Gettin' Out of Dodge

What an exciting night in WaKeeney!  Wind, rain, thunder and lightening ALL NIGHT LONG!  The tent is surprisingly resilient and bounced back repeatedly from the gusts of wind.  Oh my goodness.  We got very little sleep, but I do love a good thunder storm.

So, we stayed later in the tent just because we didn't want to go outside.  Finally, we were showered and on the road by 9:00 a.m. and headed for...

Dodge City!  First stop was a coffee shop for breakfast.  It took a long time for our cashier to figure out how to enter our order, and I'm pretty sure we were way overcharged, but we did get coffee and food, and picked up a couple of brochures about the city.

After breakfast, straight to the Boot Hill Museum. 

We watched the introductory movie in the theater.  I knew very little about the history of the place.  It is ugly and disturbing.  The treatment of the Pueblo Indians, the decimation of the buffalo herds, the lawlessness and murders.  Awful.  The artifacts are interesting.

Some of the original buildings are still there.  The rest of the museum is a re-creation of Front Street.  You can walk through and learn more about the history of the place.

We wandered through all of the open buildings (tourist season opens next week), and enjoyed a sasparilla at the saloon.  Cassie was especially interested in the 1880s clothing on display.

And then it was time to head south. We think we are headed to Elk City, Oklahoma to avoid thunder storms.  We head out of Dodge.  And then we turn back to visit the Harley store in case they have a shirt for Marlon. The sales people don't even acknowledge that we've come into the store. We look at shirts but they don't have the right size, so back on the road we go.

We stopped to say hi to some cows.  They were very vocal and curious.

And then we got to Oklahoma and found this windmill museum.  You can sit in your car and listen to stories on the radio about the history of windmills.

And then, while we are once again driving   through a downpour with hail, a weather alert on the radio tells us there are severe thunderstorms and a tornado watch right where we're headed.  We stop at a truck stop to wait it out and to seek shelter and advice.  (Thanks, Jerry!)

And then, we head west, away from the storm and into Texas.

All those delays I mentioned?  Those delays kept us from being right where the tornado touched down in Elk City.  Again, thank you for your prayers!

We are now in another very windy KOA in Amarillo.  It is not raining. The wind has dried out the tent nicely. And there are busy train tracks nearby. Daddy would be very happy.