Showdown At High Noon

May 8, 2025

Back to Dodge

I was lookin' forward to gettin' back on the road after yesterday's cowardly off-day. I looked forward to it even more when I peeked out the window and saw a bright sunshiny sky. It was SO bright, in fact, that I thought about takin' another day off so that my delicate skin wouldn't get burnt to the shade of a red hot chili pepper. (JUST KIDDING! I would never do that. I like the sun.)

I didn't know what to expect for the day. I worried that it might be a tedious slog to Dodge City on a very busy highway, and I would have no good material to use for my journal at the end of the day.

I shouldn't have worried--the road always provides. My cluelessness also provides, but I'll get to that later.

The first point of interest was a distribution center for wind turbine parts. It had acres and acres of gigantic blades, hubs, and towers. I've seen their products being transported on trucks quite often over the last couple weeks.

U.S. Highway 50 was easily the busiest road of my tour. I was okay though, because it still had the wide shoulder typical of Kansas. Wide yes, but not quite as pristine as what I've become accustomed to.

And you can still see grain elevators from ten miles away.

For most of the day I was fascinated by how there were small hills with grazing cattle on the left side of the highway, and totally flat farmland on the right. The road ran right through the middle. How the heck does that happen? My answer is "I don't know, ask a road engineer, or a geographer, or the son of gosh."

I saw this monument at a Highway 50 rest area. I don't know much about the Sante Fe Trail, but I've heard of it. It's pretty famous in old cowboy movies. I felt proud, as an Ersatz Cowboy, to be riding on the old trail.

Doofus on the right. A timed picture of myself is always good material for my journal. Somehow, I managed to capture this one on the very first attempt.

I've seen quite a few big feed yards on this trip, but the Irsik & Doll Ingalls yard was the biggest. What you see here is less than 1/10th of the entire operation.

Surprisingly, I succeeded in riding 12 days in Kansas without a single seriously boneheaded incident. Sure, there were a few minor boneheaded moves on my part, but nothing worth mentioning. That changed today when I boneheadedly veered off onto a dirt road to go to the restroom of the great outdoors.

(I just realized how often I've been writin' about the act of urination at the side of the road. It might lead one to believe I have a fixation on toilet humor, or a weak bladder, or a prostate the size of a softball. Perhaps my description of the boneheaded move will sound better if I adjust my story to say I veered onto a dirt road for a "quick snack.")

So, while pulling off onto a dirt road for a quick snack, I forgot to take into consideration that it had been raining for two days. The dirt was now mud--Kansas clay--and it caked my tires with mud and rocks.

It was a major pain in the ass having to bend down to wipe off my tires and drive train with a bandana, with hundreds of cars & trucks passing by, and with my rear end greeting every one of them.

I got all of the heavy stuff off the tires, so I felt safe in continuing on. Two miles later I saw a sign for a "historical area." A little later, there was a sign that lured me into viewing some "Santa Fe Trail Wagon Ruts." I could think of no better addition to my journal than to view 170-year-old wagon ruts in the Kansas soil. So I exited the highway to see if those old ruts were bigger than the ruts I made with my bike a couple miles earlier.

A short trail with a boardwalk led me to the top of a hill where there was a National Historic Landmark monument in honor of the "trail remains." There also were some information boards, one of which had a picture of wagon ruts, but I could find no ACTUAL wagon ruts. Not even the rut of one wagon wheel.

What I did get, though, were some nice views and an unusual hiking opportunity.

My next photo opportunity came when I saw a couple of old wagons on the outskirts of Dodge City. I wondered if they might have been the very wagons that made those invisible ruts back at the historic site.

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Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 398 miles (641 km)

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Emily SharpThere was some nice topography in your shots today. At the Trail site, did you see any swales? Because sometimes 'wagon ruts' are really just indents in the hills that look like a swale. Or so I discoverd in various places in WY. I though 'ruts' would be like a deep double track, but sometimes it was just a low point in the hills where the wagons had eroded away the ridgeline to make a 'dent'.
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1 month ago

Gregory GarceauTo Emily SharpAnother insightful tip. I need someone like you along with me on my tours to explain things like that to me. I have a tendency to look at stuff pretty superficially.
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1 month ago