Today we wake and our plan for the morning is to satisfy one of my points of interest on the tour, Boot Hill. Having been bought up on Western films and the likes of John Wayne, Patrick Widmark and Henry Fonda I wanted to visit some of the towns synonymous with these films. To get in the mood we have been watching a few DVDs bought cheaply at Wal-mart stores and the classic movie channels on TV.
Dodge City was a true frontier town and was the end of the cattle trails from Texas, such as the famous Chisum trail. The herds were driven this far and from here distributed across the western territories. With these cowboys arriving in Dodge after a long hard ride they were up for a good time – and this often ended up with trouble. Dodge City ended up with Dodge City having a reputation for lawlessness – and to sort this problem out some tough US Marshals were put in place. Names of these Marshals, such a Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson have passed into folklore. Eventually the railroad arrived in Dodge City and the long cattle drives stopped and soon Dodge City became a civilised town. Today the cattle industry in significant in Dodge City – there are some large meat processing plants around town – but the cattle for these come from more local sources.
The Boot Hill Museum has been built on the original site of the famous grave yard. They have also built a replica of the original Front Street. We get to the museum early and it is like a ghost town. After a short orientation movie we set out to explore. The museum exhibits are fascinating and there are some fantastic artefacts and photographs from the period (around the 1850’s to 1880s). There are profiles of some of the good and bad characters from Dodge City’s past. We then took a brief trip outside and look around the 
Boot Hill cemetery – which is on the original site but is marked with not too authentic grave markers. Next we head off to Front Street which is continuation of the museum. We go into the general store and have a chat with some of the “locals” and then hit the saloon where one of the costumed staff is teaching a special ed member of staff the guitar. This boy gives us a rendition of “Twinkle twinkle little star”, for which we give a rapturous applause – the look of pride on his face was heart warming. We then knock back our sarsaparillas before heading off into the sunset.
We needed to stop for lunch. Entering a small town called Mullinville there were a number of unusual art pieces on the road side depicting an eclectic set of personalities such as George Bush, Margaret Thatcher and Lady Diana. This obviously caught our eye as much as a sign saying 'café- turn right and go two blocks', and being taught to do as we are told we instinctively followed these instructions. The Country Café was a delight, full of locals (which is a good sign) and serving simple, but tasty food. We eat our fill 
and as I pay I notice collection tin for tornado victims, which is not uncommon in this part of the world – so I donate and do not pay it any more attention. As we continue down the road we come to Greensburg, Kansas. Now the first thing Karen notices a structure of army tents, not unlike those you see in M.A.S.H and next you enter into the main part of town which is totally devastated. Then it all comes back to me – I remember hearing about this on the news earlier in the year. On May 4th of this year Greensburg was hit by an F5 tornado which destroyed 95% of the town and killed 11 people. Seeing this level of destruction, even some 6 months later, when a lot of cleaning up has obviously taken place, was startling. A large section of the town is quite literally flattened and there are only a few structures, the odd wall or two still standing. Jack and Emily were most moved and even before we left the town started to do a work piece on their feelings upon seeing the destruction.Our stop over point is Tulsa, Oklahoma the centre of the oil industry in the area. If you didn’t know that before you arrived the breath grabbing smells in the air when you get there tells you. We get a glorious view across to the refinery, which is actually quite pretty at night. Our choice for dinner is the Spaghetti Warehouse – which turns out to be a great selection. Full and tired we hit the sack.
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