4. KANSAS / MISSOURI

DODGE CITY, VIA WICHITA (March 29th – 30th)

Tulsa to Dodge city was a good 5 hour drive across the Kansas plains (acres and acres of grass fields) and long roads. We stopped off at Wichita, which was roughly half way, for a drinks break. Wichita has a few interesting facts. To start with, the first ever Pizza Hut restaurant was opened here on June 15, 1958 by the brothers Dan & Frank Carney. Wow, I hear you say, I never knew that! Secondly and even more surprising, is that little old Wichita is known as the ‘Air Capital of the World’ due to its historical and current leadership in aircraft manufacturing, having produced over 300,000 aircraft since 1920. Not bad for a town with less than 500,000 people.

So our blog not only shows you what we’ve been up to on our travels, but you also get armed with some serious pub quiz knowledge (pretty good eh?)

We arrived in Dodge city late afternoon at the Comfort Inn & Suites on Wyatt Earp Boulevard (more about him in a minute). We checked in and then headed out to a local casino which had a great steak house and grill for a nice dinner. We also learned that not much is open on a Sunday evening in Dodge.

Back to Wyatt Earp. He was a a very famous American lawman in the Wild West back in the 1800s and was a key figure in the ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ for those of you who know and like cowboy movies. He spent time in Dodge city as a Deputy US Marshall and had a reputation for imposing order, dealing with the nasty outlaws of the time and now he has a Boulevard named after him in Dodge (not bad for killing a few bad guys).

Dodge is famous for its history as a wild west frontier town, a major stop on the trails of the cattle drive era. ‘You’d better get out of Dodge’ is a famous saying reflecting the violent and lawless nature of the town back then. This is pretty much what Dodge City is all about really and It preserves its heritage through various cowboy attractions central to which is the Boot Hill Museum.

Boot Hill Museum is located on the original site of Boot Hill Cemetery (where Cowboys were buried with their boots on) and has live interactive displays and over 20,000 artefacts that take you along a journey through time when Dodge was a major city in the Wild West. Part of the original cemetery is still standing, complete with a a few marked graves and they have even built a replica town complete with saloon, bank, stores and blacksmiths. There are plenty of original guns on display including the classic and famous Winchester rifle and the Colt 45 hand gun. There are lots of stories and pictures covering the famous or notorious people of that era including the outlaws and the lawmen who chased them down.

After a very enjoyable few hours we jumped forward 200 years and had a coffee at a nearby Mcdonald’s and then went shopping for a couple of cowboy/girl hats for Ang & Ian. Then Ang & Den decided they needed their nails painted so we spent a few hours looking for a nail shop (well maybe 20 mins). Keith & Ian returned for a swim and a chill at the hotel while the girls disappeared for a few hours. In the evening we had another great steak and fish dinner in the Cowboy Bar and Grill located across the road from the Boot Hill Museum.

KANSAS, VIA WAMEGO

After a good breakfast we ‘Got the hell out of Dodge’ (always wanted to say that) and set off for a 5 hour drive once again across the vast Kansas plains. We stopped around half way at a small town and parked up. Den decided to park the car on the edge of a three foot mound and when Ian tried to get out of the car he slipped and went on a tumble and it was only his Special Forces training that saved him from serious injury (more like a dying fly with zero marks for artistic impression!!).

After he recovered, we looked across the road and amazingly, as if by magic, we saw a small coffee shop called Hattie Jo’s. Thrilled about this, we entered and were greeted by two lovely older ladies (Hattie & Jo) who were very proud to show off their mega extensive list of various coffees, different milks and loads of syrups (so many syrups). This list filled about 3 chalk boards, with lots of different coloured chalk, on the back wall behind the counter.

Despite the enormous choice, we settled on our usual round of basic lattes and flat whites and Den had a strawberry slushy thing. After a few minutes Hattie appeared rather sheepishly to tell us they only had enough normal milk to make two of the three coffees. You can imagine this was rather amusing to us given the amount of time they had spent showing us all their extensive list of offerings but then couldn’t actually make us all a bog standard one!

While Hattie was explaining, her tag team partner Jo shouted that she’d found some milk so the day was saved and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief. What she didn’t tell us was that the milk was about a week old, or maybe longer judging how Ang’s coffee tasted (yuk).

By this time, one of them had obviously nipped down to the local 7 eleven and bought back some fresh milk so that Ang’s coffee could be remade and the day was saved.

We said goodbye to Hattie & Jo (after Den & Ang gave them a powerpoint presentation and free advice on stock control) and set off for the small town of Wamego, about 1.5 hours west of Kansas City. What’s so special about Wamego you ask? Well, it’s home to the Wizard of Oz museum that has over 2,000 artefacts from the 1939 film. It has lots of movie props, costumes and life-size character figures with a number of interactive displays. It was very easy to find and although the museum wasn’t huge it was big enough to be fun and for a nice leisurely walk round. For an extra special bonus, across the road from the museum, there was actually a yellow brick road that went about two blocks that we could walk down.

So, after spending a couple of hours in Oz, we all clicked our red shoes together and found ourselves in Kansas City (nice one eh!) and here is another piece of pub quiz knowledge that surprised us all. Kansas City is actually in the state of Missouri right on the border with the state of Kansas. How can that be possible, you would think that the authorities would have adjusted the state border by a few miles just to put Kansas City actually into the state of Kansas. That would seem to make a whole lot of sense but alas, it is not to be, and tourists are destined to be confused by that for all eternity. We checked into the La Quinta Inn & Suites Hotel, Beacon Hill, Kansas City around 6pm and quickly headed out for dinner. We found a local sports bar just up the road and enjoyed digging into a nice big fat pizza.

We only had the next morning in Kansas City (which was a very grey overcast day) as we were flying to New Orleans in the afternoon so we decided to visit Union Station which is a major tourist attraction. The station underwent a major refurbishment around the year 2000 and now has theatres, museum exhibits, shops, restaurants and many, many other attractions. It also has a 95ft ceiling which was very impressive. We were more than happy just to have a walk around all the various floors and then have a coffee before heading back to the hotel, via a quick stop at Kemper Arena (famous for sports and music) for a few photos.

We picked up our luggage, loaded up the car and headed off to the airport for our short(ish) flight to New Orleans for Easter and we are really looking forward to it.