Dodge City

Antifreeze spewed out of the generator after a half-hour stop in McCook for a Shopcat walk and lunch.  After refilling the antifreeze there was no power to turn over the engine.  Mike could find no broken hoses so called the Marathon Service Center to talk to Leon.  He said to check the batteries with a volt meter.  We had no volt meter so GOT CRACKING to get to a campground cuz we would have no electricity or heat to boondock.  The nearest open campground was Dodge City and we arrived at 6:10PM at Watersport Campground.  There was still some snow in Dodge so we walked the camping spot and found it solid and parked and hooked up.  $21.  

horseshoe prints on the dike

The next morning Mike headed to get a volt meter and took the new gel batteries with the receipt to NAPA.  Gel batteries registered only 5 volts so NAPA put them on a trickle charger and would supply new replacements, if desired.  I walked the two miles around the ”lake", dried up from 4 years of drought  The trail said no horses, but 3/4 way around I hiked to the top of the dike to get a better view of the elevators.   Here's the horse route as horseshoe prints were evident all along the dike crest.  I could expect no less in the cow town of Dodge, home to the wild west best known sheriff, Wyatt Earp.  In the 1872-75 three million buffalo were killed on the high plains and 850,000 were shipped  out on the new RR in Dodge City.  Good buffalo hunters made 100/day. ($2100 in today's dollars).

Our sad faces cuz batteries for the generator not charging.  Waiting for new ones in Dodge City.  

That afternoon we played tourist and sent to Boothill Cemetery visitor center and rented a driving CD tour guide to Dodge.  Besides the 15 men and one woman buried with their boots on, we drove by historic churches and the old Fort Dodge, now the Kansas old soldiers nursing home.  What most impressed up was the one-mile square feed lot and the meat packing plant that employs 2800 and slaughters 6000 cattle per day.  National Beef is rancher owned and ships processed beef all over the world.

Mike checked on the batteries.  One charged, one not, so new batteries would arrive in the morning for us.  We watched "The World's Fastest Indian" on TV, a true story about Kiwi Burt Monro's motorcycle that broke the record at the Bonneville flats at 200 mph.