By MT Cozzola

There’s a huge grain processing plant that hums like a diesel truck someone forgot to turn off. You get used to it and then hear it like new again, over and over during your stay in Dodge City, which is in the midst of a revitalization initiative. There’s a petting zoo and a dog park right next to the new KOA campsite.

Get the heck into Dodge! seems to be the latest slogan, though there are vestiges of an older one, Why not Dodge City? on a few posters. Although I found the struck-through OUT OF to be problematic because it sends a subliminal message, Dave pointed out the many immediate answers to Why not:

• Sad, distressing cattle feed lots.

• Loud trains running right through town.

• Constant hum of the grain elevator.

• Desolate feeling of flatness after the richness of New Mexico.

• It’s in a tornado zone.

The dog park was huge but empty, save for a deflated soccer ball. The restaurants and shops were closed, probably because it was a Sunday. We found an open ice cream store and broke into the reading garden of the Carnegie Library.

The next morning, I finally saw someone go into the dog park, so Nola and I followed. We met Loki and her owner, who was standing near the gate smoking a cigarette. I assumed she was maybe fifty or sixty, and was surprised when she said she had a three-year-old back in the trailer so she couldn’t stay long.

She admired our rig and said that’s what she wants, a motorhome. “Trailers are good for when you’re gonna drive somewhere and stay put a while,” she said, “but we travel all around. Having to haul baby and the animals out of the cab every time we make camp is…”

“Wearying,” I wanted to suggest, but just kept listening. She has another dog, a mastiff, which is now back in Cincinnati where her dad is taking care of it. She pointed to the processing plant and explained that “the men work on the cooling systems,” though she didn’t say exactly who the men were. Her husband and son? Her brothers? Something about her reminded me of my childhood friend who has cut herself off from all contact with her family and friends to cleave to her Putin-loving, probably abusive husband who doesn’t even let her have a cell phone. Not that this woman is unemployed and homeless, but maybe the implicit assumption that women follow where the men lead and take care of the little ones.

When she finished her smoke, she left to check on baby, and we returned to the rig to get the hell out of Dodge. Next up: The largest hand-dug well in the world.