A Trip to the Great Plains to
Attend FMCA Convention

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Spring 2001
Page 12

Sunday 4-8

NOTE: On May 4, 2007 the small town of Greensburg, Kansas was destroyed by an F-5 tornado that ripped through town. Most landmarks became unreconizable and the pictures on this site are now historical.

Today we would be heading toward the west. It was time for Kay and I to begin our trip home while Kevin and Tina were going to continue their trip to see relatives in Arizona. Our original plan was to return the way we had come. However, Kevin and Tina wanted to go back following a different route to give some variety to the trip. So, it was decided that we would travel on U.S. 54 from Wichita and Tucumcari, New Mexico.

We began to break camp at about 8:30, getting on the road at around 9:00. With the grocery stores in the area all to the east of us, our plan, as we drove west, was to find a store along the way to take on a new supply of provisions. I followed Kevin and Tina as we headed down the road toward Kingman with the very flat Kansas landscape all around us.


Heading west on a very flat landscape

It had been 12 to 15 years since Kay and I had traveled on this part of U.S. 54, so it was fun to see familiar views once again. Out in this part of the country a person can see miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. The first town we thought we might find a grocery store was Kingman, but we ended up just driving through.

As we drove through town we talked on the CB radio. I remembered that Dairy Queen had a sale on Blizzards to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the first Blizzard. So, we decided to look for a Dairy Queen store along the way. If there was a Dairy Queen in Kingman we missed it. We did see a beautiful old brick Court House that now houses the county museum.


A barn that has seen better days

We pressed on down the highway to the next sizable town of Pratt. In addition to groceries, I was looking for a place to buy gasoline to refuel our motorhome. When we reached Pratt there was a store that would provide us with all that we needed. Kevin and I pulled up to the gas pumps to refuel while the women went into the store.

When the gas tank was full on our motorhome I found a place to park and went into the store to find Kay. Inside I saw a sign that said that I was eligible for a very nice discount on my gasoline purchase depending on how much we spent in the store. I checked on it and found that I would get a cash refund on my fuel purchase by bringing my fuel receipt and the store receipt to the service counter. I received enough of a refund that I now had the money to pay for that Dairy Queen Blizzard. Unfortunately I would not be buying a Blizzard in Pratt.


Approaching one of many small towns we would see on this day

Again we were on the road making our way toward our destination for the night, but we still had a lot of daytime left. The next town I was looking forward to would be Greensburg. I spent a lot of time in Greensburg the summer I turned eleven years old. As a result I have a lot of fond memories attached to this town. The main place I wanted to show Kevin and Tina was the "World’s Largest Hand Dug Well."


The Big Well visitor center


Looking down to the bottom of the Big Well


The way water is stored today

There is quite a story behind the well. It was built in the late 1880s to supply water to the railroad companies for their steam engines. Farmers and laborers from around the area were paid to work in teams of about 15 men at a time. All the dirt was dug by pick and hand shovel. The dirt was removed by hailing it out of the well by the bucket full. The well was lined, as the well got deeper, with rock that was quarried on nearby farm. The final size of the well is 32 feet in diameter and 109 feet deep.

Behind the Big Well is a small park where the people of the town would gather on Saturday evenings in the summers of long ago. In one corner was a bandstand where local musicians would produce live music. As I remember the scene, it was something right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.


What is left of a small city park located behind the Big Well visitor center

Around the park is a low rock wall made of soft sandstone. The stone was so soft that the wall was covered with people’s initials and graffiti cut into the stone. On one of the rocks, on the wall, I can still see the faint remains of my initials carved with the edge of a fifty cent piece while listening to live band music. The intials were stylized so that the "M" and the "L" shared one virtical line — as shown here . The little park is only a shadow of what it once was.


Close up of grafitti from long ago

After taking several pictures, we found our way back to the highway via the main street through town. I was surprised to see that many of the buildings on both sides of the street are the same ones I remember from my childhood. The movie theater I went to on Saturday afternoons, although no longer in business, is still there showing the long years of wear.


Heading back out on the prairie

It didn’t take long for us to get out on the road and to get up to speed. Up until this point, the highway had been taking us mostly west. From now on we would be turning toward the southwest. We would follow Highway 54 through western Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, the corner of the Texas panhandle, and finally northeastern New Mexico.

