Dodge City

I have no idea how long it will take me to recap this road trip. It’s possible that I will still be blogging about it right up until school starts. Consider yourself forewarned.

A couple of Aidan-isms from our trip...

“I think God must really like us the best because we love Jesus so much. Because where ever we go the sun always follows us.” (I didn’t have the heart to tell him that when you are driving west on a sunny afternoon, the sun does seem to follow you.)

“Do you spell ‘newspaper’ n-e-w-s-p-a-p-e-r? I can’t believe it ends with an “r”. It sounds like it ends with an “a”. News-papah.” (Someday he will be able to say his r’s and I will miss the cute way he says everything now. Even if sometimes he sounds like he’s from New Jersey and I can’t understand him. Love that kid.)

Sunday evening we arrived in Dodge City, Kansas, early childhood home of my dear husband.

(Brandon's childhood home)

We checked into a hotel, and within 5 minutes Aidan had launched himself from the bed head-first into the table, cutting his eye open and giving himself this sweet shiner:

It’s what happens when four little monkeys are jumping on the bed. And it’s what my kids do in hotel rooms. And I didn't really lock him in jail afterwards. It's just the only picture of the eye I could find.

We unloaded the van, just in time for Dodge City to experience it’s first legitimate rain storm in many, many months. It was long-prayed for rain for this drought-striken part of the country. Of course, as we are driving around looking for somewhere to eat dinner, seeing trees swaying and water whipping around, I may have cracked my window just a smidge listening for tornado sirens. I’m still convinced that we narrowly missed a twister. We ate dinner, then arrived back at the hotel to find that the power was out. Picture all six of us wandering down a dark hallway looking for our room, and then getting the kids to bed with only the flashlight app on Brandon’s phone as a light source. Always an adventure for us. Fortunately, the storm had cooled things off to about 70 degrees, so the couple of hours without power was not near as uncomfortable as it could have been.

The next morning (Monday morning) we were greeted with a breezy 75 degree day outside, and hurried out of our hotel room as quickly as possible and headed over to Boot Hill.

I'm sure there's some sort of historical significance to this train. The kids loved checking out the inside.

And Brandon and the boys loved climbing all over the outside.

"There's not a sign that says 'do not climb'! That means we can climb over it!" Which one of my three boys said this?

We went to jail,

visited the museum full of Native American artifacts and guns, and witnessed a gunfight. There's a cute little street-front of stores, made up inside to look as they did in the days of Wyatt Earp.

The pharmacy is always fascinating to me in these types of places.

And look what we have here!

Sasparillas were enjoyed at the Saloon where the kids danced around to live piano music.

And you can't go to Boot Hill without visiting the outhouse built for two.

Who thinks this is a good idea?

I'll tell you who...

One thing that I loved about Boot Hill was that it wasn't packed wall-to-wall with people. We saw a few other families there, but it was never crowded, and we never waited in any sort of line while we were there. My kids loved climbing on everything that didn't have a "Do Not Climb" sign on it.

Then, because my love for my husband knows no bounds, this unfortunate picture was taken.

Idontwanttotalkaboutit.

The boys especially LOVED Boot Hill. The mommy loved Boot Hill because the place was a bargain! Our whole family got in for $35, and the gift shop actually had reasonable prices. We NEVER get souveniers at these places, but the kids each got to pick out little carved rock pendants for $1.75 each.

Little did I know how much I would appreciate these cheap prices as we left Dodge City, headed towards Grapevine, Texas and the Great Wolf Lodge.