Day 7 – To Dodge City, Kansas

Off we go early (at 8:00 am) on Tuesday 6/6/2017 and begin making our way to Dodge City to see Marshall Dillon and Kitty, which should be about an 8-9 hour drive.  We are retracing our drive here heading back north on US-65 until Springfield where we will get on KS-13 north (the scenery is much the same).  Once we reach Clinton, MO we’ll switch to MO-7 N, then MO-2 W in Harrisonville.  MO-2 becomes KS-68 which we’ll drive until we get on I-35 S.  From I-35 we’ll head west on US-50 until Dodge City, with a short stop at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.  Whew, it will be a long day, but with the stop at Tallgrass, we should be fine.

When we get to Springfield we pass this truck dealer which has all of these colored trucks.  And I thought I’d share them with you.

After getting on MO-13 and driving a few miles we came across this building.  Since we try to show a couple bizarre pictures from our trip, this one sure applies. 

Now I will always show you some of the barns I think are nice, photo wise, not necessarily structurally.  This is one of them.  It even looks like it is still in use.  We have not seen many farms along MO-13 I think mostly because it is rocky and hilly.

Speaking of the strange side, here is a town named Humansville.  Now I wonder if they had to pass a special ordinance for people, I mean humans, to own pets.  Or did a dog, no a Cat, took the town to court so it could come into town.  LOL!

We also came across a train caboose on the way to Dodge City.  I gues if you can not grow crops you need another hobby to take up your time.

As we nearer Clinton, MO we crossed the Harry S. Truman Reservoir.  We were wondering if the water was high because many of the trees were growing from the water. 

We passed a number of barns along the road and this one was interesting because of the small building next to it.  I wonder if this was an outhouse or used for something else.  The countryside is also beginning to flatten and have more farms. 

Now I’m not a metaphysical guy.  Oh wait, that’s part of a song.  Never mind.  Anyway the road route numbers in Missouri have some strange system.  Here is route 0 (zero).  But, there is also a U, W, WW, X and other letters.  First time I’ve ever seen letters used for routes.

We leave Missouri and “We are not in Kansas anymore”, wait I’m wrong again.  We are in Kansas, but don’t want to meet up with Toto, you know the trouble he gets into.  Not exactly the house, because we know where that is, but the barn maybe.

In Kansas w

e are passing many farms with corn and some huge tracks of land growing wheat.  One field we passed along was 5 miles along the road and probably went back at least 3 miles.  And this was on both sides of the road.  The land here is mostly flat being able to see quite a distance.

Now we have seen cows and cattle, even some longhorns, but look at the size of the horns on this steer.  I wander if the owner raises these cattle just to put the horns on the hoods of cars? 

Along US-50 in Kansas, near Strong City, we stopped at a place called Tallgrass Prairie Natural Preserve.  Now this preserve shows what the prairie lands were like back when.  So we’ll hike a little while to and in the Windmill Pasture and hope to see some Bison.  The preserve is part of a very large track of land that used to be all prairie.

And like barns, we seem to have this thing about taking pictures of flowers.  Now is no different and these happen to catch my eye. 

We are almost to the top of the hill we are climbing (not very high by the way) before reaching the Windmill Pasture and we stop and look back south along the path we just walked.  Now you can visualize when we say Kansas is flat.  Look how far you can see form this 100 foot high hill.

We reach the fenced in pasture and look north over the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.  The grasses continue as far as the eye can see.  Imagine this once filled with Bison.

We enter the pasture, which is surrounded by an electric fence, through the gate and begin our hike further into the pasture hoping to get a glimpse of the Bison herd here.  Almost immediately we see two bison with three people standing several hundred feet from them.  Another couple are returning and said that the bison are in the middle of the trail and they are turning back.  Okay, let’s go.

Not to be deterred, I go closer while Carmen stayed behind.  Mind you I have a zoom lens on and I am not really this close.  Besides, when he showed any signs of agitation, I backed off.  But look at him, isn’t he (I think it’s a he) gorgeous? 

Carmen, go slap that bison on the butt while I take your picture.  Okay, never mind, just stand there and I’ll take your picture as it walks by.  Now we have proof that you were here with the bison.

The magic of photo cropping makes it look like I was real close.  The zoom did allow me to get a close picture even though I stayed a safe distance from the bison, yea, like the sign said.

There were three of the big bison that were blocking our way on the path to getting closer to the herd so we wait.  Eventually they moved off further away from the path and we finally made it closer to the others.  Here a different three bison were walking in our directions, but stopped before getting to close.

Getting closer to the herd isn’t a problem, I just need to keep an eye out for the earlier three, now off to my left, the three that just moved to my right, one laying in the grass about 80 feet away, and this one that is looking straight at me.  You want some of this?  Ha, me either!

One last look and Carmen and I are heading back to the car.  We have been here for about an hour and the bison are great to watch, but we must be going.

On the way back, I stop to get some pictures of the different flowers here in the pasture, still making sure the bison haven’t decided to make their way to me.

Now I have no idea what these flowers are mind you, they just look good.  However, I think this is a pea of some sort. 

Yup, they are still there.  From my angle I thought they were going to fight and butt heads, but it was just the distance that made it look that way.

There was this huge dandelion type flower in the fields but the size was about 6-8” across.  Not sure what this plant is by it looks great with the sun backlit.

I could show you all kinds of flowers, but time and typing grow short, instead here is the old barn that was on the property when the National Parks acquired the place.  This is all made of stone found here at the property.

And this is the original house build by the original land owners.  It still looks to be in great shape for having been built in 1881. 

Here are some more barns, this time sitting on the edge of one of the wheat fields.  You can see the train tracks between us and the barn.

Now it hasn’t been all barns and crop fields on our trip.  Well maybe crop fields because there have been a lot since driving into Kansas.  This oil (or gas, we haven’t figured out which) pump sits in the middle of a wheat field.  This hasn’t been the only one either; we have seen quite a few.

As we near Dodge City, we see this in front of us.  Shortly afterwards we get a warning on the radio about severe thundershowers and hail.  So we stopped at a you-do-it car wash and wait for it to blow over.  Then back on the road.  Dorothy, next time.  After driving a little way we saw a convertible with the top down while it was still raining and if it was open during the heavy downpour, I wonder how deep the water is inside the car.  Ah and by the way the car had a set of longhorns on the hood.

Even closer to Dodge City we pass through Spearville where they claim to be home of the Windmills.  I would agree with that, but the sign was accompanied by “and Lancers” with years denoting baseball, track and softball championships, oh and the boys football State Champs.

We reach Dodge City and get to our hotel without much fanfare.  Although just as we finish bringing our luggage into the room, we had a big thunder storm go by with a huge downpour.  Tomorrow we will tour the Dodge City and Gunfighters museums before beginning our drive to the next stop.  Goodbye for now.