Dodge City, Kansas

There aren't many organized places like state parks to camp at in rural western Kansas so I drove the car to Dodge City, Kansas last night and found a no-frills independent motel. The Thunderbird is run by Indians from India with a lobby that smells like curry, rooms are $39 a night with free -- sporadic and unreliable -- Wifi internet access, and offer a mix of early 1960s and 1980s room styles and fashions. My room was the first room I've ever seen to offer three full size beds. I wish I had taken pictures of it as it was pretty hip in a weird, unusual and charmingly cute sort of way.

After I checked out of my room this morning I went exploring the town in search of the glorified cowboy town from western movies. Dodge City was once a thriving hub of commerce for the hundreds of thousands of cattle ranches that surround it. This was one of those towns where cowboys would ride in from the ranch to do business, eat and drink at the saloon and occasionally get into a gunfight.

A couple generations have past since those times and a lot of changes have happened. The old wooden buildings seen in every western movie were here but they pretty much burned down or were torn down and replaced by brick and mortar buildings. Styles changed and in the 50s, 60s and 70s many downtown buildings took on contemporary styles that were quite different from the western days. Globalization has been forcing changes on towns like Dodge City for about thirty years and its struggling to do well in modern times.

They've rebuilt part of the center of downtown here to look like it did back in the historic days. It's cute and tourists probably love it but I'm in search of the real thing. The difference between the Dodge City I had in my head and the Dodge City that's working hard to survive is a good opportunity for me to put my expectations in check for the rest of my trip. Between the rebuilt, attractive historic downtown of Dodge City and the tourist-oriented historic hotel that still stands there is a reminder of modern times: a very plain and boring 1990s style Applebee's restaurant. It's time to get outta Dodge.