Roundtrip 420 miles.
Sunday, May 30, 2010: Started out at 10:20 am.
At the end of this post is a map of our route.
Lunch in Medicine Lodge at picnic area off of Highway 160. Lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese, cool ranch Doritos, carrots, celery and apples. CapriSun for the boys, water for the adults.
Medicine Lodge was named by the Kiowa Indians when they discovered healing qualities of the river and built "medicine lodges" nearby.We arrived at the Stockade Museum at 12:35 pm. The door was locked, but an older lady who was a cross between Grandma Agnes, Grandma Mary, Aunt Pearl and Aunt Harriett informed us the museum didn't open until 1 pm, but she let us in anyway.
She took our money and hand wrote the transaction in a three ring spiral notebook. Not a computer in sight, or a phone for that matter. She told us a little about the treasures inside the museum, artifacts that tell the historical story of Medicine Lodge and the surrounding area. We saw peace pipes, mammoth bones, teeth and husks, old typewriters and a manual dentist drill, clothing from the early 1900s, a collection of barbed wire and old tools, and much more. The museum is a replica of the 1874 frontier stockade. Inside the fence is The Smith Log Cabin and The Old Courthouse Jail.
Does anyone else think the picture below looks like something that would have been in Grandpa Keller's garage? 
Outside we investigated the old courthouse jail,
and the Smith Log Cabin from 1877. 
Do these dishes look familiar? 
I don't do laundry... 
oh, it's a Maytag!
Next door we headed to Carry Nation's house, where we saw her antique pump organ, writing desk, bed and period furnishings and clothing donated by local residents. I don't think Carry and I would have been friends. Her choice of shoes is somewhat restrictive and conservative. 
And this? These girls probably didn't Spring Break at Padre Island.
Next we took a Scenic Byways road through the Gypsum Hills. Not much going on here. 
All you could hear was the wind. I seem to remember a similar situation about 20 years ago when I forced to "listen to the silence" in the Flint Hills. The boys passed the time drawing on the magna doodle and writing in their notebooks.
The boys made the comment that we were the only car on the road. Yup...
Next stop was Greensburg where we looked around the new Green Town. An F5 tornado destroyed the town in 2007, and although lots of buildings have been rebuilt, you can tell "something happened." For instance, we saw a set of stone steps that leads to nowhere, but we think it might have been a church. We stopped at the Big Well, the largest hand dug well. 
The picture below was taken in 1992, about the same spot as the one above. In the picture above you can see the foundation of that building. The only thing that remains is the stone wall surrounding the well. 
We ran off steam at the playground next door and then took a bathroom break at the "little" Dillons on the main drag. Once we arrived in Dodge City, we ate a diner that received a C from Scott...definitely not a five star restaurant. The Dodge House Hotel was a hit with the boys...indoor heated pool, basketball court, ping pong, pool and video games. We had big plans to tour Boot Hill on Monday, but Zach got sick that night. Scott took Adam on a trolley ride, then we decided to head home. Zach perked up on the way home, and there was a steady stream of conversation from the back. Below is the route we took to Dodge City. I didn't include the return trip because we just drove west on Highway 54. If you place the cursor over the map you can zoom in and zoom out using the tools in the upper left corner.
View To Dodge City 5/30/2010 in a larger map
No comments:
Post a Comment