Sprint across the staked plains

Oklahoma City skyline from Scissortail Park

 

The Leaning Tower of Britten, Texas

Terry Funk mural, Amarillo

Fishers Peak descending from Raton Pass, Colorado

The back half broke up nicely. All but 30 miles of I-40 through Oklahoma. Six hours to Amarillo, slightly less from Amarillo to Colorado Springs. 

Starting in the dark at Sallisaw, I crossed the Arkansas one last time where it widens into reservoir, then the Canadian River, which I would see again north of Amarillo. I briefly contemplated a drive northwest to Tulsa, but the urge to get home that day would not break. 

Scissortail Park, OKC

A clear morning brought an epic sunrise across eastern Oklahoma. I barely encountered any traffic clear to Oklahoma City, with nothing more notable than a Braum’s truck headed to the home farm just south of the state capital. 

As for OKC, I already knew where to stop to stretch my legs. 

Scissortail Park anchors the south end of downtown Oklahoma City. Named for Oklahoma’s state bird, the scissor-tailed flycatcher, the 70-acre park has few trees but hosts its shared of wildlife on a series of lakes and wetland marshes. It's a reclaimed park, but a vibrant one. Plus, it has unbeatable views of the skyline, which admittedly is one gleaming skyscraper and a series of older mid-rise buildings. 

I didn’t go to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial this time. Such a solemn and heartbreaking place requires a certain mood I did not have that morning. I bought a coffee from Park Grounds, then set out walking. 

It was a mix of Saturday morning running groups, meanderers, homeless, and more. With the temperatures balmy for December, I expected bigger crowds would arrive later in the morning. 

As Oklahoma City dwindled down to green country and constant wind gusts, I just plowed ahead. I hoped for a view of the Wichita Mountains, but I never got far enough south. The land gradually dried out as I moved west, the Gulf of Mexico’s influence declining, and ranch country gaining. 

Had I been less focused on getting home that night, I might have stopped at the U.S. Route 66 sites; Interstate 40 follows its right-of-way west of Oklahoma City. 

I crossed into Texas without much thought. When a seemingly crumbling water tower came onto the horizon, it took me a second to realize I had reached The Leaning Tower of Britten. Trucked 40 miles and leaned at a 10-degree angle as an attraction for a truck stop that closed in the 1980s, the tower remains a Route 66 landmark. 

Not the Terry Funk mural, Amarillo

Soon enough Amarillo arrived. Capital of the Texas Panhandle, the air runs thick with stockyard or crude oil depending on which way the wind blew. Downtown is built on a series of wide one-way streets but has some pockets of life. 

I stopped for lunch at Six Car Pub & Brewery, but I had a single goal while in Amarillo – find the Terry Funk mural. 

The mural emerged just two months after Funk died in August 2023, created by artist Jeks during the Hoodoo Mural Festival. The late professional wrestler and sometimes actor hailed from Amarillo, where numerous wrestlers trained under his father Dory Funk Sr. 

Dumas mural 

Here I found the limits of Google Maps, as it sent me across downtown to a mural celebrating books about the Texas Panhandle. A few quick searches landed me in a narrow alley one block away from Six Car. 

There I found the stern gaze of the Funkster glaring down from a brick wall. A more visible site would have bee nice, but that Amarillo gave Funk any memorial was refreshing. Wrestling often gets the short shrift in pop culture, and one of its longtime icons deserved the honor. 

Fifty miles up the road lies Dumas, where I head northwest for the sprint across Texas’ last counties and 80 miles of New Mexico volcano fields before Raton and its pass on the Colorado border. 

After many misses, the time to visit the Trampled Turtle Brewery arrived. I either passed through Dumas too early, too late, or on days when Trampled Turtle stayed closed. 

When I ordered my beer, I found no turtles but a friendly tuxedo cat ready to make my acquaintance. The bar was empty and he sat next to me for a few long minutes. The strong wheat ale I picked was not the flavor I needed. But the company helped me drop any complaints, even with four hours till home. As I walked out, he loafed on an ottoman in a sunbeam, and I scratched him a few more times for the road. 

After all, it was time to start thinking of my own kitties as I skirted the New Mexico volcanoes, crossed Raton Pass as the golden hour sun hit flat-topped Fishers Peak. 

Good company at Trampled Turtle, Dumas

Apparently he disagreed. 

