September 27, 2014 Fort Collins - Dodge City, Kansas

After our return from Santa Fe and Grand Junction a few weeks ago, we had some repairs to take care of on the RV. A couple calls to the local RV repair shops were disappointing – the earliest openings were at the end of October! Well, that wasn’t going to work, so Tobey tried Tim, the mobile RV repair guy, and he came out a few days later. We think he found the source of our leak – one of the front running lights was cracked so he replaced that and recaulked around it, as well as recaulking another seam on the cab. Let’s hope that does it! He also made a couple adjustments to the slide control in the refrigerator, took the top vent off and cleaned out a wasp nest, then resealed that. Tobey and Tyler took the microwave completely out and put in a new screw/attachment system so it shouldn’t jiggle loose again. We are waiting for some parts for the water pump, but it works okay, it’s just noisy.

So with most major repairs finished, we are on the road again! We are heading to Camp Cheerio near Sparta, North Carolina, where I am going to a quilting retreat. We got started about 8:30 this morning.

It is amazing how diverse the Colorado landscape is! East of I-25 the area certainly earns its name “Eastern Plains!” It is flat with little vegetation other than some tall grasses. This summer’s rain and hail storms look like they took a toll on the corn crops, also. Most of the fields were only abut knee-high!

Driving through Kansas we passed several cattle feed lots – oh the smell of money! In today’s newspaper there was an article saying to expect meat prices to continue rising. Maybe we should stop and see if we could pickup some beef here!
There are also large wind farms from Ingalls, Kansas extending beyond Dodge City. We have been fighting the wind all day and the turbines were all turning, generating lots of electricity. We had passed a truck hauling one of the tower sections – they are huge!

Just west of Dodge City we stopped at one of the historical markers for the Santa Fe Trail Tracks. Through the years, rain and wind have eroded many of the ruts, so we had to guess where the trail actually went. We enjoyed reading the interpretative signs while imagining how difficult it was for the freight wagons carrying goods over the 900 mile trail. It took anywhere from six to ten weeks, traveling between 18-21 miles per day! And to think that Tobey and I drove 420 miles in about 8 hours today.

We made a brief stop in Dodge City, but arrived too late to visit Front Street, a recreated street from the 1870s. During the summer they have characters dressed in costumes and stage gun fights for the tourists. We walked around a bit and saw Dodge City’s “walk of fame” with stars in the sidewalk for all the TV stars of “Gunsmoke”.

We are camped just outside of Dodge City at a roadside park that allows overnight camping. There is a trucker here, as well, and Penny barked her head off at his Daschund puppy! The trucker was friendly and we visited a while.

We were treated to a beautiful Kansas sunset while Tobey grilled our dinner.

We’ll settle in for the night and get a fairly early start in the morning.