Cow Town to Cow Town & The World's Largest Prarie Dog Town!

We woke up under cloudy skies in Dodge City. We didn't have a great start to the day, see the thing in Annabelle's hand? It's an ice pack. She got her hand closed in the door of the car. So we saw some of the sights around Dodge and then the kids decided that they just wanted to get in the car and go. Fine by me! I've always wanted to get the Hell out of Dodge and now I have. Check!





We drove by the Boot Hill Museum! and there wasn't much going on, so we decided to skip it. This is a cowboy sculpture near the museum. We saw a bunny here!





This is the inscription at the base of the statue. The dentist! who modeled for the statue was apparently somebody, because not only does it mention him on the bottom plaque, it mentions him on a smaller plaque directly above the larger one. We don't know who the cowboy is or who said the little saying, but we know who modeled for the statue!





Oh how we miss Uncle Larry! Old McDonald's just isn't the same. There weren't many choices to be made, it was either this or gas station snacks. I just had a gigantic diet coke and ate the kids leftovers.

So what did you think of lunch! girls?

You might not realize that this was a planned side trip because I never did update my google calendar. Best laid plans and all. Prairie Dog town is a small building just off the interstate. You go in through the building and pay your admission ($21 for the family) and then you walk out the back side of the building into a field that is full of holes. The prairie dogs pop up and down in the holes like whack-a-mole. It's funny just to watch them.





The lady at the admissions desk gave us some crunched up dog biscuits to feed the animals. Connor is trying to coax two prairie dogs out of their holes with his dog biscuit. "They do know that they're not really dogs, right?" Connor said. From the looks of the place, maybe they really didn't know.

What do you know! The dog biscuit worked!

We petted the goats and a mini donkey! and some cows. We chased prairie dogs...and then we got to the good stuff...




Notice that this is a 'Green Mutant' and it is not green, it is just some kind of brownish chicken! or something. Are they trying to pass this off as a mutant prairie dog? Is it some kind of mutant chicken? Notice the cinder blocks on the top of the cage to keep the Green Mutant Chicken from getting out.





Belly named all the baby animals and wanted to take them home because they all loved her and wanted to come home with her. She had a very hard time understanding why we couldn't have a prairie dog as a pet. "But they have toooo maaaannnnyyyyy." I have drawn the line. Prairie dog is over the line. Baby cow is over the line. So is baby turkey, baby prairie dog ("Nooooooo, not the big ones, just a baaaaaabbbbyyy one!"), badger and any kind of mutant bird.





See! I went to Prairie Dog Town. This is not a new hairstyle, it was very windy and smelled like poo. Most of Kansas really does smell like poo.





For some reason, the Prairie Dog Town had both a five- and six-legged cow. What's up with the mutants folks? These animals are very friendly and exceedingly creepy. The six-legged cow is the brown one, the five-legged cow is the black one. They just hang out together in their own separate corral. I guess the other cows were picking on them. Just so you know, they do not appear to be able to control the extra appendages.

Business in the front...

Abomination in the back.

This one has the extra leg hanging off of her neck. She was not nearly as friendly as the brown one. Stupid stuck up mutant cow.





They had quite a collection of animals at Prairie Dog Town. There were the prairie dogs, and the farm animals, but there were also badgers, fox and a whole menagerie of various birds. Oh, I totally forgot about the rattlesnakes! There are also rattlesnakes.





Get the boo-boo box! After saying, "Watch out for the holes!" about 568 times, Belly fell in a hole and lost her shoe. There is a prairie dog in the hole with her shoe and she was not willing to give up a brand new shoe. (I hate to admit this, but I was terrified when I was fishing out that shoe. All I could think of was the killer rabbit at the Cave of Caerbannog...He's got huge, sharp pointed teeth... He can leap about... Look at the bones! Which was silly because there were no bones at the prairie dog town.) She also scraped her ankle and required a band-aid. Another. Band. Aid.





We did see some signs that made us laugh. We saw the one above just after we crossed into Colorado from Nebraska. It reminded me of an old joke that Dad used to do about puppies and Cajuns or something. I'm terrible with jokes. But we laughed about this sign for miles and miles. CR PP?

This place is also in Colorado and I'm not sure what goes on in this building.

