We're Not In Kansas Anymore... wait, YES WE ARE!

I'm sitting in Panera eating a cinnamon crunch bagel. I suppose you could call it breakfast, even though I already ate this morning. Second breakfast?

Less than two weeks ago I found myself in Dodge City, Kansas. Here are some fun facts:

1. It is the windiest city in the United States. (Sorry, Chicago)

2. In 1990 Kansas wheat farmers produced enough wheat to make 33 billion loaves of bread.

3. At Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine, waterbeds are used in surgery for horses.

Moving along. Dodge City is an important element of our story because it is where Jonathan and I decided to pitch a tent during our ten-hour road trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado. We obviously hadn't researched the city and found the #1 well known fact (relentless, chaotic, predictable wind). We started our road trip ...

I'm sorry. I'm so distracted right now. There is a casual business meeting happening to my left and I can't focus on anything else. Everyone is tan and laughing and they just watched a strange video about surgery on an iPhone. Great. The ringleader, a hefty man in a turquoise polo and windswept hair, just caught me looking at him. Note to all aspiring spies: LEARN TO LISTEN WITHOUT LOOKING!

...on the wrong side of the car because it was six PM, someone had been working all day (obviously, not me), and .... that's it.

There is a group of soon-to-be-retired teachers to my far left and their twangs are slicing through the space between us like a knife. I can't pass this one up:

"Emo-shin-uh-lize... not apayart... (pause for the loud techno beat of the business-meeting's iPhone advertisement) ya git chiyuldren involved... one yeah they wahnt fuh Chriyastmus..." Not only are these drawls powerful, they are speaking SO FAST. I can't make it out.

So we arrive after five and a half hours, EXHAUSTED, at a camp site Jonathan found online with a name along the lines of "Water Fun Sports Camp Campground." A few words were misleading in this title. The first was "sports" and the second was "campground." I had been reading the newspaper on and off for about two hours and there was nothing interesting left. We were both feeling kind of nauseous from Mexican fast food (who knew, Kansas?) and there it was... the campground. Rows of trailers met our eyes, followed by campers, and more campers... some had aluminum siding connecting their sides to the ground ("some of these people have moved here permanently," Jonathan whispered). There were no tents. Oops, that's what we brought.

This would be a good time to mention that Jonathan is vigilant about saving money. Vigilant.

He turned the car lights on so we could put up the tent. The site was silent, except for the quiet buzz of Christmas lights decorating the dwellings. I broke that by clicking on the motor to blow up the air mattress.

I can't judge anyone at this point.

The spookiness of the teen horror movie was accentuated by a wail floating through the air. "Do you hear that baby?" I asked him. I wondered why nobody was taking care of their baby, probably across the field in the little neighborhood that was visible. The wind continued to scrape past the few trees standing, and the baby sounded like it was home alone.

Eventually, the pup tent was up, the pile of blankets was thrown in (sleeping bags? of course we didn't have those), and then we heard a sound.

"REEEAWWWWWW!!! MAURWWWWW!!! EEEEEEEOOOOWWW!!"

I froze. "Get in the car!" Jonathan hissed, still bent over the clasp to the tent cover he was trying to put up in the wind, unsuccessfully.

I opened the door and stood there, watching.

"YEEEAWWWW! RAYAWWWW!"

"GET IN THE CAR!" he barked, a bit more forcefully. It was no baby. It sounded like a wild cougar murdering its prey.

We had a quick argument about cat fights, rabid cats, tom cats, and the cat violence that used to keep me awake my senior year of college. Our attempt to raise some homeless kittens backfired when they grew into teenagers and started brawling on the roof.

I hopped in. So did he. "I'M GOING TO KILL IT!" he growled, turning on the lights and revving the engine.

Surprisingly, no one came out of their RV. He drove toward the field. And then we saw it. Two cats (I was right) rolling in the grass, a smaller grey one at an obvious disadvantage. If you're familiar with a cat fight, you may remember animal sounds that seem to be wafting up from the pit of Hades. Screaming, hissing, a symphony of yelps and groans and battle cries. Perhaps the most disturbing part was that when one cat disappeared beneath the other one in the grass, the cat towering above continued to scream and tear at the ground.

I think the grey one got away. Jonathan thinks he didn't make it.

We watched the victor stumble away, swaying down the road like a drunk just booted out of a bar. I convinced Jonathan not to run him over (he's always wanting to take up for the underdog/cat), and explained to him that's why you should spay and neuter your pets.

Shaken up, we made it back to the tent. It was less than comforting to know that a paper-thin sheet of tarp was all that separated us from the claws out there. A motorcycle tore by.

What followed was a night of such violent wind that I was convinced we were the only thing holding that tent down. It would howl and howl, and then "WHOO WHOGOBOOGOBOO WHOOO SHWOSHSOOO", it would flap the tent cover like a tornado and bang the sides of the rain cover. It didn't matter how tired either of us were. We probably slept a collective three hours.

The next morning we stomped tired, cranky, into a donut shop, and upon some chitchat with the cashier, who had lived in Kansas her whole life, we heard for the first time:

"Oh, you didn't know that? Dodge City is the windiest city in the country!"