Before we would leave Kansas we still had a way to go. Our route would take us past the town of Fowler, a place where Kay and I had serious car problems in our first cross-country trip in 1963. The town looked a lot smaller back then and it seemed farther from the highway.

It was getting to be lunch time, so we agreed to find a place in Liberal to have lunch. Along the way, I told Kevin and Tina about the small towns in this part of the country often having nice parks where RVs are welcomed. The parks in some towns even encourage free overnight camping. When we arrived in Liberal we looked for a park where we could have lunch with a nice view.

Just inside the city limits of Liberal we found a park such as I had been describing. Tina and Kevin led the way to a wide area next to a playground. What a playground it was. The equipment was right out of my childhood and might have been older than me. It has been a long time since I’ve seen such heavy-duty constructed playground facilities.


Heavy duty playground equipment from a bygone era


More rough-and-tumble playground equipment

This stuff was built back in the days when it was built to last. It was supposed to be able to stand up to anything kids and adults could throw at it. The swing seats were heavy wood with heavy metal brackets all supported by chains. There were teeter-totters of the kind I’ve actually seen a child knock out a couple of permanent front teeth when the kid on the opposite end jumped off. I took a load of photos to document this old playground stuff.

It was when I was returning to our motorhome for lunch, after taking a lot of pictures, that I noticed a sign that said, "TOURIST CAMP." This was one of those small town parks I had talked about earlier.


A typical small town park welcoming tourists

It was a bit windy - a common occurrence on the plains - so Kay and I had lunch in our motorhome with a nice view of the park. Kevin and Tina braved the gusty weather and had lunch at the picnic table next to their motorhome. Kevin took a picture of a cute scene with Mickey patiently waiting for Tina’s lunch leftovers.


Mickey waiting patiently for his lunch

This was a restful stop, but it wasn’t long until we were back on the road driving through town. We were only a short distance from Oklahoma. Still no Dairy Queen in sight. I was beginning to think we might not get to have a Blizzard on this trip.

A few miles inside Oklahoma, we passed through a town with a name that made me chuckle a little, it was Hooker, Oklahoma. The next town ahead of us of a size that might have a Dairy Queen was Guymon, Oklahoma. By the time we had reached Guymon, Kevin and Tina were quarter of a mile ahead of us. Approximately 57 miles west of Guymon is a town with a familiar name, Boise City.

Shortly after arriving in town I found that I was driving beside a low slung sport coupe with a couple of young men inside. I was driving in the outside lane with the coupe next to us in the lane next to the centerline. It seemed as if every traffic signal was set to turn red just before we reached the intersection. Kevin and Tina were one or two traffic lights ahead of us.

Each time the light turned green the car next to us accelerated slowly, much slower than I would expect from a sport coupe with a young man at the wheel. Because our motorhome takes a bit of time to get up to the speed limit, the result was that the coupe was pacing our motorhome. I wanted to get in the center lane so I would be able to turn either direction if we were to see a Dairy Queen. I wasn’t able to get ahead of the coupe fast enough to get ahead of it without exceeding the speed limit. I’m always concerned about staying at or below the speed limit when I’m driving through an unfamiliar town. I didn’t want to slow down to get behind the coupe because it was moving so slow that I was concerned about holding up traffic behind us.

All of a sudden, on the CB radio, Kevin said, There is a Dairy Queen on the left side of the road. Here I was unable to get in front of or behind the car next to us. I saw Kevin and Tina’s motorhome make a left turn across the street about a block ahead of us on the other side of the Dairy Queen.

Suddenly I saw a left turn lane at the intersection ahead of us just before the Dairy Queen. Just in time I saw an opening and I whipped the motorhome into the left lane just in time to get into the left turn lane. Just as I reached the end of the lane an opening in the opposing traffic appeared. So, I made a quick left turn and drove the short distance to the Dairy Queen parking lot. Kevin and Tina’s motorhome was already parked and they were getting out of their RV.

I pulled our motorhome around to the back of the parking lot to get away from the crowded parking areas. Just as I turned off the engine there was a brief siren blast. It startled me, I looked in the rear view mirror to find the source of the sound. Imagine my surprise when I saw a police officer heading my way and I could see a police car with flashing lights. Whoops, what did I do to attract the attention of the local police. I was so sure that I had observed the speed limit.