This is a wind farm just south of Cheyenne. Look along the top of the ridge and you can see the gigantic windmills. Willa was starving and she was angry that there were no towns. I told her to close her eyes really and wish really hard for a town and then one would appear. It only took about a minute of wishing before we crossed over the ridge and into Cheyenne. I told her to open her eyes! Her wish had come true! She opened her eyes and told me that I must be magic. Belly opened her eyes too and started to cry. "My wish didn't come true! I was wishing for a glass of milk!" I told her that she wasn't holding her mouth right and that she should try again. For the next 5 miles (to the hotel) she tried to get her mouth right and like magic! as soon as we got to the hotel, she got a glass of milk. I'm a regular miracle worker.

Tornado Alley!

Sunday morning (afternoon!) we had to say goodbye to Uncle Larry. I tried to talk him into going to Dodge City with us, but he has a job and bills to pay and is probably a little tired of going and doing. I don't know what we're going to do without his encyclopedic knowledge of our surroundings. I guess we'll go back to "Hey, there's a big thing over there! I wonder what that does?"




I thought we have plenty of time to do and see in Tulsa, but there was so much that we didn't get to do. On the way out of town, we stopped and saw the Golden Driller. He is the largest free standing statue in the world. It's these kinds of little facts that we have Uncle Larry to thank for. It's a big honkin' thing. We missed the Center of the Universe, the Blue Whale in Catoosa, the Aquarium and the Zoo and the Gilcrease and so much more. The girls decided that we will come back to Tulsa. Of course, they also think that they have jobs lined up at Discoveryland!





Everybody was pretty tired and in a fighting mood. They were not so interested in seeing a big yellow dude. They wanted to take a nap. And fight.





So we set out across Oklahoma and into Kansas. There are many, many toll roads here and the tolls are super cheap. No $6 round trips across a three mile bridge! You can drive miles and miles and miles for $1.60. And that's a little strange in itself, who decided that $1.60 is a nice round number?




Kansas is a little bit of a surprise. I expected prairie, but I didn't expect to feel like I'd just driven out to Jay. That is what Kansas looks like; Jay, FL. Only bigger. I think my dad would love it up here. There are deer crossing signs everywhere, little creeks to fish in and little towns that probably haven't changed too much in the past 50 years.




I wish I had gotten more pictures in Kingman KS. I really could see Dad living here. It has such beautiful old buildings and brick streets and this little mini Statue of Liberty. There are lots of pick up trucks and tractors and it smells a little bit like cow poo.





Actually, a large portion of Kansas smelled like cow poo. We passed some HUGE industrial farms that smelled to high heaven. At one point Willa said, "It smells like Daddy pooped on a log and sent it down the river for us." It smelled like everybody's daddy pooped on a log and then put the log in our car. Super stinky!





I liked this little church because it was sitting right in front of what I can only guess it a grain silo complex. Without Uncle Larry, who knows? It could be sitting in front of a space station. I think the picture sums up what Kansas is all about, farming and faith.





We drove through Greensburg, KS on our way to Dodge City. I wanted to take more pictures, but that just didn't seem polite. I did get the picture above of the water tower. I have seen some storm damage in my life, but absolutely nothing can describe what Greensburg looks like even more than a year after the tornado that leveled it. These are some tenacious folks that have years of work ahead of them. If you get the chance, check out their town plan.

Next: More stinky cow towns and a very long drive.

Pigs Can Fly!

Saturday we went down to Ada, OK for the 2nd annual Fly-in and BBQ Contest. Ada is about 2 1/2 hours south of Tulsa and it's just the kind of place that would have a fly-in and bbq contest. You can't really see the kids in the picture, they are in front of the fire truck, but they were so impressed with the size of this flag! that the told me I had to get a picture.




We decided to get the taster's kit that let you get a little sample of 10 of the competing teams food. There were a couple of other teams giving food away for free because they didn't want it to go to waste. We mostly tasted brisket, but there was a nibble of rib eye steak that was stellar, a rib that could have been better, and something that looked like sloppy joe. We did taste one bit of brisket! that was exceptional from the Woodsmoking team. Boy was that brisket ever good, no sauce required. We also had sno-cones.





This is a life flight helicopter. It will probably not be Belly's last time in one. She did go over to one of the guys who was there with the life flight team and tell him that she wants to be a nurse on an airplane when she grows up but she doesn't know how to fly a plane. "You need to show me how to fly this!" she demanded. They chuckled at her, but she was serious.