Ouachita anxiety relief

The last time I visited Hot Springs over a rainy New Year’s weekend, people were at a premium. The bathhouses of the national park were mostly empty, as were the restaurants and bars. 

The weekend after Christmas 2025 was far different environment. 

Thanks to balmy winter days, one could have mistaken it for a summer day along Central Avenue. The summer-like temperatures probably helped, just as Christmas on Thursday probably encouraged a day or weekend trip to Hot Springs. 

But there was no warning. The hills around Hot Springs hid the crowds. Central is just a narrow street between hills. Were I headed somewhere other than the national park, I would have stood a chance, but I quickly realized it wasn’t going to happen. 

After accidentally turning onto the route for the hilltop observation tower – a good spot to visit when the crowds are not oppressive - I made a U-turn and began searching for an exit. The bathhouses looked great. But I couldn’t contend with this crowd. Hot Springs has a bicentennial looming in 2032, marking its preservation as a federal reserve under President Andrew Jackson, the first land protected in such fashion and a precursor to the national parks, which Hot Springs became in 1921. 

History and hot water would wait for another trip. I sped west through many layers of Hot Springs, through historic housing blocks to strip malls until I eventually reached town’s end and rolled into the Ouachita National Forest. 

Then came many miles of nothing, a relief at the rush of humanity that descended upon the Hot Springs historic district. I often went many miles without another car or town. 

Ouachita is the French version of Washita or Wichita, the Indian term for good hunting grounds repeated across Arkansas, Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. 

These mountains are rich with old-growth forest thanks to the presence of tree species not usually logged. More than 800,000 acres could be old-growth, making it one of the largest reserves in the lower 48. Only a veto by Calvin Coolidge prevented this forest from becoming a national park – as an national forest, there’s a still a serenity to these mountains, Towns like Mount Ida and Y City had a few stores and a gas station. 

I might live at an altitude more than twice the height of these mountains, but that did not take away from their majesty. Mount Magazine, a flat-topped mountain that at 2,753 marks Arkansas’ highest point, has been carved out of the national forest as a state park. They stand tall enough to possess ecosystems usually found further north, and numerous species not found anywhere else. 

Some scenic routes don’t deliver on the scenery or deliver too much, but the Ouachita National Forest provided the right amount. These environs made me want to return when not on a spring back to Colorado. 

By sunset I had descended into the Arkansas River Valley, the first feeling of home, despite all of Oklahoma lying ahead of me. The Arkansas runs dry at points in Kansas and gets replenished from reservoirs and tributaries, but it emerges from the Rocky Mountains 40 miles from home. 

At Fort Smith the Arkansas runs wide, its surface broken by forested islands before cutting through its namesake state and meeting the Mississippi on the eastern border. 

Nearby rise the last peaks of the Ouachita heading into southeastern Oklahoma, the state line not change their stature. 

Nearing Fort Smith

Natchez Trace reunion

Tupelo, Mississippi leans heavily upon its most famous native. An exit sign touts “Elvis Presley Site” as the singer was born there in a two-room shotgun house. 

Nothing against the King, but after two days on the road, I craved something else. A quieter exit nearby was more my speed. No commercial vehicles, lower speed limits, a feel of farther back in time. For the first time in a decade, I was on the Natchez Trace, if only for a few miles. 

The national scenic parkway follows the route travelled for millennia. Originally a bison run, then a path followed by the Southeast’s Native tribes, it became the way back north for flatboat pilots and crews. 

Before steamboats, the boatmen (called Kaintucks because they often started on the Ohio River in Kentucky) selling goods would also sell off their flatboats, which could not return upstream on the Mississippi or its eastern tributaries. They would return by walking, horseback, or other means, stopping at stands (hotels) along the way. Many stretches of the original Trace still exist, as well as landmarks that go back thousands of years, including waterfalls, Indian mounds, and more. 

While the Tennessee sections are hilly, the Trace flattens out once it crosses the Tennessee River and enters Mississippi after a short span in Alabama. The park visitor center was open, so I spent a little time with the displays and the new park movie. National Park units usually put together good documentaries demonstrating their importance, and this one was no exception. Spending a few minutes watching the movie reminded me of the days spent upon the Chase in a previous lifetime. 

A two-day drive covered the whole 445 miles in 2012. The low speed meant not needing gas once between Nashville and Jackson, Mississippi. 

