The most direct route from Albuquerque back to Missouri would have been old Route 66. In fact, if I weren't sitting here looking at brochures from Dodge City, KS, I would have sworn that's the route we took. I must have heard the words "you go through St. Louis; Joplin, Missouri; and Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty; You see Amarillo" so often that I imagined we'd driven through those locations.
Instead, we took a more northerly route with a jog in the path to get up to Dodge City where we spent the last night of our trip. My best guess is that this was meant to address boyhood fascinations with the Wild West for my dad and my brother.
My mother didn't make any notes and Dale and I remember nothing. The only brochures we have are for two attractions that we're surprised that our parents let us go to. We were never taken to places that they labeled "tourist traps" and these two seem in that realm.
Slanty Shanty is long gone, but the Gunfighters Wax Museum still exists - and apparently if you go to see it today, you'll be seeing exactly what we saw in 1971. I'm amused that it's housed and nominally run by the Kansas Teachers' Hall of Fame. They seem to have a great sense of humor about it, according to this article from Roadside America.
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