Connor pulled his head out of his rear end long enough to be interested in a giant military truck of some kind. Then he put his head back in his rear end and continued to be difficult. The girls were whiny, the sun was hot, the sky was blue and he was 12.




Boy did we ever make use of the port-o-potties! Willa spent so much time in one of them that Connor yelled, "Hey Doctor Poo, are you taking your Turdis to another Urinaverse or what?!" And I just cracked up laughing. So for the past couple of days Willa has been Dr. Poo. Hahahahaha....Turdis. That kid cracks me up.





Hey girls! Look at those cool airplanes flying around! Wow! Look at that! That plane is racing a car!





Not so interested in the airplanes. They were picking flowers for Uncle Larry! who was judging the contest. Apparently, he got to eat all kinds of super tasty BBQ and he got to bring home a little goody bag. The kids got into Uncle Larry's goody bag and took all his stuff. They ate his ribs and took his pens and pads of paper.





They did finally watch some airplanes flying around, but only because Belly was waiting for one of them to crash. "I saw this on television," she told Willa conspiratorially, "they go high, and then they fall and explode." Thankfully, she was disappointed.





Connor got some video footage of the airshow that I have to figure out how to embed in the blog. Uncle Larry says he knows how, and I'm sure Connor can figure it out. We'll see if we can get that up here in the next few days.





After we got back from the air show, we went to dinner at Hideaway Pizza! Super tasty! I wish we had one of these at home. I was glad to finally meet a real friend of Uncle Larry's (that's half of Doug in the photo above). Up until this point we've only met the neighbors, not any real 'friends' to speak of, and I was starting to get a complex. Are we really that bad? (Yes, yes we are!) We also went to Target and bought shoes because Willa's flip flops made her feet hurt.

Discoveryland!

We have been preparing for the trip to Discoveryland by learning the songs in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The girls call it 'cowboy music' and sing with a fakey crazy accent that I can't even begin to describe. The weather had been iffy all day and I was afraid that they would cancel the show (our luck has been like that) but things went off without a hitch.





This is the Cattleman's Ranch Dinner. Uncle Larry says, "it's part of the experience!" It tastes exactly like you think it should. Mexicorn, pre-fab potato salad, pork & beans and a steak on a bun. I have to admit, the meat was nice and tender and had a good flavor to it. There is something to be said for Cowboy Leg.





This is Dudley. The man, not the horse. The ponies were tied to what looked like an old fashioned clothes line and they walked around in circles. The girls were thrilled and wanted to take the ponies home and put them in the back yard.




Both of the girls pitched a fit to ride the ponies. Actually, the both took turns pitching fits for whatever reason, I have no idea.





Here is a teepee we saw and thought of the nephews, some more of The Burts Who Stayed Home. I sure wish I had an alligator expert with me on this trip, you never know when you're going to need one. Oh, and a karate master, if only I had one of those!




Snow cones and seats in Row B. It doesn't get much better than that!





Uncle Larry has been to Discoveryland! before, and yet, he went along with us. Discoveryland! is actually a really neat idea. It's an outdoor theater with a Western theme. They only do two plays, Oklahoma! (go figure) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We saw the latter.




There was a Western Review before the show. There was singing of all the songs that you would expect and some can-can dancing. Annabelle wanted to know why the can-can dancers were doing that with their skirts. "It's a special kind of dance," I told her. "When I do that you get me in trouble," she noted. Yes, yes indeed.





The singers did a patriotic/post-911 thing where they were Proud to be an American. Annabelle said that they were 'crying inside' when they sang this song because of the looks on their faces. I was crying a little inside too.





Bless yore beautiful hide! The girls were mesmerized and sang along. This activity was definitely a winner. Connor didn't even bring the PSP, and he said he really enjoyed the show, too.



The cast was all wearing lots of clothing and while the weather was a relatively mild mid-70's, all I could think was that they looked hot. I mean, I didn't expect them to be in bikinis or anything, but they were wearing coats at one point and dancing and singing and I was just sure that somebody was going to keel over from heat exhaustion.





After the show they have a little meet & greet with the actors and the girls got to meet Meghan who played Millie, the lead female. They were star struck . Belly told Meghan that she was pretty and she loved her.



Belly also loved the actor who played Adam, the male lead, but he was not pretty. Willa told him that she wanted to sing and dance on the stage and he told them both that they could come work at Discoveryland when the got a little older. See you next summer!