Mostly I travelled the stretch between Nashville’s west suburbs and the Merriweather Lewis site, where the 19th century explorer died at a Trace stand in 1809. The site included a rustic hiking trail and the best free campsite near Nashville. 

Most Nashville people visit the double arch bridge near the Trace’s northern end and go no further. In the next 70 miles, the Trace has numerous scenic stops – the Gordon House (an 118 home that served as a trading post and operated a ferry on the Duck River), the Baker Bluff overlook ( a glance back in time a rural Tennessee farm). Jackson Falls, Devil’s Backbone trail, Fall Hollow and then the Lewis gravesite. Immediately south is Metal Ford, a shallow crossing of the Buffalo River that is quite serene. 

I wandered a quick trail across the Trace from the visitor center before resuming my crazy pace to Atlanta. But I needed a little encore. 

I returned the day after Christmas for a brief respite at the small park units near Tupelo. No one bothered with the Old Town Creek overlook. There has been a Chickasaw settlement here. There had been towns and villages across the south until the Trail of Tears pushed them all to Oklahoma and white settlers surged in. 

 I just stopped at a pond, created by a little earthen dam. Even in December, three turtles sat on a half-sunken log. They were far enough out on the pond that they did not flee into the water the second they spotted me. 

I sat there for a little while, a luxury the boatmen heading north on the Trace never had. The Trace’s peak era also included thieves and highwaymen ready to rob and assault them, making it a necessity to reach the Trace inns every night. 

Eighty miles from Memphis - 1,100 from home - I could sit there undisturbed and gather myself in the quiet morning. With years of memories, a little Trace went a long way.

Sunrise under the Arch

A sunrise on the Mississippi River felt like the right way to experience the St. Louis Arch. 

Downtown St. Louis sat empty on Sunday morning, Even in the early light, a handful of people milled around the Arch, photographers like me looking for fresh vantage points to capture the symbol of western expansion. The only problem was the cold. The clouds kept the temperature in the mid-30s and I left a stack of coats, hats, and gloves in the car several blocks away. 

But there I stood, the arch soaring above me. Designed by architect Eero Saarinen in the late 1940s, the arch took two years to construct and opened in 1967. The waterfront had been targeted for an expansion memorial for decades, with the area becoming the first national historic site created as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in 1935. 

Only in 2018 did it become Gateway Arch National Park, the nation’s smallest national park at less than 200 acres. The next smallest – Hot Springs in Arkansas – clocks in at 5,500 acres. 

In truth, the arch feels less like a national park and more like a city park. A few step climbers walked up and down from the levee. Joggers circled through the park. 

 While the riverfront has change immensely, it was a hive of activity in the early 19th century. Prior to the railroad, St. Louis was the country’s inland trade hub. Steamships came up the river and could travel as far upriver as Montana on the Missouri River, which joins the Mississippi a little north of the Arch. Traveling into the Louisiana Territory lands required a permit, and that required passage through St. Louis. Ships still ply the river, albeit in much lower volumes. Industry churned on the east bank in Illinois, some light barge traffic sat along the river. 

Before I started shooting pictures, I had to touch the arch. There’s no barrier at the base of the arch (it goes way deeper, with its actual base 20 feet into the bedrock). The coolness of the stainless steel was the only physical moment I needed with the monument. Just as a redwood demands one touch its bark to prove 30—foot trees exist, so does the arch. 

Photographing the arch became a game of angles. I walked the full length of the park multiple times, I watched reams of visitors photograph themselves on the arch’s west side, unaware that the eastern face took on a golden glow when the sun slipped through the clouds. 

Flocks of ducks and geese occupied the reflecting pools on either side of the arch. While not part of the park, the Old Cathedral (officially the Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France) stands just outside the boundaries. Completed in 1834 and the only Catholic parish church in St. Louis until 1844, the old cathedral is still an active church and prepared for mass on the last Sunday of Advent. 

 At 9 a.m. I could finally return the feeling to my hands as the massive underground visitor center opened. Security was tight as an airport, unsurprising since the museum lies below the arch and and trams in each arm depart from this base. Sitting in a windowless car to visit the little observation deck with porthole windows held no interest for me. I don’t mind heights; the experience just felt underwhelming to me. 

The massive underground visitor center felt more like the Smithsonian and other tourist spots in Washington D.C. than a national park. If it was all a bit Disney-fied, at least it was thorough and not yet whitewashed like other National Park sites. 

