Springfield, MO to Broken Arrow, OK (Day 4)

It seemed like a short night, probably because we decided that we really needed to get on the road a little earlier for now. We had a busy day on Friday, and felt a little rushed, not to mention that we started getting tired of riding at about 4pm. Since today was pretty busy as well, we decided to get a jump on things and hit the road by at least 7am this time. Glad we did, too! It was a fun filled day!

We started out at a little gas station (replica) called Gay Parita. As we drove up, and pulled to the side of the road, Jon spotted Sheriff from Cars!

The gift shop wasn't open yet, but the front gates were wide open, inviting us to come in and take a look around. That is the thing I am learning on this trip, people who live on the route and have these little road side attractions (or a piece of history on their land) pretty much all welcome you in to enjoy what they have. This was something that was obviously a labor of love for these folks. I was sorry they weren't up yet, so that we could meet them!

We stopped for gas a little further down the road and found this interesting piece of "art"!

The Crapduster - Half Cropduster, Half Manure Spreader.

We drove on along to Carthage, MO where we pulled over to check out the 66 Drive-in. This was our first encounter with a group of motorcyclists from Australia. Throughout the day, we passed each other at each stop. We kind of blended in with them a few times, as they would overpower our little family of four, since there were around 15 bikes, some with passengers as well as a couple chase cars in case of trouble.

Before long, and many old motels and old gas stations later, we "cut the corner of Kansas for the 13 miles that route 66 covers there. We came to the town of Galena, an old mining town, and met a man directing traffic in the street. One look and we knew we had made it to Cars on the Route (formerly 4 Women on the Route). Their clam to fame is that the Disney/Pixar folks found the inspiration for Tow Mater there. We looked twice and noticed that not only do they have their "Tow Tater" (had to be renamed because of copyrights), they now have a Tow Mater sitting beside him!

We met a lady named Melba Rigg who is one of the owners. We learned from her that she was interviewed for the DVD extras on the Cars 2 movie! She touts herself as a really fast talker, and she proved that indeed she CAN speak very fast. I don't know what she said, though. 

We drove on toward Baxter Springs and crossed the Rainbow Arch bridge. Really cool old bridge.

Next we stopped in at SACS 66 in Baxter Springs. It is a cool antique store that had a penny smasher machine that Jon wanted to use. We put in our quarters and penny and tuned the crank, but nothing happened. Then the lady behind the counter said that she has had this happen before, and said that the new pennies sometimes get stuck. So she came over with her own quarters and penny to try to push ours through, but it got stuck, too! She called her husband from the back room and he came out to take the back off the machine and get the pennies unstuck. He had a stroke not long ago, so it took him a little longer, but we didn't mind, they were great people. We told them we understood and that Dad had one, and we understood things taking a little longer. We were just happy that they were so willing to try to fix it! Soon enough, her husband pushed the two pennies through and then the lady gave us back our quarters and penny and we tried it again. This time it worked! We thanked them, and Mom bought some jam from them and we headed on.

In just a couple miles, we crossed out of Kansas and into Oklahoma, and Jon says "Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore!" We all died laughing at the perfect timing of his comment. I think he had waited since hearing we were going through Kansas to say that!

Next we got to Commerce, OK, the hometown of Mickey Mantle of New York Yankees fame. We found the Mickey Mantle Field and the statue. As we walked a long winding walkway to the statue, I thought to myself, Dad sure would have enjoyed seeing that. He always did love baseball, and passed along the love of the game to me.

We continued on and saw a house that was from the Sears and Roebuck catalog. The entire house! The person who bought it had seen it at the Chicago World's Fair and ordered it. It was delivered by rail as a kit, that was assembled on site. The story goes that only one single board was not cut right as they put the kit together. Not bad when you think about it being a 2,400 sq ft house!

We went on to Totem Pole park, which is just outside Foyil, OK. It was one of those places that you just have to see to appreciate. We learned about Ed Galloway, the creator. The lady at the museum and gift shop sat us down on some chairs he had made nearly 100 years ago, and told us all about Ed being a woodworker by trade, but that he had always been a creator. He made fiddles out of wood from all over the world, and on them are intricate designs made by using small pieces of different types of wood to make pictures.

The large totem pole took him 11 years to complete. It is 90 feet tall, 18 feet in diameter and the base of it is 54 inches thick. He used 100 tons of sand and rock, 28 tons of cement and 6 tons of steel to build. 

