Boot Hill Cemetery story
Day 11, July 30, 2003—Our last day
I got to sleep in all the way to 6:30 AM this morning. After getting up at 5 AM, and often not getting into bed the previous night until near midnight, this felt like heaven. But, I don’t go on vacation to spend it sleeping. I can that at home, and more comfortably. I avoid hotel pools (mostly) for the same reason. They are OK for unwinding at night, but if you are going to drive 1000 miles and spend the prime part of the day at the pool, you have just spent several hundred dollars and many hours to do what $5 would have accomplished back home.
Boot Hill. It wasn't very impressive.
Anyway, we had a late breakfast, finishing up a bit after 9 AM. We headed over to the Boot Hill Museum to see what the museum had to offer. We started out in the gift shop as looked around some. We would be back later, we were more or less killing time until the short orientation film on Boot Hill started. They had a lot of displays and I found all of them interesting. In the exhibit that housed their gun collections they had a pistol owned by Mysterious Dave Mather and a shotgun that had belonged to Ben Thompson. Old West buffs will recognize the names, but if you don’t you likely won’t have liked this display anyway. No worries, plenty of others. Dad & I liked this one though.
One that we all liked was the Gunsmoke room.
The Gunsmoke Room. Episode were playing on the TV in front of this couch. The actors pictures were on the wall. Gunsmoke fans would appeciate it.
It was mid 20th century single family home, living room. It was decorated in a bright western theme and had Gunsmoke playing on the television. On the walls were pictures and displays about the actors who appeared on the long running series.
We saw Boot Hill Cemetery, or at least a recreation. It was a bit disappointing, but there was enough history on the signs to make it interesting to me. But we saw another gunfight out on Front Street and the Prickly Ash Bitters street skit. This was a comic skit based on an actual snake oil salesman who was made famous or infamous for being in town when a well know photo of early Dodge City was taken. His sign was prominent in the foreground. The Dodge City actors turned it into a very funny skit.
There was a little bit more to be experienced, but we needed some lunch first.
Miss Kitty (left) sans costume. Would you have recognized her?
We ate there on Front Street. I can’t remember if it was when we ate, or if we were back at the Long Branch for a drink, but it was then that I was able to take a picture of Miss Kitty, out of costume. I must be clueless, because I still couldn’t tell they were the same person!
After lunch we found the Old Time Photographer and got a group picture taken. We all look a bit silly. The girls on the bar are dressed as bar girls in skimpy outfits, and me, Mom, and Dad are dressed in heavy coats like its freezing. It was still fun. We were already 1 ½ hours late getting on the road, but I still wanted a stagecoach ride. Mom and Dad did not feel like fighting getting in and out of the cramped coach, so they skipped it. Margo was happy to keep them company. The girls humored me, as they knew we would be heading home after we were done. It was pretty quick and without narration, but it was still fun. But, it was time to go. Everyone was looking forward to sleeping in their own bed tonight.
