We visited Fort Riley in Kansas. It is a working army base and is vast, bigger than a large town. Parts of it are like driving in the country with its own forests, fields etc. Armed guards check you out as you go in. We visited the US Cavalry museum and were amazed at the quality of the exhibits. Well up to the standards of something like the Smithsonian. It was fascinating. This is the building (I was waiting for the military police to stop me taking photos on the base, but they obviously didn't think I was much of a threat).

They had a few old tanks on display too (the modern cavalry). This is my second favourite (after the Sherman). It's the first time I have seen one up close and I can't believe how small it is. And no air conditioning...

Next we visited historic Old Dodge City (or what little remains). This is a recreation of Front Street which features a lot of memorabilia from the period including clothes, furniture, guns etc plus the original jail, parts of Boot Hill (most of the graves were moved in the mid 1900s but there are a handful that are still there). The museum was quite interesting.

They have can can dancers, gunfights etc in the evenings and the bar looks really authentic – straight out of a western movie, but 10am was a little early for us to start drinking.

Look at the shape women were expected to conform to in that era.

We have seen hundreds of thousands of bales of hay in recent days but none as strange as these we saw in Colorado. They are huge and remind us of loaves of bread.

We passed the site of this truck crash in the strangely named town of Swink, Colorado. How the heck he turned his rig on its side in a 30mph zone I'll never know.