He mixed it all in a 5 gallon bucket.

The next stop was in Catoosa, OK. Jon had been waiting patiently to see the Blue Whale.

This whale was built by Hugh Davis as a "surprise" for his wife for their anniversary in the early 1970's. It became a swimming hole for locals and travelers who were driving Route 66. We met back up with the Australian bikers there, and Jon climbed up in the whale to get a look out the port hole windows on the second level.

We then pulled in to Broken Arrow, OK, where we met my Dad's best friend (who each considered the other their brother) for dinner. It was nice to see him again, he and his family used to live in Smyrna, but moved several years ago for his job. The last time I saw him was when he visited Dad when he was sick. 

As for the hotel, I would like to make sure that those reading my blog never consider staying at the Best Western in Broken Arrow, OK. We have stayed in some nice places, and some ok places, but that one was horrible. I do believe they built mattresses out of plywood and 2x4's because there was absolutely no give what so ever in them. The lady at the front desk was rude, acted like we were inconveniencing her anytime we walked by. Asking for an extra blanket got me a long drawn out sigh since she had to get off the lobby couch and stop watching Chopped on the Food Network. Boohoo! 

Oh well, she won't rain on my parade. On to Elk City, OK next!

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!

St. Louis (Day 1-2)

We made our way to St. Louis on July 9th. We drove up all interstate until we got close to St. Louis, and branched off just outside of town on the Illinois side. Our first taste of Route 66 was at a truck stop. Not really your normal route 66 stop, but we needed gas and a potty break. We looked out and saw the Route 66 sign and knew we were at the right place. In Illinois, the roads are fairly well marked, but the construction on the interstate made it hard to get to sometimes. We jumped off the interstate and saw the Hen House Restaurant and a sign left over from the Belair Drive-in. From there we went to check out the Chain of Rocks bridge. It was kinda sketchy getting beck to it, there was a bridge we had to cross that was only one way, so we had to wait for a light to let us cross. Once there, we found the parking lot deserted, which gave mom an uneasy feeling leaving the car there. She didn't say anything until we were on our way back, and in the excitement, Tony and I didn't even think about that. We walked out from the Illinois side to the curve and back. This bridge was built in 1927 and was used for vehicle traffic until the 70's when it was replaced with a newer bridge just to the north.

Later we went to the Gateway Arch and journeyed to the top. I had been before, but no one else had done the ride to the top. Mom chickened out last time, but decided that it wasn't so bad, and worth the trip up. Riding in those little capsules is definitely something to do. Once up top, we were met by a hoard of others who had made the trip up, but were able to fight our way to some of the very small windows. It was right at sunset, so we got to see the sun go down as well as see Busch Stadium lit up in the middle of a Cardinal game! Jon loved every minute of it.

Now, LEAVING the arch is a completely different experience all together. They are doing some massive construction downtown, and even with having the GPS in the car, we still managed to drive around in circles for quite a while before finally finding a route to the interstate that wasn't closed by road construction. We grabbed a late dinner and headed back to the hotel for the night.

Today, July 10th, we woke up, had some hotel breakfast and let Jon get some swimming in. Our room is awesome, it has a sliding door that opens right up to the pool, so a short jump across the sidewalk and you are in the pool! We made the necessary trip to Wal-Mart, because I don't think it can be considered a vacation if we don't hit the Wally World a few times! We had to grab some swimming paraphernalia for Jon, which included goggles and something to float on, and eventually he talked us into a life jacket so that he could float around in the 9ft end of the pool, suckers we are! We went out to lunch after his swim and found an awesome Mexican Restaurant called Hacienda. It was great, so great that we lost track of time and when we realized the time, it was only 15 minutes until the Clydesdale Tour (1pm) we had purchased at Grant's Farm! We high-tailed it over there, only to find a long line for the tram. It was 10 til 2 when we arrived at the last Tram stop, but didn't know where to go from there, so we asked the first guy we found.

We were at the wrong place. Our tour started at 1, but we were hoping to be able to run back to the PARKING LOT, where the Stables were on the OTHER side of where we ran to catch the tram! The crew there at Grant's farm were awesome, they drove us back to the entrance where they found a guy with a golf cart who drove us right past our car to the stables! We found a tour guide, who told us that the 2pm tour was sold out, but that we could catch up with the tour we were supposed to be on and get the last little bit of it. She took us right to our group and the tour guide caught us up on what was happening, and we made it for the best part! We got to meet Evan, a 9yr old Clydesdale who had been a star in some of the Budweiser commercials we had seen on tv! 

