Oh yeah folks!!! It’s #NationalLampoonsVacationTour Day!!! We camped in a really nice, very large #FortZarahRestStop in #GreatBend,KS…
It was more like a park where you could stay overnight… It was a gorgeous day out… A perfect day to visit #DodgeCity,KS!
| Clark: Kids, this is the very street wyatt earp used to keep law and order on. | |
| Ellen: It seems kind of dirty and touristy. | |
| Clark: Oh, ellen, the old west was dirty. | |
| Everything isn’t like home. | |
| If everything were like home, there’d be no reason for leaving home, right, rusty? | |
| Rusty: Oh, yeah, dad, this is great. | |
| You know, I’m glad we didn’t go to Hawaii. | |
| Clark: I’ll bet you are. |
It's the same street Wyatt Earp kept law and order on. It seems kind of dirty and touristy. The Old West was dirty. Everything isn't like home. If it were, there would be no reason for leaving home, right, Rusty? Yeah, Dad. This is great. I'm glad we didn't go to Hawaii. I'll bet you are. Okay, let's go get a drink.
Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=vacation
It's the same street Wyatt Earp kept law and order on. It seems kind of dirty and touristy. The Old West was dirty. Everything isn't like home. If it were, there would be no reason for leaving home, right, Rusty? Yeah, Dad. This is great. I'm glad we didn't go to Hawaii. I'll bet you are. Okay, let's go get a drink.
Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=vacation
Well, considering that this scene from National Lampoons Vacation was shot on a Hollywood set, #TheMillenniumFalcon had to improvise and go to the actual Doge City…
We must have picked the perfect time of year to visit because there was hardly anyone here… Which trust me, #TheTravelingMac does not mind… I hate #TouristyPlaces…
Now, I was expecting something pretty standard, like #museums and maybe some loosely put together old #CowboyTown…
But I couldn’t have been more wrong… Dodge City was full of all kinds of fun things to do and a ton of history to learn…
And it was a fun history… like shoot outs, bank robberies, prisons, #AmericanIndianHeritage and the new technology of the times…
These were the years of the #railroads, advancement of engines, the mass production of hand guns and the prospect of gold…
A lot of the buildings were originals…
Like this #jail… I wonder how many perished in this jail… They could provide a better toilet… Lol!
We first headed up to the #BootHillCemetary where a lot of #gunfighters were buried after they met their demise…
Some of the graves were nameless because no one new the dead mans’ names… Some were just passing through and probably said the wrong thing to the wrong person and ended up staying permanently…
I was mostly impressed with the American Indian Heritage museum here… They had all kinds of original #artifacts with a really detailed history of the #AmericanIndian…
There were all these rich pictures of old #IndianChiefs and warriors…
And they masterfully blended all of the history in with these famous sayings… I love how the American Indian respected the earth and everything that lived on it… Even when they killed, they thanked the animal for what it has given them…
Look how we treat our cattle alone… We pen them up, over feed them and force them to live in their own shit! What kind of respect is that? And if you mentioned this to some big beef producing company, they would laugh at you and say, “we can’t afford to do such things… This is a business…” Oh how we disrespect, screw and destroy all in the guise of money and power…
This mighty earth doesn’t recognize our crappy, filthy money because this earth is much bigger and beyond such petty trading… Yet we feel we are more important than this mighty planet that provides everything for us… We actually think we can destroy this planet when all we are really doing is destroying ourselves and the creatures on it… This planet will be here long after us feeble minded idiots…
I love this #Indian quote above… Treat the River like your brother…. But the American Indian doesn’t realize, we kill our brothers for money also… So how can we have a lick of respect for anything when we don’t even have respect for our fellow man! I despise man!
Even when I kill a simple bug, I apologize to that bug… I know you probably think I’m nuts but try it… Thank or apologize for everything you you kill… Showing respect to our fellow creatures is not a weakness, it’s honorable… Thank the cow that provided meat for you instead of putting it down, like it is below you… You will find that your mind will open up to this wonderful world… The simple action of thankfulness opens so many eyes…
Look at what happened to the Buffalo… They were almost made extinct because of man and his unquenchable thirst for capital gain… And not only did he almost wipe out the Buffalo, he also wasted the whole animal, only taking its hide and leaving the rest…
Look at how man treated the Indians and their land… I wish the American Indian won this war… This country would be a much better place in result… They may have fought amongst each other yet they respected everything around them, realizing their war is with each other, not with the planet they live on…
I can’t even admire the man made buildings knowing the price that had been paid for such production… And here we are 150 years later and we still have our heads up our own asses over these issues… When will we learn? Money is nothing! It’s man made! It has no real value on this earth… The only value is the earth itself, which we foolishly think we own… Oh, what a bunch of egotistical idiots idiots we are!
Here’s a nice ode to the nameless in #BootHillCemetery….