I climbed out of the driver’s seat and asked why the officer why he was there. The officer was very polite and professional as he told me I had made an improper lane change without signaling. He then asked for my driver’s license and proof of insurance. Fortunately both were readily available and I was able to give the two cards to the officer without delay. He then began to walk back to his patrol car when he stopped and turned around to tell me he was going to write a warning ticket.

Kay had walked across the parking lot where she was watching the activities, from a distance, with Kevin and Tina. I was relieved when the officer told me I would receive a warning ticket and I thanked him. I had been driving with my shirt unbuttoned, so while the officer was writing the ticket, I buttoned my shirt in preparation for entering the Dairy Queen store. I walked toward the officer as I buttoned my shirt. I reached out to retrieve my driver’s license and insurance card and made the comment that I was just too preoccupied with getting into the Dairy Queen. The officer laughed, but it struck me that what I had just said wasn’t that funny.

I took the ticket and looked at it to see what the officer’s name was; it was Mike. I walked over to join my companions. When I told them that I was given a warning ticket, Tina said she would have to take back the bad thoughts she was having for officer Mike. Now she understood why I said, "Thank you" to the officer.

Now we were going to get that Blizzard. We found a table inside and just before I went up to place an order for Kay and me, Kay noticed that I had buttoned up my shirt unevenly. Darn, now I knew why officer Mike laughed more than I thought he should at what I said. Unbeknownst to me, he was looking at me with one shirt tail longer than the other. Oh well, you can’t impress everybody.

I quickly buttoned my shirt correctly and I was finally able to place an order for a M&M Blizzard. It was very good. We all had our ice cream treats as we talked about my brush with the law. This was the first time I had received a ticket of any kind in the twenty five years I had been driving an RV. I never saw officer Mike in traffic and it occurred to me that his presence might have been the reason for the strange way the young man, in the sport coupe, was driving. After finishing our ice cream I was ready to get back on the road.

I had planned to fill up the motorhome fuel tank in Guymon, but now I just wanted to get out of town. I knew that officer Mike was out there somewhere and I didn’t want to give him a chance to write me another traffic ticket. I decided that I had enough fuel to make it to Dalhart, Texas. So, that would be our next planned stop. Guymon is more than half way across the Oklahoma panhandle in the direction we were traveling. So, it didn’t take very long for us to reach Texhoma where we entered the Texas panhandle.


A lot of steaks on the hoof

The landscape was still very flat with the foliage getting more sparse. Somewhere in Texas we saw, what is probably the largest livestock feed lot I’ve ever seen. The feed lot seemed to go on forever. I was thankful that the direction of the wind was such that we only occasionally received a whiff of the unpleasant odor of the uncountable number of cattle.

It seemed as if it was a short time for us to reach Dalhart where I would fill the motorhome gas tank. This turned out to be a good place for us to refuel. The prices were right and I needed a lot of gasoline. By the time the tank was finally full, the bill came to just over fifty dollars. We didn’t spend any extra time as we wanted to get to the Tucumcari KOA before the office closed.

The remainder of the trip was uneventful as we found our way to New Mexico. The landscape was still flat, but rock formations appeared now and then giving some variety to the scenery. The route that Highway 54 followed into Tucumcari turned out to be quite familiar. The route follows the old Route 66 to I-40. This was the place where we drove under I-40 to get to the KOA RV campground. We arrived a half hour before the office would close. We had made much better time than I thought we would when we started out in Wichita.

Kevin and I drove up and stopped in front of the office to register. I was the first to be registered, so I drove our motorhome around to our campsite thinking that Kevin and Tina would be right behind us. I had time to get to our campsite and get the water and electricity hooked up and they hadn’t showed up yet. So, I walked around to the office to find out what had happened to Kevin and Tina. When I reached their motorhome they were just about to drive around to the campground. As their RV passed me I heard a terrible grinding noise coming from the back wheel area.

I walked back to our campsite to wait for Kevin and Tina to pull into the site next to ours. Kevin pulled into place with the sound still coming from the rear axle area of his motorhome. We spent some time trying to troubleshoot the problem without success. It was decided that the source of the noise would remain a mystery until the next day. Tina would call a towing service in the morning.

We all settled in for the evening. This would be our last night traveling together. The next day Kevin would be continuing to follow Highway 54 farther south while we would be taking I-40 heading for home. It had been a very interesting day with my first brush with the law since I began traveling in an RV and ending with a mysterious sound coming from Kevin and Tina’s motorhome. Insert page content here, minus the first letter.


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