As a student of American history, I didn’t run into much I had not seen before. At the moment, it seeks the tell the truth of westward expansion, that white settles displaced Native tribes or force them onto reservations constituting a fraction of their historic territories. Like most Midwest and Southeastern states, Missouri has no reservations, all its Native tribes removed to Oklahoma. I had a surprisingly good breakfast at the cafe then departed. 

A block from the Arch stands the Old Courthouse, which dates to the late 1830s. The Dred Scott case originated there more than a decade before the Supreme Court ruled against Scott and every American of African descent, setting the stage for Civil War. A statue of Dred and Harriet Scott stands outside the courthouse. 

Due to its Midwest crossroads location, I expect to visit St. Louis again, so I saved for courthouse for a pass through the Gateway to the West. I also couldn’t quite get the iconic shot of the Old Courthouse beneath the arch – a winter festival took over the park west of the courthouse, and temporary structures blocked every spot for that shot. 

Even with its prominence, American’s largest monument quickly disappears behind the rest of the St. Louis skyline, a ribbon towering over the Mississippi waterfront.

Abilene's favorite son

Few phrases conjure seedy or rundown images quite like “The wrong side of the tracks.” 

In Abilene, Kansas, the divide is clear – mansions line Buckeye Street from the commercial district to the railroad tracks. These grand mansions dating to Abilene’s heyday as a cattle and rail center. But one has to cross to the wrong side of the tracks to reach Abilene’s biggest attraction. Just south of those tracks lies Dwight Eisenhower’s boyhood home, part of a campus including his presidential library, museum and final resting place. 

In American history, few people from the wrong side of the tracks have fared as well. 

How many times have I passed Abilene and gone no further than the gas stations along the interstate? This December Saturday I shrugged at my schedule and decided to spend the afternoon among everything Eisenhower. 

Boyhood home

Eisenhower’s esteem as president has grown in time, from the image of him as a kindly bus driver guiding the nation during its most prosperous days to a shrewd battle-hardened commander who avoided war while seeking to expand opportunity for all Americans. Growing up in racially diverse part of Abilene gave Eisenhower more enlightened views on race than most people of his time. 

Outside with the 1890s boyhood home, the buildings date to the 1950s and 60s. The museum has been renovated and updated in the 21st century. 

Still, I started at The Place of Meditation. The small chapel inters the Eisenhowers and their first-born son Doud Buried in a family plot in Denver Eisenhower would reinter Doud at The Place of Meditation, later the resting place of the president and Mrs. Eisenhower, who survived her husband by several years. 

The museum discusses Doud, who died from scarlet fever at age 3, in a small but brutal exhibit. A biography I read of Eisenhower years ago delves into how that loss shaped Eisenhower and never left him, early destroying the couple’s marriage. The couple would have another son, John David Eisenhower, who lived until 2013. 

While working the night shift at a creamery because he couldn't afford college, Eisenhower won a statewide writing contest to receive his appointment to West Point in 1911. That would lead to serving in World War I and rising in the chain of command across stations across the U.S. Army's reach. 

Eisenhower’s successes against the Axis in North Africa would lead him to become the nation’s first five-star general and Allied Supreme Commander for the duration of World War II. 

As the Allies drove for Berlin, Eisenhower personally saw the atrocities at liberated concentration camps; he urged other soldiers and the press to see them to deny the Nazi regime a chance to gloss over the murder of millions. He quarreled with generals such as George Patton on the desire for a fast strike to Berlin, because Eisenhower knew it would strain and expose the Allies' supply lines.  

He served a stint as president of Columbia University, then Republicans succeeded in convincing Eisenhower to run for president in 1952. He would win two terms in landslides, only the third commanding general to hold the presidency after George Washington and Ulysses S .Grant. 

The museum hosts numerous personal items and some special pieces, including the Packard that served as Eisenhower’s car during the war (with its five-starred license plate). Eisenhower’s speeches and accomplishments – Atoms for Peace, completing desegregation of the military, and initial construction of the interstate highway system, among others. There were stumbles – Eisenhower largely ignored Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunts until McCarthy went after White House staff. 

In American history, only two farewell addresses deserve top billing – George Washington’s original that warmed against entangling alliances and defined American foreign policy for a century, and Eisenhower’s surprise warning against the military-industrial complex. While important, Eisenhower’s words have largely been ignored by governmental policy in the decades since his term ended. It was a warning only a military man could give. 

