is why they change them out every three months. 

First you cross a glass bridge that spans a field of 9,000 poppies (artificial), each representing 1,000 combatant deaths during WWI.  The most famous poem to emerge from WWI was "In Flanders Fields" (1915).  Here's the first 2 lines of that poem:  "In Flanders fields the poppies blow, Between the crosses, row on row."  Its first lines guaranteed that the poppy became the flower of remembrance for that great conflict.    My picture was shot through the glass floor and didn't turn out very clear.

The tour starts with a 12-minute video that offers insight into world events that led to the war .  Then we entered into the exhibit hall and were met with these huge Portrait Walls that almost overpower you.  We wandered on through the various displays -- lots to read, starting with a monthly account before America entered the war.  A second video  depicts America on the threshold of war and what led to the decision to enter the war.

Of course, many of the weapons from that war were on display,

 including a torpedo and a land mine.

Also displayed were a team of horses pulling artillery, a Ford vehicle used for transporting men and supplies, and a small plane.

We had an excellent lunch in the museum cafe, then went outside and took the elevator to the top of the 217-foot Tower.  We had great views of the city from there, but it was a bit chilly.

Ray and Linda had to assume their camp hosting duties at 3:00 so we headed back to the park and dropped them off, then got to watch the last 62 laps of the rain-delayed NASCAR race.  I really thought my guy was going to win this one (he would have if they had called the race then), but he ended up third.

We have a small family of geese that saunter through the campground between the lake and our RV every morning, the parents and 4 babies. But when they heard me coming, they took to the water.

This is one of the prettiest campgrounds we have ever stayed in, and we are right on the water.  Joe keeps trying to figure out how to get our boat here.  We've seen a couple fish jump, there was a sailboat out here when we got back today and we've seen some fishing boats pass by, and some guys had fishing poles out just down from us, but we don't know if they had any luck.  If the sun comes out, we may never leave here.

Our plan is to leave here on Wednesday, heading into Daniel Boone territory.  We are assuming we will be able to cross the Mississippi River at St. Louis, so I hope it doesn't rain any more back there.

Smithfield Lake & Campground (Saturday)

Today's Excellent Adventure might have been watching Joe hook up the car, shivering and shaking, and complaining, the whole time while I sat inside the car doing my thing.  It was 41, cloudy, misty rainy -- a bit chilly for us thin-blooded Arizona folks.

We knew we didn't have too far to go today, so we weren't in any hurry to get started.  We got on the road about 10:35.  It was a little windy, but not too bad.  We know it can get a lot worse.  We hit Kansas City just about noon, coming through on I-35 and except for some road construction, it was a fairly easy drive through town.

We crossed the Missouri River and were out of Kansas!  The bridge was rather interesting.  The river wasn't flooded, unlike the ones coming up as we head further east.  Notice that beautiful sky in the background.  We are ready for some sunshine.

Our destination today is Smithville Lake Campground, where acquaintances of ours (and good friends of Collins and Marilyn) are camp hosts here for the summer.  Ray and Linda Malloy checked us in, then joined us for dinner and a fun evening.  This is a beautiful campground, lots of grass and trees, a huge lake, and camp sites just a few feet from the water.  There are over 400 campsites here, but only a handful were in use since the weather has been so crummy.  Linda said they see lots of deer here, but so far all we've seen is ducks and geese.  There's crappie, bass, catfish and walleye in this lake, so we might have to go find a fishing license.  We have our fishing poles and tackle box with us.

We have a list of possibilities of things to see here in Kansas City, so we will spend a few days here.  We are hoping for some sunshine, and better weather is forecast for tomorrow.  We are running out of long-sleeve shirts and jeans, so we are hoping it will get warmer soon.  But not too much warmer.

From Dodge City to Emporia (Friday)

Today is a travel day, we are done in Dodge City.  We didn't have any snow this morning and the winds were fairly calm until about 11:00 a.m., temperature was 35 at 6:30 but it made it into the 50s during the day.  As we slid the slides in, the ice slid off the top of the slides.  Then we were good to go. 

Our intent is to make it to Emporia today.  We got on the road at 9:20.  We haven't done much winter RV camping, and at this campground in Dodge City, since they were expecting the temperature to drop below freezing, they came around at night and unhooked everyone's water, locked their water faucets down, and then came back around the next morning when it got above freezing and unlooked the faucets.  We didn't hook up to water here so it didn't affect us, but I did see the owner/host/whatever he was, come around and turn everyone's water back on.

We took the scenic route across Hwy 50, which took us past lots and lots of wheat fields, most of them waving green at us.  Some of these farmers are fortunate, they are able to hedge their farming risk by an oil well right in their wheat field.  (Remember you can click on the picture to make it bigger so you can see it better).  There seemed to be a little more moisture on this side of Kansas, but we also saw lots of irrigation pipe.  Joe saw one of those outside of Dodge that had 10 sections, and Joe thought each section was probably 100 ft, so that would be 1000 ft they could irrigate with one of these pivot systems.  We saw one field that was even a little hilly, and Joe was surprised it could navigate that kind of terrain.

Every little town had grain elevators, some more than one, always along the railroad tracks.  And these towns were about 8-10 miles apart.  We came through a pretty good-sized windmill farm, and with the wind we have endured here it seemed like a no-brainer.  They should have more of these!

