When thinking of going on the road one pictures scenic drives and majestic places. An outside may look at what we are doing and say, Wow, you guys are living the dream. Because of this it is tempting to only portray the highlights of this journey, as if we are just bouncing on our tails from one great location to the next like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. To portray this would not be accurate. There have been places we have had to stop for a few days or a week that were worse than where we left. After going to a lot of towns you see that life really isn't much different anywhere. I am thinking it is a matter of deciding do you want to be around more trees, or people. How far do you want to live from the stores. What types of stores and groceries would you want available to you in a town, and what kind of opportunity is there to make a living in that town.
Taos was almost my ideal town. With a beautiful forest nearby, organic groceries, good restaurants all in a small enough town that you can get in and out of easily even during the busiest time. It did lack one thing and that was opportunity for pilgrim's like us, and that is a major thing to take into consideration. Durango had some of these characteristics, but Hana would hate the long winters.
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| The Long Branch bar, Dodge City |
When going ove the border into Kansas the world did not turn black and white as expected. There were no flying rocking chairs, or witches and gypsies. It was somewhat disappointing. We pulled into Dodge City, which is an old historic cowboy town that had a bad reputation until it was cleaned up by Wyatt Earp. We stayed at the Gunsmoke Rv Park which got a lot of bad reviews. After being in a crowded place and breathing everyone's sewer chemicals I figured the place that had a reputation of a crazy owner might not be as busy. Reviews can be deceiving often. The woman did have her particular ways, but she was nice to us. She won't check anyone in before noon, and we did witness some arriving at 10 am being turned away because they showed up too early. I suppose we all have our challenges great and small, and this owner had hers, but I won't condemn her. The park had some trees and was peaceful enough.
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| An old west gun fight in Dodge City |
The next place we arrived in Witchita was nothing like the reviews, and I did sense some foul play in the ratings because there was one in particular that was going far out of his way to slam another park because he didn't like the way they looked at his and his partner's "high end tattoos", thus claiming that the park hated women and every other type of person that could fit in a minority category. I was wise to this, but we made our choice because one place had internet that worked while the other didn't. The place that was slammed would have otherwise been the better place. I was told on the phone that they had a pull through available during the week. However, when we got there the pull through was an alley right up against a fence behind a gas station. There was dog poo all over the narrow site. We were told that we had to transfer to a back in site the next day, which was nothing of what I was told on the phone. A back in may have had more shade and less dog poop, but we didn't feel like moving everything. I talked them into a couple more days in the site while we stayed there to pretty much receive some packages in the mail and go. It was not a pleasant place to look at with old, beat up permanent sort of trailers and rvs.
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| BBQ at Char Bar, and a pic of the new Tee |
Now we are in the town of Independance, right outside Kansas City, Mo. There is some great bbq out here, and the pulled pork lives up to it's reputation. I was also able to meet up with my friend, Wayfinder who I met on Cigar Box Nation, a forum and website for people who build cigar box guitars. There are a lot of helpful people on that site, including another one of my friends from Australia, Jonno, who is a top bloke that is going to have me talking like Crocodile Dundee in no time. I also made a tshirt trade with Blues Frog, which you will see in an upcoming photo. I wore the same Sitting Bull t shirt every day for a year, and now I have to flip a coin as to who's shirt I am going to wear. I also finished a 4 string which I am anxious to share with everyone in the next blog.
We are hoping to get the vinegar to do more exploring in the town, but right now we don't feel like doing much for a few days.
Weird RV of the Week:
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| We saw a few more truck/van home conversions like this parked on the street in the same town. |