The wind roared, clearing out some lingering clouds to give me a clean backdrop to photograph Eisenhower’s statue at the center of the grounds. At the east end of the campus stand five pylons featuring Eisenhower quotes. 

The modest boyhood home, where Eisenhower and six siblings were raised, stands apart from the stone buildings housing the president’s papers and museum. Eisenhower lived here from 1892 until his appointment to West Point. 

When he became a hero after World War II, the nascent Eisenhower Foundation rushed to buy the house and irked the future president with their pushiness. At that time, his mother Ida still lived in it. He and his brothers would later donate it to the foundation. The home was modest for a large family, with large vegetable garden in back. Visitors can see how it informed Eisenhower’s views. 

I headed back across the tracks a bit overloaded on everything Eisenhower. 

But most of all, I think the statue stayed with me. Cast in bronze, a giant of the 20th century U.S.A manages to stand tall and stay grounded, forever a product of the wrong side of the tracks in Abilene.

Eisehhower's painting of his boyhood home

Keepers 2025

The distraction of music was much needed in 2025. I can’t claim any connective tissue among the albums that stayed with me, but all of these managed to move me to a different mental space. 

The Keepers 

Tunde Adebimpe, Thee Black Boltz 
2024 marked the 10th anniversary of TV on the Radio’s last album, Seeds. The return of its honey-voice singer brought a different vibe than a full band reunion would, but Adebimpe more than makes his case as a solo artists. More of a mixed tape than a unified album, Adebimpe manages to experiment and make listeners feel like TVOTR had not been on hiatus for more than a decade. The swirling guitar and beats of Ate the Moon will scratch the TVOTR itch, but Adebimpe clearly plots his own course here. ILY radiates sadness and beauty, as Adebimpe sings to his late sister. Thee Black Boltz marked a welcome return from an artist who confessed in multiple interviews that he wasn’t even sure he wanted to sing anymore. 

No Joy, Bugland 
Here’s a welcome patch of Canadian shoegaze I didn’t know I needed. I could trot out the My Blood Valentine comparisons, but that doesn’t quite do Bugland justice - it arrives from somewhere else. It’s noisy and convoluted in all the right ways. 

Panda Bear, Sinister Grift
Anyone need an album to mellow you out during the pure chaos of Atlanta highway driving? Panda Bear has the answer. I listened to Sinister Grift frequently in springtime, but a Christmastime listen cemented its place on my list. Just as I kept my grip tight on the wheel, I sank into the music until I escaped the worst. Always dreamy, always influence by Pet Sounds to some degree, Panda Bear crafted his best record since 2015's Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper.  

Jeff Tweedy, Twilight Override 
For the second straight year, a triple album lands on my list. Jeff Tweedy and his family band (both of his songs participate) keep everything compelling through 30 songs and two hours, a heavy task for any artist. But he succeeds from One Tiny Flower to Enough, the aptly titled closing song. Lou Reed was my Babysitter received a few seconds of mainstream attention, and the song is as catchy as its name. There are some clunkers (Feel Free has a few good verses but feels like it runs 30 minutes). But when the tracks land – and most do – they equal Tweedy’s best work. 

Miki Berenyi Trio, Tripla 
The former Lush frontwoman brought together a band and recorded these songs to go along with a recent memoir. Her voice has stayed sublime in the nearly 30 years since Lush’s Lovelife, its unexpected final record after the 1996 death of drummer Chris Acland. Berenyi found herself writing songs as a companion piece to a recent memoir, and the songs delightfully touch upon Lush's brief prime.  

Hayden Pedigo, I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away
I almost had two albums from one artist. Pedigo delivers two very different moods on these 2025 releases. Seeing as Pedigo hails from Amarillo, he might be waving for quite a while. The album of instrumental Western-tinged guitar work is perfect driving music, and breezes by from the first note to the credits Pedigo reads at the end, the only voice on the album. Pedigo feels just as home with Chat Pile, a doom metal band, on In the Earth Again. Imagine Ry Cooder and the Melvins in the same studio and you’re in the ballpark. While appreciably darker than his other record, it didn’t quite turn the corner. 

Reissues, Record Store Day, and the Reclaimed 

Jeff Bridges, Slow Magic 1977-1978 
Bridges has a better foot in music than most actors, having recording multiple albums and won a Best Actor Oscar for Crazy Heart, in which he played a washed-up country star and performed his own guitar and vocals. These tapes comes from sessions he led in the 1970s, on tapes recently discovered. Bridges voice cannot help but sounds like a lost member of The Band, but the musicianship is solid. 

