Route 50 Continued

Day 24 -Sat., 5/31/08 -La Junta, CO to Dodge City, KS -Did I mention that Ted and I like Route 50? We love Route 50! Colorado is an interesting state. The western half is Rockies while the eastern half is flat. Route 50 travels through both.

We stayed the night at La Junta in the eastern part of Colorado. The land was flat farm land now. Our goal was the Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site on Route 194. After a great breakfast at the Copper Kitchen in La Junta we proceeded to the fort. People dressed in period costumes gave you the idea of what it would have been like back in the 1800's. A man was stripping bark off of saplings using old tools just outside the fort gates when we arrived. Horses grazed nearby without halters. Red-winged blackbirds flew from reed to reed along the banks of the Arkansas River. Back in the 1800's the other side of the Arkansas River was Mexico. Bent's Fort was a main trade center on the Santa Fe trail. Ted and I met some other Gold Wing people there from Denver (Chapter J) and some guys riding through from Mississippi. We had a great time at the fort.

We left Bent's Old Fort and jumped back on Route 50, our favorite road and continued east. Route 50 east of the Rockies is flat and straight. The land yields pastures and fields for as far as your eye can see. Horses are everywhere! Good looking horses of all types. I've never seen herds of horses to this magnitude. I saw a white horse with a black head and a brown horse with a white band around his middle. Beautiful horses. I saw fields of straw, hay, and corn. I began counting the sections of those big circular irrigation units. They are amazing things. Cattle were numerous and many tall feed silos. This is beautiful farm country. We are following the Santa Fe Trail here and I think about what the pioneers must have thought when they saw this fertile ground.

Dodge City became our goal for the night. After finding a room we headed down to Boot Hill. As we arrived a gun fight broke out in front of the Long Branch Saloon. The sheriff tried to break it up, but there were too many of the bad guy's friends. The saloon girl fired the first shot that got things going and the good guys were the last ones standing. Ted and I went up to Boot Hill Cemetery and went through the museum there. We also walked the board walk through town to view all the different original shops. It was a great time. Our hotel is on Wyatt Earp Blvd!

Every day is a wonder. We are loving this trip. I don't know why it took us so long to give it a go.

Miles -223
Cattle grates - 2 (outside of Bent's Old Fort - the horses probably)
Highest gas paid - $3.99
Highest elevation - 4100'