Day 16 - to Wichita, Kansas

Just a quick ramble tonight, as we're off to a Tom Petty concert here in Wichita, Kansas soon.

We kicked the day off at Dodge City, where we visited the #1 attraction here; Boot Hill.  Dodge City was a real cowboy town and Boot Hill was where they buried folks after the numerous gunfights and other dubious goings on here.  It was called Boot Hill because, apparently, they buried people so quickly, they didn't bother taking their boots off.

There is a museum here and most of it is 'inside' these building facades.

Some of the buildings are authentic but most are replicas.  We had a Boot Hill sarsaparilla in this hotel.  Hmmmm - acquired taste...

One of the tourists in the hotel took to our accents and wanted to be photographed with two "real kiwis".  We obliged, of course.

Here we are with the Barman.

Actually, it was quite a bit better than we thought it would be and we ended up spending a good couple of hours here.

It must have been amazing blasting over the Kansas plains in this puppy.

We pointed the Chev east-ward and head towards Wichita, Kansas.  Here are some of the sights that caught our eye.  Ever seen a Harley three-wheeler?  They are quite popular here and sound just as good as their two-wheel cousins.

We stopped at Fort Dodge, the site of an old fort near Dodge City (strangely enough) and bumped into this little guy.  He wasn't hanging around for too many photos...

The sky started to look a bit interesting by the time we got to Fort Dodge.

Had to get a shot of one of these Kansas farm sheds as we passed.

There's that sky again...

But back to the road.  It took us an hour to travel 15 miles this morning.  Just so many things to stop and have a look at!

We're in the heart of Tornado Alley here.  Here's a shot of a tornado shelter on the side of the road.

And this is what it's like inside...

We stopped at Greensburg on the way.  A nasty EF5 tornado touched down here nearly five years ago to the day.  We had a good chat to a couple of locals, one of whom was there when the twister passed through.  It was fascinating hearing his recount of the event.

The tornado was 1.7 miles across at the base.  95% of the buildings in the town (of 1500) were either damaged or destroyed as the twister passed directly overhead.

These steps are all that's left of Greensburg Secondary School.
  

Even though the tornado destroyed the town five years ago, there is still a great deal of rebuilding going on.  It reminded me of Christchurch following the earthquakes.  Here you can see empty lots and the damage caused to remaining trees is evident.

Talking about trees, you can see that bark has been pulled off this one.  According to our local, you need winds of 300mph + to do that.

We popped into a gift shop and had a look over some photos of the event.  I was given permission to photograph this  - it looked pretty full-on.

They had two tornadoes here three weeks ago but the skies are looking settled here for now, so it looks like we've dodged the storms again!

See you tomorrow.