Day 9: Dodge City
Day 9 of the Riding Vintage cross-country ride carried the 1933 Harley-Davidson VL and 1934 Harley-Davidson VLD farther west across Kansas, with George leading the way to Pawnee Rock, Dodge City, and the Garden City area.
Day 9 Ride Stats
- Date: September 27, 2015
- Start: George and Kim’s garage in Kansas
- Finish: Garden City, Kansas area
- Distance: about 200 miles
- Route: George and Kim’s place in Kansas to Pawnee Rock, Dodge City, and the Garden City area
- Motorcycles: 1933 Harley-Davidson VL, 1934 Harley-Davidson VLD, and George’s 1968 Shovelhead for the Kansas guide portion
- Gas added: 3.111 gallons total
- Oil added: 1 quart total
- Roadside issues: none noted
Day 9 Ride Journal
After seven days of camping, sleeping in a real bed was something of a novelty. I had forgotten what it was like to sleep through the night without a single rock or stick poking into my back. George cooked up an excellent breakfast once everyone was filing out of bed and it didn’t take much to convince him to be our personal guide for the rest of our time in Kansas. His 1968 Shovelhead is a little modern, but he rode slow and didn’t show off his electric starter too many times.
From George’s we took a short detour north to the town of Pawnee Rock. Named for a rocky promontory which juts out of the otherwise flat plains, Pawnee Rock was well known to settlers traveling the Santa Fe Trail in the 1800s. Later the tip of the rock was removed and used for building material so it’s not quite as high as it was 200 years ago. To remedy this, the Park Service constructed a platform on top of the rock which allows visitors to climb to the original height and take in the view that many settlers wrote about on their trip west.
Pawnee Rock was also home to Tim’s mother and surprisingly George knew exactly where her old house was located. So we stopped by, talked to the current owners and snapped a few pictures for her.
After leaving Pawnee Rock, we turned southwest toward Dodge City. I grew up watching movies like Tombstone and Wyatt Earp, so I was pretty excited about walking down the dusty streets of Dodge City and finding my way to a saloon for a drink of whiskey. Well, I should have just driven to a studio in Hollywood, because the Dodge City that I imagined was not in Kansas.
There was an attempt to recreate part of the main street, but it certainly didn’t seem up to Doc Holliday’s standards. There wasn’t even a single gunfight while we were there.
Throughout the day, we passed hundreds of windmills, sometimes stretching for miles on either side of the highway. From the road they looked big, but until I saw the blades rolling through Dodge City by train, I just had no idea of their true scale. In the background of the following picture, it looks like there is a white wave-shaped wall in the background. Those are actually the individual windmill blades, each taking up two railroad cars.
After a late lunch/early dinner, we said our goodbyes to George, cranked up the bikes and headed into the setting sun. We had located an RV park just an hour west on the outskirts of Garden City. When we pulled into the park, it only took a few minutes to realize that it was just a few months away from being condemned. Instead of risking a possible infection (the bathhouse looked like something from Area 51), we decided to get our first hotel room of the trip.
Even with the extra stops, we logged another 200 miles.
