I want to reiterate my opinion briefly on KOA campgrounds. Back in the 80’s everyone of them seemed to be the same, just like Pringles potato chips. They were affordable, well maintained, and you knew exactly what you were getting. That changed over the years and now it is rather hit or miss on the quality. So, when possible we don’t take a chance and we choose to stay at State or County campgrounds. Sometimes though you will find a great KOA. This was the case at the Dodge City KOA.
The Dodge City KOA is located near the heart of the old downtown area. Looking around you might think it is quite industrial with all the grain silos. However, once you pull into the campground area, it feels quite secluded.
The sites are for the most part level. We had to use one layer of leveling blocks under the tires on the left side of the trailer. The campground looks brand new, however, they do have issues with their plumbing on some of the sites. For instance, somewhere underground at our water pedestal, there was a leak. They have the old style (pull up handle) frost free water hydrants at each site. We could hear the water running continually. It was flooded all around in an area of about 15’x8′.
I alerted the staff about the leak and they said that they knew that hydrant was leaking. They told us that they would fix it the next day. That never happened during the whole week we were there. So occasionally when I would walk around the trailer I would get to close to that area and end up with a soaked foot. A very cold soaked foot. Just to be clear, this in no way put a damper on our stay. However, I can’t begin to imagine how much money they were wasting on that big of a leak. I have no idea what the price of water is in Kansas, but in Texas it is expensive!
I saw other water taps in the campground that were leaking from their connections. They need to go through each site and fix their plumbing issues. Other than the plumbing issues I have absolutely no complaints about the Dodge City KOA. I would rate them as a 5 star campground if they would fix their plumbing issues.
You can see that the sites are nice and long with nice wide concrete pads. The first day we arrived the temperatures were in the upper 80’s. So, we set up our chairs on the backside of the trailer to get a break from the sun. The angle of the sun combined with the direction we faced in the campground rendered our awnings useless. It was really too windy there on a daily basis to use awnings anyway. So, we enjoyed a beer and Eva enjoyed looking out at the large stretch of land behind the camper.
Our first neighbor at the Dodge City KOA was Kelly. She has a nice 2008 Class A Motor Home, and arrived the day before we rolled in. Kelly has been a full time RV’er, by herself, since 2018. She started with a fifth wheel to see how she liked the lifestyle and then bought the Class A. It would be very hard to find a nicer person to camp next to. She travels with her dog and cat, and really needs to start a blog about her adventures. We sat out, shared a beer, and had some great conversations over the course of a few days. Unfortunately for us, Kelly left on Tuesday; so we had three days of one night stay neighbors.
On Monday we decided we would go over to the Boot Hill Museum. The Dodge City, Kansas KOA happens to be a short half mile from the Museum and the old down town of Dodge City. Obviously, being close is a huge advantage. We could easily walk but decided that we would drive since parking is not an issue.
Earlier that morning Eva and I walked to the road just across the street from the museum. I wanted to take her directly in front of the museum for a photo but the main road looked challenging to cross with a dog given the traffic at that time of day.
Just next to the grounds of the campground is the Wright Park Zoo. This zoo was established in 1926. It is the home to 126 animals representing 30 or more species from almost every continent on earth. It get over 60,000 visitors a year. In 2018 the city realized that the zoo needed to either make some serious renovations or close. After much feedback from the citizens of Dodge City, they decided to move forward with renovations. Since it was being renovated during our stay, we couldn’t visit, but certainly would have…next time.
Just outside the Zoo entrance is a beautiful large park that has a great playground as well as horse shoe pits and picnic areas.
There is also the Long Branch Lagoon Water Park just across from the Zoo. Of course, nothing like that was open during our stay as the weather would not favor that kind of activity. Most days were in the 60’s with just a couple in the 80’s.
As you can see there is much to do in dodge city and if your traveling with kids, you will not have a problem keeping them busy.
Now for the real reason we came to Dodge City, to see the Old Dodge City of the 1800s. Of course most of the original town has been destroyed through the years but there are still some original buildings as well as the old Boot Hill Cemetery Site. In addition the old Dodge City has been carefully restored here, and it seems very authentic. Of course, you need to pay an admission at the Boot Hill Museum in order to be able to see any of that. Our admission tickets were 16 dollars each, and I have to say that was a bargain. I’m not sure a one day visit is enough to see everything in and outside of the museum.
The Boot Hill Museum includes more than 60,000 items which are a combination of objects, photographs, and documents. Most of that collection is from Dodge City’s early days, from the 1870s through the 1920s. Not only will you see many interesting artifacts, but you will learn about it’s history and the people that were a part of that history like Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson, just to name a few. There’s more to the history of Dodge City than the gunslingers and marshals. You will also learn about other citizens that started successful business that thrived there. One such person was Fred Harvey who started a chain of restaurants.
To read about all the influential Dodge City residents would probably take a book, but here is a look at just a few:
There are many other exhibits in the museum. As I mentioned, I don’t think you can get through this museum in one day. It also features a “People of the Plains” exhibit which contains artifacts and information about the Plains Indians, Forts and Railroads, Buffalo Hunters, Cattle Industry, Santa Fe Trail, Victorian Clothing, and Hollywood exhibits. You will certainly see a lot of information about the TV show Gunsmoke, and its actors as well as movies that were made about Dodge City.
Once you wind through the museum exhibits you exit through a back door into the recreated street of Dodge City. This lies several blocks west of its original location. There are three buildings on this site that are original.