Our wildlife today consisted of 4 baby red foxes playing in and out of their den which happened to be right alongside the highway.  And we saw one wild turkey.  I was really sorry I missed getting a picture of the foxes because they were close and I saw them early, but I couldn't figure out what they were.  We first thought they were cats.

We thought we might make it further than Emporia because we were rolling along pretty good, but then the winds kicked up just before noon, and it became a battle again.  We reached Emporia about 2:45, fueled, then found a place to buy propane (which took forever because some idiot parked next to the propane tank and walked inside the gas station and apparently disappeared for a while.  So those two stops took an hour!  We ended up on a Walmart parking lot for the night.  We had driven past an RV campground just out of town, but we really didn't need any hookups so we went cheap.  We drove 229 miles today.  Gas was $3.399 here, but propane was $3.09 (we had seen it in Chino Valley for $1.55).  

Dodge City (Thursday)

Well, it is winter here again.  It was 34 when we went to bed last night, with a chill factor of 25.  Temperature had dropped 54 degrees in Liberal from the day before, and 45 degrees here in Dodge.  And we had a smattering of snow greet us.  Joe almost missed it because he wouldn't get out of bed, and it was melting away pretty quickly.  When I did the laundry in Liberal when it was 92 degrees, I thought I was putting away the jeans and sweatshirts for the season, but we got them right back out yesterday, and I dug our sock caps out today, along with our heavy coats.

Here's a picture of the grain elevators I mentioned in yesterday's blog that would block the wind when we drove past.  There were several of these right along the highway, which were also alongside the railroad tracks.  We heard on the news tonight that this year's projected wheat harvest for the state of Kansas is 313 million bushels, so I guess that would take a lot of grain elevators.

As we drove into Dodge City yesterday, we were greeted by El Capitan, a bronze statute commemorating the 1870s/1880s Texas cattle drives to Dodge City.  Coming into town from the other direction is another pretty interesting sign.  There are a lot of these artistic kinds of signs around town, called "pole art banners."

Whenever we are at home and Joe remembers, he watches Gunsmoke at noon on ME TV.  So he was happy to be here, and I think he really expected to run into Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke Street.  We also drove up and down Wyatt Earp Blvd. several times but didn't see him either.  There have been so many movies made about the real historical people who lived here, such as Wyatt Earp,  Bat Masterson and Doc Holiday, that we almost forgot Matt Dillon wasn't a real person here. 

We went into the Boot Hill Museum, which was very nice, and then out the back door to Boot Hill Cemetery.  The people buried here usually had no family and no money, and were buried with their boots on, that's how it got its name.  One gravestone had the same name as an old Indiana friend/classmate of ours, Ed Williams, so we will have to show that to him sometime.

We stopped in the jail, then headed down to the Long Branch Saloon, where Joe shared a sasparillo with me.

These buildings on Front Street were all connected, so we were able to continue on from the saloon without going back outside into the cold weather.  There were probably 8 different businesses represented, including a pharmacy/doctor's office, a shoe cobbler, printing company, undertaker, bank, to name a few.

There was also a display of baby carriages and basinettes.  I thought Bridgette might be interested in this stroller as a jogging stroller for Shooter.

Other buildings right here were a gunsmith, a school, and a church.  This area was set up nicely, and in the summer they have gunfights and other events, and in the saloon there is a variety show (with Miss Kitty) at night.

We finished up here and headed to the outskirts of town in search of one of two small herds of longhorns.  Fortunately, they were within sight of the road.  We later found the second herd on the other side of town.

Next, we headed south of town on Hwy 400 to Fort Dodge, which served as a supply depot and base of operation against warring Indians from 1865-1882.  It is now a Kansas Soldiers' Home.  The third picture was a structure across the road and I thought it looked more like a fort, but we couldn't find any identification on it and it was fenced off.

Just a couple miles further down this road was the Coronado Cross.  Standing 38' tall, it marks the spot where Francisco Vasques de Coronado, a Spanish explorer, is said to have crossed the Arkansas River in search of the fabled "Cities of Gold" in 1541.  We drove around looking for the Arkansas River and realized we had crossed it yesterday as we came into town, but it didn't have any water in it so we didn't realize that was it.

The only wildlife we saw today was a rabbit, which I thought looked different from our usual, and maybe was a snowshoe hare, but Joe thought it was just a jackrabbit.

 We were done exploring at this point, so Joe kindly stopped at the Boot Hill Casino so we could check it out.  Unlike most other casinos, this one is owned by the state instead of an Indian tribe.  But, unfortunately, those slots were not any looser than the Indian ones.  This is actually next door to United Wireless Arena, a sports complex, and we can see this from our campground.

After a stop at Walmart to pick up a few groceries, we headed back to the RV to rest for a while.  We decided Dodge City would probably be a good place to have a nice steak dinner since we are in cattle country, so that's how we finished our visit here -- a rib-eye for Joe and a filet mignon for me at Casey's Cowtown Club.  Both were delicious.

 It remained in the 40s all day here, but the wind finally quieted down just before sunset, so when we got back from dinner Joe did his maintenance (dumping the tanks and hooking up the car) so he doesn't have much to do outside in the morning when it will again be freezing.  Tomorrow, we are "gettin' out of Dodge."