Susan's Happy Trails: Grand Canyon: Tuesday - Garden City, KS to Carthage, MO

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 – Garden City, KS – Kansas stinks. Literally. At least this part of west Kansas stinks. That smell we detected yesterday in eastern Colorado lingers here, too. A man at a gas station in Granada, Colorado, said that the smell was coming from the farmland. I asked him if the farmers were spreading poo in the fields for fertilizer, and he said he believed so. I’m not so sure. We saw stockyards in Lamar, Colorado, where we first noticed the smell, and now, as we head out of Garden City and pass by another stockyard, that same, terrible, funky odor hangs in the air. This odor is worse than poo. It’s like rot, decay. It makes me want to think twice about eating store-bought beef!

We think we saw a prairie dog yesterday outside of La Junta, Colorado. He was in the roadway, and apparently unafraid of moving vehicles, for as we approached, he merely hunkered down in the road. He looked kind of like a small beaver, minus the teeth and tail, but he was a lighter shade of brown, almost gray. As we passed him, I asked Joel, “What was THAT?” He hadn’t seen it. Then, I noticed little dirt mounds all over the ground on both sides of the road. They had big holes in their centers, and –

EWWWW yeah, that smell is coming from stockyards. We just passed another one. Gah!

About 10:30 we reached Dodge City. Dodge City is where Wyatt Earp was the marshall during the 1870s. We saw a big sign that said “Boothill,” and we stopped to investigate. Beyond the sign was a souvenir shop and a Wild West Museum. We did not visit the museum, but we stopped in the gift shop, bought some loot for the grandchildren, and watched a film about the history of Dodge City. It turns out that “Boothill” is the name of a cemetery just up the hill from the museum, where people who were shot in gunfights were buried, often with their boots on, hence the name “Boothill.” After our visit to the gift shop, we drove around on the few blocks around the museum, where historic figures such as Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Doc Holiday were memorialized. Even the cast of Gunsmoke and some other famous movie/TV people were included. Thinking that the “memorials” would be statues, I wanted my picture made next to James Arness, a.k.a. “Matt Dillon.” However, the memorials turned out to be plaques embedded in the sidewalk – totally NOT fun for pictures – so we drove on back to Hwy. 400 and continued on our way home.
In Greensburg, KS, we saw signs for the World’s Largest Hand-Dug Well and the World’s Largest Meteorite. We were determined to have our picture made beside one or both of these objects. Alas, we did not see any other signs, and did not get to see these wonders. I am devastated. 

Joel had his picture made with a saloon hussy.

Graham, as we were coming through Kansas, with nothing to see on either side of the road except green grain fields and bIue sky, I tried to take a picture that would give you a sense of the open expanse. Every time I’d aim the camera at the horizon and press the shutter button, the camera would beep twice and flash a red X on the display screen. After several attempts, I finally dug the camera instruction manual out of the camera case to see what the problem was. The book said that two beeps and a red X means, “Don’t take that picture, dumbass…there ain’t nothin’ out there.” ;)

1:30 p.m. – Speaking of “nothing out there,” here’s one for the “WTF” Department: 25 miles outside Wichita, Kansas, in the middle of nowhere, we passed a road exit sign that said “40th Ave.” I thought it was a bit strange, but didn’t say anything. A few miles later, we passed another road exit sign that said “70th Ave.” Joel went, “Huh….” I said, “They must have big plans for this place.” He said, “What’s next? 100th Ave?” Well, guess what:

2:30 p.m. – A late lunch in Wichita. We opted for local flavor, rather than the same kind of fast food we could get anywhere. We decided on Kansas BBQ, but had no idea where to get it, so we just picked an exit and drove around looking for a building that said “BBQ” on the side. After 15 minutes of driving in circles with our stomachs rumbling, we finally stopped at a place called “La Galette,” even though we were pretty sure that there wouldn’t be any BBQ on the menu. Sure enough, it was “girl food” – crepes, quiche, cold cucumber soup, and such. On the bright side, they did have several cases full of things like crème puffs, tarts, and éclairs. I was about to order a chicken salad sandwich when Joel said to the lady behind the counter, “I really had my face set for barbeque.” Bless her heart, she sent us right down the street to a place called “Delano BBQ.” (We bought a crème puff “to go” from her, and not just to be nice, either, and when we got to Delano’s, we told them, “La Galette sent us down here, so when you see them, show them some love!”) They had both PIG and COW on the menu. Since we can get pork BBQ any old day of the week, we decided to try their barbequed beef brisket, and we smothered it with hot-sweet sauce. You know, it wasn’t bad. Ok, it was downright good. It wouldn’t cure a serious craving for REAL barbeque, but it was very tasty. The owner was very nice, too, and when she found out we were from Memphis, she wanted us to try their “hawg sauce” to see how close it came to Memphis barbeque sauce. Close, very close. We left full and happy. As for the crème puff, we shared half of it – a bite for Joel, a bite for me – zooming down Hwy. 400 (seriously “to go”). We’ll take out the rest of it later, when we’re in need of a little something.

Outside of Wichita, boy, was it ever windy! Joel had trouble keeping the Tahoe in the road. It was so windy that even the little farm ponds were white-capping. We saw crows and hawks in the air, trying to fly, flap-flap-flapping their wings but getting nowhere. Joel said he thought it might be easier for those birds to hunt down-wind and walk back.

6 p. m. - Minor “SNAFU” at the Missouri state line. The map program said one thing, the road signs said another. We followed the road signs, and, after a couple of miles, realized that we’d screwed up. Nothing’s coming, so Joel makes a U-turn in the middle of the highway, and we went back to the intersection where we took the wrong turn. It took a few miles (and a few more road signs) before we were sure we were back on the right track. Carthage, Missouri is 15 miles away.
On the road to Carthage, a black cat crossed our path, and right beside a cemetery! Joel did a pretend “spit” and made an “X.” We’ve been needing to do that, anyway, according to my former co-worker Mary Jo, the most superstitious person I’ve ever known. Mary Jo would have turned around and found another route to Carthage rather than cross the path of that black cat. And she would never, ever have chosen a different route home from the Grand Canyon than the one she took to the Grand Canyon. I once asked her what she would do if a black cat crossed her path just as she turned into her driveway. She answered, “Some things can’t be helped, and you just have to spit and make an ‘X’ and go on.” I just hope that one spit and one “X” covers both the black cat and the different route home.

The landscape here is beginning to look like home, with lots of budding trees, yellow Forsythia bushes and buttercups in the yards. It’s also nice to be in a place where people don’t think we have accents. ;)

In Carthage, we snagged a room at the "Precious Moments Hotel."