I wonder if these men ever thought they would be apart of recorded history… A historical fame I surely wouldn’t want…
And some of these old wooden headstones are the originals… The headstone just has a quick description of what happened.. No names, just what they did for a living…
Now this part of #DodgeCity was really neat and some of the places were still open…
Including #TheLongBranchSaloon…
| Wyatt: | Welcome to the long branch. |
| No fighting, no cussing, no gunslinging. | |
| Watch what you say to our bartender. | |
| He’s an ornery cuss. | |
| Clark: | Thank you, sheriff. |
| Wyatt: | Uh, marshal. |
| Clark: | Oh, sorry. |
| Wyatt: | It’s no sweat. |
| Gimme five, partner. | |
| Rusty: | That guy was a crummy wyatt earp. |
| He’s wearing jogging shoes. | |
| Clark: | Oh, they used to, rusty. |
| Clark: | Hey, knucklehead, set us up with four redeyes, will you? |
| Hey, yellowbelly, I’m talking to you. | |
| move your chicken wings, turkey. | |
| Ellen: | Clark, that’s not nice. |
| Clark: | It’s all part of the act, hon. |
| Clark: | hey, yellowbel— (Bartender grabs a rifle and shoots Clark, who falls) Ellen: clark! |
| Clark: | I’m okay, I’m okay! |
| I’m all right. ha ha ha ha. | |
| Ellen: | I don’t think that’s very funny. |
| A noise like that could impair the kids’ hearing. | |
| Clark: | Aw, come on. |
| It was real. it looked real, didn’t it? | |
| Oh, hell, I thought it was a real gun. | |
| Didn’t it look real when I fell down, hon? | |
| Audrey: | What? |
| Clark: | Didn’t that look real, sweetie? what? |
| Ellen: | Are you happy now, clark? |
| She’s deaf. | |
| Clark: | Oh, what’s the difference? it was fun, anyway. |
| Let’s have a drink. what do you say? | |
| Pardon me, sir? |
They even had a piano player at the Saloon… And they have shows on the stage during their peak season…
Man: D’ ya have a good Sarsaparilla?
Bartender: Soux City Sarsparilla?
Man: That’s a good one…
I had to throw some Big Lebowski in there… Couldn’t resist… lol
Tracey sat and played a nice saloon tune for us all… I am so impressed with people who can play instruments… I wish I learned at a young age yet I am currently learning how to play the guitar… It’s never too late and with the technology today, you can learn by yourself at your own pace… I have a guitar app in my phone that teaches me… It’s really awesome and so convenient…
Though a lot of the other stores were closed, I was glad we came at this time… We took our time as we read and learned about this magnificent place in time…
Such a perfect blend of American Indian culture and the raping of the land by the white man… And they don’t hold back folks…
Though they celebrate the exploration of the white man in this country, they also show the devastation they brought with them…
I’m sure this business above was thriving at this time…
We went into old fashioned stores and businesses…
And learned about the conflicts at the time…
The outlaws that terrorized these towns…
And the sheriffs who were appointed to stop them…
The bank was magnificent! I never thought it was so advanced so early in our history… Yet it had to be to fend off the many bank robberies…
Everywhere you looked there was something new to see…
From the old technology of the time…
And even the schools…
Tracey couldn’t resist sitting at the teacher’s desk… To think she used to have her own class of students… It boggles my mind how our lives change so drastically… I guess some people are meant to experience many different things throughout life…
Actually the school wasn’t that much more advanced than the school I went to… We had similar desks in a blank, practical room… Now my high school looks like a College… They tore it down and built a huge one in it’s place…
Next to the school was a local #blacksmith shop…
And no town is complete without a church… Especially when you are going to be having a lot of funerals due to gun fights…
It must have been scary to be a religious leader in this town…
Witnessing the pursuit of wealth and the horrific tragedies that comes with it…
They even had the original Holy Bible that was used in this church… Magnificent!
They didn’t even allow concealed or open carry during these volatile times yet the NRA still wants it today… Listen, I’m all for you having your goddamn guns… I just don’t want them near my family… Especially if you haven’t been properly trained to carry that weapon… And when I mean properly trained, I mean the training the military and police go through…
Do you really think you are going to react properly in a emergency situation when you are not trained for it? It’s hard enough to kill another person, never mind do it in a chaotic situation where you don’t even know who the shooter is because everyone has guns out, firing… Everyone carrying guns does not make anyone safer, it makes us less safe because with more guns put into a chaotic situation will just create more carnage… You have to be trained for such situations… Just like the cops and the military…
We ended our Dodge City tour at the railroad station…
The train was magnificent… What a massive masterpiece…
Without the railroad, Dodge City would have never been so popular… The railroad made trade possible, allowed tourists to visit and brought a lot of entrepreneurs to this ever growing town…
I couldn’t believe the engine… Look at this thing… Who designs such things? It looks like something out of the movie “Edward Scissor Hands..”
To think these engines ran off of coal… They had learned to harness heat and pressure to make this massive steel monster… This invention opened up a whole new world for America… Without the steam engine, we would have never evolved to the gas engine we use today…
It’s funny how we take this country for granted… Even with all of it’s many faults, it’s amazing to see how far we have come… And I don’t criticize our progress as a nation, I just criticize what we did to get this far…
If we all learned to work together, don’t you think advancement would have been even quicker… yet I guess capitalism feeds our own animal instinct to conquer and destroy… Either way, there is beauty that does come out of it… But what a dear price we pay for such beauty… A lot of people believe Capitalism made this country great… I disagree… Democracy is what made this country great and the freedom it provides… Capitalism just enjoys such freedoms yet shovels the same destruction any dictatorship would…
For when money and power are involved, people will surely die… It’s a sad truth that no one really wants to face, until they themselves become a victim of Capitalism…