The replica was begun in 1948 as part of the Boot Hill Museum. As crowds grew, a complete Front Street, with 12 separate buildings, were constructed. It is an exact replica of the old town a result of using old photographs as a model. Of course the attraction everyone flocks to is the Long Branch Saloon.
We were no different than other folks and we headed over to grab a beer and a sarsaparilla.
There are a number of domestic beers that you can purchase at the long branch. I opted for the locally brewed “1872”. This was probably one of the most unique beers I have tasted. The aroma was very yeasty, almost like bread dough. If my home brew tasted like that I would think the yeast had not finished fermenting. The beer was bitter on the back end, but not so much that it was offensive. I liked it enough to try it later in the week at the Central Station Bar and Grill. My experience with the beer there was completely different. There was absolutely no aroma and the beer was offensively bitter. Not sure why there would be such a difference in consistency, but I’m still glad I tried it.
Boot Hill Cemetery covers quite a bit of ground. From the left side of the recreated city, you find the base of the cemetery and you wind up some stairs passing the old Jail and then end of at the top of Boot Hill.
There is certainly a lot of information about Boot Hill Cemetery, most of it is conflicting. The reported number of people that were buried there varies greatly. Even the notion that some bodies still remain there is in dispute. It makes for interesting reading either way.
There are way too many grave markers to show them all but here are a few of folks that were (or maybe still are) buried at Boot Hill.
After our morning at the museum we walked next door and had lunch at Applebees. Then it was back to the Campground! The next day we just spent the day relaxing with Eva.
On Wednesday Tammy and I went on a self guided of Dodge Cities downtown area. You can pick up a tour guide at the visitor center next to the Boot Hill Museum. The guide shows all the points of interest throughout the old section of town. There are numerous statues, plaques, and historic buildings.
Let’s talk about the changing weather forecast for Friday at this point. The winds definitely began to get stronger as the week went on. Probably about Tuesday I looked at the forecast for Friday, and nothing had really changed. Winds were still projected to be about 35 miles per hour. I decided to also look at my “Windy” app, and things looked worse than that, but we were still a few days out. By the time Thursday rolled around the prediction for Friday was bleak.
Now I was just as concerned about our safety in the campground, as I was earlier in the week when I thought about towing. This was obviously going to be a major weather event. It became obvious that others felt the same way. What few campers were in the campground decided not to go anywhere.
Thursday afternoon came and folks began rolling off the highway and filled the campground to capacity. Nobody wanted to take a chance on having their RV’s flipped on the highway. There was a feeling of certainty that this was going to get bad for all of us. The only exception being a guy with a fifth wheel that decided to leave a lot of stuff including lawn chairs outside his trailer. I watched as a couple of his flower pots rolled through the campground…and this was still before Fridays winds hit.
Later I noticed a small leak at the shower faucet. I dissembled the faucet and repaired it, with a more permanent fix to take place at home. Most Travel Trailer owners realize, it is going to be an advantage if you are handy. We have repaired many things on the road over the course of the last six years with this trailer. Out of the eight travel trailers we have owned, this one has probably had more “personal Intervention” than any of the others. However, it has traveled many, many, many more miles than any of the others we have owned. As I have said before I enjoy working on the trailer, but not under duress.
I decided to pack up the grill on Thursday evening so I wouldn’t need to deal with packing it up on Friday during the wind storm. Eva kept me company as I cleaned it and stored it away in the cargo area.
When I woke up on Friday morning, it just didn’t sound horrible outside. For a moment I thought maybe we were on the edge of the front and we would be missed altogether – WRONG! It didn’t take long and the winds began their gusts. The trailer rocked and more than a few times with such ferocity that I would say “Holy Sh&%!”. I really did wonder if the skylight and vents would stay on the roof through this.
Over the horizon the air was choked with blowing dust which made the sky almost look like rain. The dust coated everything in a light brown color. Other than taking Eva out periodically we didn’t leave the trailer. The temperature outside was 59 degrees but with these winds it felt much, much colder.
The way we were positioned in the site had the wind hitting us from a rear angle on the back of the camper. This was probably to our advantage since the entire side was not being impacted. We also had quite a bit of weight in our holding tanks. Even so, it was an interesting day.
One owner of a Class A moved his rig into a new spot using the cabins as part of a wind break. That was a smart idea.
About 5:00 PM the winds dies down to about 25 MPH, so we kept our dinner reservation at the Central Station Bar and Grill.
Their dinner menu includes a decent variety of steaks, and they have a great reputation as a steak place. If you are going to have dinner here, do yourself a favor and eat in the dining car.
The food was great, and we were almost alone in the dining car with only two other tables taken. After dinner we headed to a local Walmart to grab a few groceries for our return trip. The Walmart is only about 3 miles from the campground, so that’s convenient if you run out of anything.
When we got back to camp Tammy and I decided to dump all the tanks since the Saturday morning temperature was going to be 36 degrees. Anything we could accomplish now was better than dealing with it in the morning. All we would have left to do Saturday was pack up the inside of the trailer and disconnect water and electric. I already had the truck positioned in front of the hitch.
Friday Morning came and we try to take things a little low key when we pack up. The longer Eva thinks we are just having a regular day, the better off we all are. Once she knows we are leaving she gets more animated. As soon as we are ready to pull in the slide rooms she gets into her travel jacket (which clips to a seat belt). Then I put her in the truck. She immediately calms down and waits for us to finish up.
Then it was back to Roadrunner RV Park for the night, and the next day home.
I highly recommend a trip to Dodge City – You will not be disappointed!
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