Boot Hill or Bust

The beautiful weather followed us and with days in the 90’s behind and before us we headed out to see the famous of infamous Dodge City. The road wasnt bad in most places but like everywhere on this trip lots of construction and narrow lanes. Looking at some of bridges being replaced I am happy so much infrastructure is being replaced and that we made it over some of the bridges with rebar showing and crumbling cement before they collapsed. Our combined truck and trailer weight is usually just under 7 tons so I ask Jo to lift her feet and I do mine on some of these lol.

Today’s trip was 279 miles of decent roads though still a lot of noisy cement roads. We arrived mid afternoon at the “Gunsmoke RV Park”. If you havent read my first trip blog you should to check out Bucks Lake the hidden Gem that should have remained Hidden lol. To date on this trip this RV park though rated the best in Dodge City was similar. We pulled in to a paint peeling faded entrance sign park to major trench digging. The person checking us in ran over to the office when he saw us arrive and apologized for all the construction but a pipe broke the day before and he was repairing it. “But your part of the park and water supply is safe to drink! He proceeded to mark on the campground map where to drive to our site away from the construction and then proceeded to tell me not to go where he marked but in the out lane. We headed off in a cloud and I mean a big cloud of dust to our site which as it turns out was one of the best sites. And as Jo said “we even had a wagon wheel” and a tree. I dont think we have ever been in a dustier campground that combined with first a breeze then a steady wind kept our equipment covered in sand. Have you ever seen cowboys wear bandanas over their face even when they werent robbing a bank. Now I know why.

We soon discovered that aside from the busy intersection we were at that we were across the street from an active train track. I think the engineer liked his train whistle as he blew it many many times. Oh and the trains out west are verrrry long. Luckily the only came through a couple of times a night.

First stop the next day was the Boot Hill Museum. Boot Hill, as you probably know, was where poor or here do wells were buried usually with their boots on. The slope of the hill was supposedly good for letting the water run off so the bodies were preserved and supposedly gave them a boost up to heaven which many needed. Fun fact was that the local dentist O.M. Simpson (not O.J.) a very well trained dentist from out east pioneered gold tooth inlays by laying gold on the train tracks to flatten it! He reportedly had one of the best dental equipment offices in the country inventing many of the tools he used. He nearly killed a man he covered in plaster to create a statue of a cowboy to place at the base of Boot Hill. He accidentally pinched the straws he put up the models nose! The model later became the chief of police. He also made replicas of faces and boots to place on the graves of the Boot Hill interred people. I think he was just a little too into dead people.

One of the fascinating things in a great museum a Boot Hill was a diary of a man Henry Raymond. He chronicled his work hunting buffalo with Bat Masterson and his brother Ed Masterson. I found it fascinating for what they endured, the fact that Bat wasnt a socializer (see diary picture) and that shooting someone was just another day in the life.

We went to a bar, had a bottle of sarparilla and I got a little crazy and ended up in the hoosegow

The local people wanted to save the local Fort’s historic jail for the Boot Hill museum. The state etc said they couldnt donate or give the building to the museum but if someone stole it they wouldnt press charges lol. Soooo a group of local Jaycees went out under cover of darkness and moved it to the museum where I ended up residing for a bit lol. It was a two person jail very small so moveable.

We went to see the Santa Fe trail National Park site to see the ruts made by masses of people using the same trail. Underimpressed by the site but found it interesting that unlike the Oregon Trail and others this trail was more for commerce rather than migration.

We wanted to go to church Saturday evening since we were leaving Sunday AM for Aurora, CO. What a beautiful church and nice Mass. Cathedral of Guadalupe.

As an aside we were tired after the museum and decided to order a pizza from Godfathers having not tried their pizza before. While at the Santa Fe National Park site I put in a mobile order for a cheese pizza with Mushrooms and Onions one of Jo’s favorites. While on the way to Godfathers I missed a call. I went in to the store a little early wondering if they needed to see my credit card etc to complete the order. When I went in the woman at the counter asked are you William? Answering in the affirmative she said she had called to be sure we really wanted those toppings lol! No meat or green peppers??? I cracked up because those toppings werent my favorite but Jo had ordered pepperoni for me the last pizza so it was her turn to pick Cracked me up she actually called to check.

We got back to the campground and watched a bit of TV before crashing early to get ready for the trip to Colorado and the mile high city suburb of Aurora.