St. Louis to Springfield, MO (Day 3)

We set out on the Mother Road for real today (July 11th). Our first stop was at the Route 66 park outside of St. Louis. As we pulled off the interstate (we didn't follow the route very much through St. Louis), we found a welcome center at a dead end road. We pulled in, but saw a closed sign. As we started to back out, a man came out and flipped the sign to open and motioned us to come on in! I am glad we did. It was just a little before opening time, but they really had a nice gift shop and a little museum about the local route. There were signs from the Coral Court (long gone and demolished) as well as a history of the area. The park is on the former site of Times Beach, Mo. This town experienced major flooding in the 1980's and was found to be contaminated with dioxin. The soil is safe now, however. The guy in there showed us a map of the globe that he has had visitors stick a pin in their hometown. It was amazing to see where people were from. The largest concentration was the east coast of the US and also Europeans. There were pins in every continent, which was cool to see! He gave us some great advice on places to see, and after getting a few things from the gift shop, we hit the road again. 

We have a copy of the EZ Guide to Route 66, and after a little getting used to it, found it was fairly easy to follow! We also downloaded an app to our phones, Road Trip 66, and liked how it shows the map with the route highlighted, as well as places of interest marked with pins that gave info about each place. We stopped a few times to take snapshots of signs and old hotels, but quickly found we just couldn't do that at every pin on the map. We tried our best to keep moving, but we found lots of cool places that were hard to pass by. We found the Wagon Wheel Motel (which was inspiration for the Disney movie Cars), the Worlds Largest Rocking Chair, John's (not-so) Modern Cabins, and several cool gas stations ( both restored and unrestored).

Honestly, above all the things we saw, we did learn it is much more fun riding the back roads than the interstate. We spent a lot of time looking out the window and seeing things at a slower pace and not just a blur flying by the window as we passed at 70mph. We did learn something else, though, the stretch of road from St. Louis to Springfield deserves to be split up. We drove it, but we really were exhausted and found ourselves having to pass by things a little too quickly to ensure we would arrive at a decent time to the hotel that night. We do hope the rest of the days don't feel as rushed, but we are glad we are doing this together. We have enjoyed spending time together and Jon is really enjoying it, too! He really likes finding the things we learned about before we came, and the Cars movie things are very interesting to him. 

When we finally got to Springfield, we found the longest continuously operating Steak and Shake to have dinner. It was not your average Steak and Shake! It is like time stood still to the exterior of the building. The food is all the same, however! Haha!

Internet access is limited in some hotels and time is better spent with family. (Which is why some of my Blogs will be posted not necessarily on the day it took place. Just depends on how things happen.) Thanks for coming along with us by reading this blog!