18th June - Dodge City

We are now in Dodge City, the town synonymous with lawlessness, cowboys, Indians, the Santa Fe Trail, wagon trains, cattle, and all other things Western, not forgetting Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.

We left Santa Fe yesterday. An Amtrak shuttle took us to a little town called Lamy (pop. 137) where the train for Dodge eventually arrived one and a half hours late. I have never before been in such a remote, god-forsaken railway station in all my life (Terry has).

The train lost even more time on our leg of the journey and instead of arriving in Dodge at 0019 it arrived at 0215 - two hours late. We were not happy, but there was nothing we could do about it. The daylight part of the journey (about 5-6 hours) was lovely - so interesting with scenery ranging from mountains to flat prairie stretching to the horizon with remote farms (or ranches I guess).


We also saw various forms of wildlife - elk, horses, deer, antelope, eagles, vultures and wild turkeys as well as lots of cattle.

The train we are travelling on is called The South West Chief and only one per day runs along this route from LA to Chicago. So the slightly worrying thing for us now is what time will it arrive in Dodge to take us on our next leg to Kansas City tomorrow night?

This morning we walked a few blocks along Wyatt Earp Boulevard(!) to Boot Hill Museum where we boarded a trolley bus for a city tour. We should have saved our money. Although Dodge City is a famous place - it is a dump! The smell of cow manure is all-pervasive. We think the town suffered in the great depression of the 1930’s (never mind this current one) and never recovered. About 90% of the shops have closed down. The only thing it has to offer, as far as we are concerned, is the outdoor 'Boot Hill Museum'. ( http://www.boothill.org/intro.html )

On the tour we were shown several places of not much interest to us in the town, then taken out to see Fort Dodge - that bit was interesting. This fort was one of the most important forts on the western frontier in the late 1800‘s. On the way there (it is 5 miles out of town) we passed huge feed lots - and I mean HUGE - where cattle are fattened before being slaughtered. The pens stretch all the way up the hill and there were lots more that I couldn't get into one photo:


Thousands and thousands of cattle all penned in with only mud (and probably poo), and not a blade of grass to be seen. And they must really suffer in this intense heat. I decided there and then that I would become a vegetarian but on remembering how much I enjoy a juicy tender steak I relented a bit and decided that I would only eat the meat from happy, contented animals and not those ‘factory farmed’. There are several enormous meat processing plants here too, and every time a big cattle truck passed us it left a stench of cow poo behind it In this heat - not nice!

After our one hour tour we returned to Boot Hill Museum but decided to postpone our visit there until tomorrow. We were feeling the effects of lack of sleep last night and it was VERY hot. We were allowed inside to watch a re-enactment of a gunfight in an old Dodge City street. That was very good.


After lunch we paid a brief visit to the ‘Gunfighters Wax Museum’ (not very lifelike) then had quite a long and very hot walk back to our hotel along Wyatt Earp Boulevard - with a MacDonalds stop for me to have a M&Ms McFlurry to help me on my way. Good old Terry stuck to her cold water. I wish I was as strong willed!

Will someone please pay my bail?

I have been too scathing about this goddam town!