Def Leppard, Hysteria 
Not a pricey deluxe reissue, I found this one while crate-digging and happily brought it home. I was just getting into music and Def Leppard was in constant rotation on MTV. How they squeezed a 60-minute record onto a single LP … well, I don’t want to know. It sounds sharp in that format, and I still spin it a few times a week. There’s nothing poignant here and quite a bit of sappiness (at least I hope it’s sap), but it’s moment-in-time record for me. 

Cyndi Lauper, She’s So Unusual 
Another titan of the 1980s came while flipping through used bins. Records from the 1980s often come at affordable prices, and I couldn’t pass this classic. Time After Time is the poignant classic every songwriter wishes they could pen. She finished her  U.S. farewell tour and I nearly bought a ticket, but the schedule didn't work out. So I'll be spinning this for a while. 

Adventures from "out there"

 

Original Boot Hill site

Long Branch Saloon bar

Front Street restoration

The morning drive out of Wichita arrived with a splendid Belt of Venus covering the entire western horizon. Only western Kansas stood between me and home. It’s a different Kansas, one with familiar names and unfamiliar places worth stopping. 

You might know it as “A lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there.’ In Cold Blood contains one of the best first lines in American literature, Truman Capote gives apt description to Southwest Kansas. 

Appropriately Capote says lonesome, not lonely. I find the area full, even if it marks the point where the Gulf of Mexico’s influence stops and the dry West begins. I can count off the distances between towns, some little more than municipal buildings and a grain bin. 

The road crosses a town when you need one- Kingman, Pratt, Haviland, Greensburg, and Mullinville, where U.S. routes 400 and 54 split. The column of traffic goes left, I go right toward Fort Dodge, then Dodge City. No one returns to Colorado this way. It’s slower and passes through numerous towns, but it beats Interstate 70 any day. Fort Dodge was the first western settlement in Kansas territory. Upon closure in 1890, it became the Kansas Soldiers’ Home, which still operates today. 

A few miles up, Dodge City conjures visions of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and more, marshals, vigilantes and criminals engaged in shootouts. The rowdy cattle trail town is still a cattle town full of feed lots and meat packing facilities. The smell was tempered that morning. 

Despite its big name, Dodge City had a short prime on the cattle trails. When it became the focus of westerns in film and television, the town decided to rebuild the old Front Street as a tourist attraction, which it remains today as the Boot Hill Museum. 

I passed it before, stopped in the parking lot on a snowy morning. But today I could not skip it. The tour runs through a thorough museum about the area that spawned Dodge City. Videos with reenactors tell the story Dodge City’s rough stature. 

 In summer the recreated Front Street includes reenactors and a noon gunfight. Winter is quieter, but the solitude gave me time to explore. Front Street isn’t just a façade. All the businesses inside are recreated to give a glimpse of everyday living in a frontier boomtown. This includes the drugstore, dry goods, the bank, barbershop, and more. Each went into detail about how these businesses operated in the 1870s. 

I stopped at the Long Branch Saloon, where a few young women in costume tended bar. You can order a beer or whiskey made locally, but at 10 a.m., I opted for a sarsaparilla. Dodge City is a stop in National Lampoon’s Vacation (not actually filmed in Dodge City, but on the studio backlot). Clark Griswold throws insults at the bartender until he shoots him with an air gun. The friendly young bartenders made it simple to avoid yelling “Hey underpants!” to get a soda. 

Original Long Branch items. 

The reconstructed bar also includes items that survived the fire that destroyed the original Long Branch, including the safe, a chandelier, and a clock that was out for repair when the fire struck. 

Above Front Street lies the Cowboy Capitol Building, which charts Dodge City in media and houses the Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame, while also depicting the Mexican village that sat inside Dodge City until the 1950s. 

The museum then leads outside to the location of the original Boot Hill, Dodge City’s original cemetery. The cemetery only lasted a few years before its bodies were reinterred in a newer city cemetery, but the name Boot Hill has endured as a western cemetery whose inhabitants died wearing their boots. The east end of the Front Street exhibit includes several original Dodge City structures – the blacksmith shop, the church, and the Hardesty House. 

If I went through too fast, I had to think about the road. I was pushing odds of reaching home by dark. The eventually crossing into Mountain Time bought me an extra hour. 

