Carry Nation House | Cedar Valley RV Park

Tuesday - 4 May 2004 - Guthrie, Oklahoma: Another day, another state! Howard, you will need your map and your magnifying glass to follow our route today! Down here roads go straight east/west or north/south, so we zigged and zagged our way out of Kansas.
 
The first thing that came to mind when I woke this morning, is that the wind had changed. The stench of the cattle yards was permeating the camper. It was time to get out of Dodge! The aroma of Dodge City may be how several words we now commonly use are believed to have originated in Dodge City. Stinker, for one, used as a noun; Stiff, also used as a noun for a corpse, and the term Joint, used to describe a saloon, etc. An eloquent group, those cowboys.

So we continued east and south, bypassing our chance to have breakfast at the Long Branch Saloon McDonalds. Our route (East on 400 to Greenburg, S on 183 to Coldwater, E on 160 to Medicine Lodge, S on 281 to the Oklahoma border, S on 8 through Cherokee and then E on 64 to Enid and over to Interstate 35 where we took exit 157 to Highway 33 to Guthrie!) took us through nothing but ranch land, wheat fields and oil wells. All day. Pretty much flat. Pretty much green. The roads were not in very good shape and there was no shoulder and we had to pass many large tractors, balers, mowers, etc. on the narrow roads. We saw little wildlife, except dead deer and birds on the side of the road, until we came into Medicine Lodge and were greeted by a huge owl swooping across the road directly in front of us - mouse in mouth - which reminded us it was time for lunch. (Or else something big is up at Hogwarts.) It was the first time I had ever seen an owl fly in the middle of the day.

Medicine Lodge, Kansas is famous for two things - a very significant peace accord between the natives and the US Government, and as the home of famed Temperance Crusader, Carry Nation. We took the tour!

DT, on the porch of the Old Smith cabin in Medicine Lodge


Electric Hair Curling Machine

Our tour started at the adjoining Stockade Museum which holds the original peace pipe used in 1867 at the signing of the Peace Treaty at Medicine Lodge - with 15,000 Native and 600 US Government agents attending. In 1893 the land was settled and in just a few hours, six million acres were deeded in a land-grab called the Cherokee Strip. We also went out into the stockade to see an (relocated) original settler cabin.

Our guide was outstanding and anxious to show us the interesting things on display. There were at this hour, including us, 4 visitors to the museum. Yesterday there had been 4 visitors in total. (Hey, this museum is seriously in the middle of nowhere.) The other touring couple were from California and insisted we go to Branson, Missouri!

There were hundreds and hundreds of items on display in the museum - including strange wreaths made from human hair. Locals would save their hair, braid wreaths and place them on graves for the day on Memorial Day. After showing us the Wooly Mammoth bones unearthed nearby and the Electric Hair Curler machine, she took the four of us over to the house and we were shown Mrs. Nation's original bed, desk and her pump organ. Carry Nation was arrested over eighty times for smashing up bars with bricks or with her famous hatchet. She sold lapel pins for twenty-five cents each to earn money to pay her bail. Her motto: "Lips that touch liquor, don't touch mine." Her husband divorced her.

DT, wary of Carry's hatchet


The front of Carry Nation's Medicine Lodge home

After our tour, our friendly guide suggested we tourists go up to the bank for lunch. The bank? She said today was Customer Appreciation Day and they were grilling hamburgers in the parking lot and we could just walk up there and get a free lunch. How funny! Instead we went to the local cafe and dined with the paying crowd, where everyone knew everyone and everything was (as the clerk said) deep fat fried. They even had fried pickles! The joint (see, I can use words from Dodge City) was very busy and conversation flew from table to table across the room. Seems everyone was starting their oil wells again since the price of crude is so high. 2,000 friendly people live in Medicine Lodge, Kansas - and every one of them seems to have a cell phone. One new land holder, not dining in the cafe today, is Ted Turner. Seems Ted bought up half the county so his Buffalo can roam.

Lisa phoned from Our Nations Capital and we told her we were going to Oklahoma and she said "OK". I started laughing hysterically, but she just didn't get it.

And, something is broken on our new coach! For the first time today we used the dash air conditioner (it is 88 here in Guthrie) and DT had icy-cold air and I had hot, hot, hot air coming from my vents! We crossed into Oklahoma and drove past the largest-we've-seen-so-far-on-this-trip grain silos in Enid. Enid is a famous town if you do crossword puzzles - barely a week goes by when ENID isn't the answer in a puzzle.

We had read about this guy in Guthrie, Oklahoma who is a Golf Nut. He has built two championship golf courses and one executive golf course (with not one sand trap because he hates sand traps!) and has put a luxury RV park - Cedar Valley RV Park - in the middle of it all. It sounded like heaven to DT, so we are here and are camped on a lovely site between Masters and Palmer Drives. And we will be here for a day or two. Four days of hard driving is two too many. We need to rest. Don't ask me how sitting all day can be so tiring, but we are both exhausted. We did take the Honda into the pretty town of Guthrie. It is like a Disney town, all the buildings downtown are ancient and brick; the streets are brick and the houses are huge and meticulously maintained. Guthrie has the largest Historic District of any city in the entire United States. We had a drink in the Blue Belle Saloon (take THAT, Carry Nation), where Tom Mix once worked as a bartender, and came back to the campground so DT could get in nine holes before dark.

RV Park: Cedar Valley RV Park in Guthrie, Oklahoma