Jon and Tony got to brush Evan and we got to check out some of the huge horseshoes that they wear. Then we got to take a photo with Evan and our amazing tour guide, Jamie! Evan is a perfect gentleman. Then we got to see the trailer that the hitch horses ride in from event to event as well as a wagon much like the wagon used to deliver Budweiser to Franklin D. Roosevelt at the end of prohibition. The tour was then ending, but not before we got to "sample" a couple ice cold Bud's while watching some commercials that starred Evan! When the tour was over, our guide told the others goodbye and offered to take us  for a quick run through the part of the tour we had missed, as long as we could hurry quickly. She then took us back to meet some of the other horses who call Grant's Farm home. We were so thankful that she took a few moments of her downtime between tours to give us a little one on one tour. Jon loved it, and got to pet several of the horses around the farm. They were all ready for dinner, so they were standing by the fences watching for their feed to arrive. A BIG thank you to Jamie, for going above and beyond for us, even though it wasn't her fault that we were late.

On the way back, we decided to run over to see Bigfoot, the monster truck. When I was in high school, my Mom and Dad had brought us to St. Louis, where we had gone to the top of the arch (without Mom), seen a Cardinal's game and went to see Bigfoot. I knew it was a must-do for Jon, and a little walk down memory lane for Mom and I. It did not disappoint!

After dinner, we knew we had to make a trip back over to 66, to St. Louis' own, Ted Drewe's Frozen Custard! Talk about a cool spot that is HOT! This place was ridiculous! As soon as we could see the sign, we could see the CROWD of people standing in every open space. We were able to find a place to park, easy enough, and made our way to the menu. Jon had already looked online, and found what he wanted, the All Shook Up, a concrete with Reece's Peanut Butter Cups and Bananas.

After getting our fill of frozen custard, we made our way down Route 66 in the direction of our hotel, and along the way found this cool neon sign.

Now I sit waiting on the load of laundry to dry before heading to bed and getting a little shut eye before we venture off along 66 towards Springfield, MO!

THE Itinerary!

Because I know ALL of you are wondering just what the heck our trip will entail....

I should have posted this days ago, but getting ready for this trip was a little more time consuming that I initially thought. Last week, mom started having pains and noticed some symptoms that pointed toward another kidney stone. Sure enough, after an xray, it was confirmed. Then on Saturday, right in the middle of giving me a haircut, the pain REALLY struck! She ended up in the hospital on Monday to have the stone broken up so that it would pass. After spending the better part of the day in the hospital, we were back home, and she was feeling MUCH better. Then Tony went to his eye doctor appointment and when they scanned his eye, they saw something they wanted him to get checked out by a specialist. So today we went to the doctor for him and spent the biggest part of the morning sitting there while they checked him out. Then it was up to borrow his dad's van for the trip, and before we knew it, we have let most of the day pass and we are still up packing right now, trying not to forget anything important! The maps and books and the Travel Binder are already in the car, so we should be good and able to pick up anything else we might forget along the way.

So, even with all that happening, we still decided that since Tony had taken today and tomorrow off work, and all we would do tomorrow would be sit around all antsy waiting for the day to come, we pushed the trip up a day. So we added another day in St. Louis, and we head out bright and early in the morning!

So, without further ado, here is the massive itinerary! The cities listed are where we will stop for the night.

July 9-10     St. Louis, MO (2 nights)
July 11        Springfield, MO
July 12        Broken Arrow, OK
July 13        Elk City, OK
July 14        Amarillo, TX
July 15        Albuquerque, NM
July 16        Holbrook, AZ
July 17        Flagstaff, AZ
July 18        Kingman, AZ
July 19        Barstow, CA
July 20-21   Hollywood, CA (2 nights)
July 22        Three Rivers, CA
July 23        Las Vegas, NV
July 24        Moab, UT
July 25-27   Colorado Springs, CO (3 nights)
July 28        Dodge City, KS
July 29        Columbia, MO
July 30        Back Home!



I'll let you know if our heads are spinning when it's over! We will be nomads!

I plan to blog as much as possible along the way. I am sure that I won't be able to do it every night, but I will be sure to write something down and make sure that when I do get a chance, I don't leave anything out! I hope you all will enjoy going along with us, virtually.