Still, I can’t quit Garden City and the city-owned Lee Richardson Zoo, one of the best free zoos anywhere. I end up there once a year, and usually miss a lot of the animals, especially those not used to cold temperatures. 

Burrowing owl. 

Sloth bear. 

 I usually miss the Finney County Museum by visiting on weekends and holidays, but today it was open and a good spot to warm up from zoo wanderings. I revisited the exhibit about the Clutter family murders.

 

This time I focused on an display about Buffalo Jones, one of Garden City’s founders who became the first game warden at Yellowstone National Park and an inspiration for western author Zane Grey. Jones donated the land for the Finney County Courtohuse and Garden City’s commercial block. 

Jones famously turned from bison hunter to conservationist, at one time owning the largest private bison herd in the country. Later Jones helped replenish the Yellowstone herd as a game warden appointed by his friend, President Theodore Roosevelt. 

Although it was a short history, settlement of the American West sometimes feels like an inexhaustible well, from Native tribes to Coronado’s quest to the homesteaders that ended the frontier. 

After a quick lunch I wandered into the mostly empty zoo. Even with the sun, temperatures in the 30s kept visitors away. Something always presents itself at this zoo. Around the time I was there, a rare addax was born off exhibit. The lions lied prone in a sunny patch. As soon as I walked away, I heard one of the males start roaring, as if he teased me for not holding on. One of the sloth bears was pretty active, as were the jaguars and mountain lions. Even in captivity, I always enjoy the sight of a burrowing owl. 

I took a long break with the red-ruffed lemurs. Critical endangered in the wild due to habitat loss (all lemur species are native only to Madagascar), these guys have been prolific. After welcoming a baby red-ruffed lemur in 2021 and twins in 2022, the LRZ had a rare birth in spring 2025 – red-ruffed lemur triplets. All three survived, boosting the zoo’s red-ruffed lemur troop to nine. At this point I couldn’t tell the adults from the children, although the triplets might have stayed indoors. Those that grazed outside were energetic. 

There’s something about lemurs – they look so foreign yet familiar. They are primates but not monkeys or apes, descended from a common ancestor much further back in the mammalian lineage. They come from one place on Earth, but have incredible diversity of species (more than 100 still living, but almost all are threatened or worse). I often watch the ring-tailed lemurs at the Pueblo Zoo, who have access to an island in summer. They play, groom, and lounge. On clear days they sit in old man poses and let the sun warm their bellies. 

The red-ruffed lemurs feel stranger, with green eyes contrasting with black heads and red fur that covers the rest of their bodies. There might be as few as 1,000 left in the wild, as they only live in northeastern Madagascar. 

Endangered lemurs have a fighting chance in southwestern Kansas. That’s both unexpected and heartening. 

Red-ruffed lemurs in their yard. 

 

Thoughts like that help pass the time across the last hour of Kansas before the Cousin Eddie mural in Coolidge and the effortless drive across the Colorado Plains toward home. Only the land can tie all these disparate things together. 

Around Wichita

Keeper of the Plains facing downtown Wichita

The Sedgwick County Zoo's growing herd

 

 The fog fooled me. I expected the morning similar to the previous one, where rain and clouds dominated. But as I drove east toward the undeveloped land around the Sedgwick County Zoo, I realized that I only saw morning river fog. By the time I hit the zoo campus, the clouds moved off. 

I have written of this expansive zoo before. This time I’ll focus mainly on its star attraction in 2025. SCZ had an unprecedented elephant baby boom in 2025, with four calves joining its seven adults (Sadly a fifth elephant was stillborn). The herd only comes out on warm winter days. Despite the blustery wind, we had clear skies and mid-50s. The full herd grazed and roamed their massive outdoor yard. 

In the shadow of their mothers, the calves could prove hard to spot despite all weighing in excess of 500 pounds already. The herd formed when the zoo took in six elephants from Swaziland in 2016 (one male from the group has moved to a different zoo). The herd stands at six females, one male, and the four calves (two boys and two girls). African elephant gestation averages 22 months, so there was plenty of prep time for the arrivals. Kijani and Bomani, the two male calves, were born four days apart.

The good grasses go fast. 

 

The little trunk almost reaches.

For the better part of an hour, I watched them in the yard, the little ones trying to mimic their mothers behaviors, such as eating grasses beyond the exhibit barrier. The baby trunks were not long enough to pull in grass, but occasionally a tiny trunk swung up on the concrete to look around.  

