We got the hell out of Dodge.

We spent the night ...or should i say early morning in Dodge City, KS. Nice town in the dark. The night manager said it was ok to park the car right out front, and then gave us a room with a view of it. Would have been hard to know if anyone stole it, (mike is a snorer). Upon wake up, i looked out the window to see a small crowd, three people, which i am sure is a pretty decent size crowd for this town, looking at the car. We got our fill of free breakfast, made sure there was nothing leaking or hanging off the car. There wasn't. No oil used and all looked well. Good thing i brought 3 razor blades to clean the windows with ' cause they do got some big night critters in the midwest. Mike had his hand out the window at one point and caught something that hurt like hell. Sounded and looked like a small bat!

We cruised Dodge City in the am looking for opportunities for Dodge City signs. To our dismay, the local Dodge dealer was NOT called Dodge City Dodge. Go figure. The photo above is from the Dodge City Harley Davidson which had awesome shirts. We bought several different colors.

Now the trip from Phoenix to Dodge City was 883 with 4 fuel stops with our best consumption at 18.3 mpg in the flats of tx, ok and ks. We averaged 16.975 with a mostly stock 340, 650 holley double pumper, 833od and 2.76 gears. Love it.

I chose Dodge city for several reasons, obviously cruising a 43 year old Dodge convertible through Dodge City 26 hours after leaving phoenix is pretty awesome. It also made it more than the half way point for our travel on the first leg. BUT if you read the first post in the blog (the history lesson), Lori and Richard i made that stop for you. I can never thank you for your sacrifice of loading this car up onto the uhaul trailer, and stocking the uhaul truck full of parts, and driving to AZ with them, what seems like too long ago. Can't wait to see you next week.

Now we had been off the interstate since new mexico and stayed on 2 and 4 lane roads most of the trip late yesterday into today (currently 2:15 in KS). We've had the top down in the morning, but both days by noonish it got to 100+, so the top went up, and we cruised with the breeze of having windows down, and back window zipped. After a while the ac went on. Once again, mike is driving 70 mph, i'm typing ac blowin cold, open fields in both directions. There were some awesome photo ops that we took advantage of in between the open plains. One gas stop we pulled next to an rv with michigan plates, pulling a Jeep Cherokee. Owner walks up and says "69?". Yup. "does it have a 273?". It was then i realized i was talking to someone who knew some stuff, and i was right. Turns out he was a 36 year Chrysler engineer in the transmission division 1971 to 2007, now retired, traveling the country. He loved the car and we chatted while his wife grudgingly pumped gas into their behemoth.

So far all is well, the rear side glass needs a lookin at, since it's at half mast letting the hot ks air in. ive got a shady spot in Hudson, IA with a cold beer that i can give the car the once over and clean up for the parade on Saturday.

Enjoy the pics, see ya on the road.

 

Now the shot above i slammed on the brakes and turned around for. Single white horse, old barn, old truck in the back rail road tracks crops, water tower. Busy, but sums up the day.

The picture above and the two below I stopped here because Mike had to use the phone. I should probably mention these shots were taken with the ipad, cause its easier to update the blog that way. I should also probably mention that i have some professional photography schooling. I should also mention that i have my other camera, my iphone camera, and mike has2 cameras. There are a lot of pictures.

 

 

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