This trip wasn’t all animals though. Early in my trip, I had to stop at the Innovation campus of Wichita State University. Among all the new mid-rise buildings stood a modest brick building that provided innovation back in 1958 – it once housed the first Pizza Hut. 

If Wichita reminded me of Columbus for its Midwest character, there were other ties. The first White Castle opened in Wichita in 1921; the company known for its tiny burgers is now headquartered in Columbus. 

While the building has been moved several times, the outside appearance resembles how it would have looked when pizza was still a novelty in the U.S., long before this particular brand became ubiquitous internationally. An old-school Pepsi sign hangs above the door, and small museum lies inside. Despite hours listed as 9-5 Monday to Friday, the original Hut was locked up. I felt foolish peering in the windows at displays I could barely see and decided to get out of the rain. 

I had seen the Keeper of the Plains from a distance on a blazing June day and in the pouring rain the day before. But with the weather balmy, I had to explore it up close. Crafted by Native artist Blackbear Boursin for the bicentennial, the 44-foot weathered steel sculpture stands on a 30-foot rock base at the confluence of the Little Arkansas and Arkansas rivers. Pedestrian bridges across both rivers take visitors to the Keeper’s point. Exhibits explain the role of the Plains Indians in the region. Native music and stories play during the day. There might be higher structures in Wichita, but none stand taller than the Keeper. 

Keep from the base.

Keeper and its bridges. 

Wichita has a healthy brewing industry, and I sampled the wares of several. Most area breweries were closed Monday and Tuesday or sat too far outside central Wichita. I had a single pour at River City, a brewpub in Old Town. The beers were fine and the whole restaurant was heavily decorated for Christmas; the bartender told me they closed for a day to set it all up. Tor Brewing disappointed me; despite a soaring taproom next to the downtown arena, they had no beers of their own on tap. I had a smoked porter and moved on. 

On Douglas Avenue. a brick clock tower in a traffic circle welcomes visitors to Delano, a neighborhood on the Arkansas River’s west bank. Briefly a separate cattle town in the 1870s, Delano joined Wichita in 1881 and has undergone numerous economic turns. On a rainy Monday, the study brick blocks seemed surprisingly active. For lunch I stopped at the Wichita Brewing Company’s restaurant. They had a decent lunch menu and some solid West Coast IPAs. To WBC’s credit, it also continues to brew beers from an shuttered Kansas brewery. Tallgrass Brewing from Manhattan was once Kansas’ best-known craft brewery before closing in 2018. WBC revived it as a brand, bringing back several beers including 8-Bit Pale Ale and my personal favorite, Songbird Saison. 

Down the block was Spektrum Records. Set in an old house, Spektrum was my kind of record store, with a good selection of used vinyl and reasonably priced new releases. The clerk was excited that I picked the Sleater-Kinney LP she placed in the Staff Picks box (The Hot Rock). I have been on a Sleater-Kinney kick lately, so I was excited too. Craving an afternoon pick-me-up, I stopped at Reverie Coffee Roasters on Douglas Avenue. The coffee went down easily and I read a few pages from my book. At the edge of Old Town, The Record Ship was in a little strip center. The vinyl selection was solid, but nothing jumped out at me. A few records came close, although I picked up some used Tori Amos CDs. 

Tuesday afternoon, I stopped for a view of Wichikitty, the 25-foot mural with an emblem of the city flag on its right eye. For someone who looks down on the people who spend hours in line for selfies with a pair of angel wings in Nashville, I had no qualms about Wichikitty. But I had a hard time finding parking. I stopped in an auto repair shop's visitor spots, jumped out of the car, took a few quick windy pictures, and took off. 

Then I headed a few blocks over to Hopping Gnome Brewing, which I visited on a one-night stop several Decembers ago. I sat alone on the patio with their tasty saison, a beer I enjoyed tasting again. 

The second brewing on that December trip, Central Standard, ended up the only place I stopped twice. I found the staff friendly, the patrons agreeable, and the beer quite tasty. I had a pair of drafts each night, and While I hoped for a few more of their mixed-culture sour beers, I was pleased with their everyday brews. 

I had a whole list of museums and other spots I could have checked out. But feeling close to a regular a good brewery for a night or two rounded out the stay nicely. 

I had to see Wichikitty.