We left Springfield this morning with temperatures in the lower ’50’s but the sun shining bright. By 10 it was top down and moving. We finished off Missouri, ran through the 13 miles in Kansas and are resting tonight in Tulsa, OK. Great day.
It turns out that Route 66 is not just a single road, but rather a series of sections that were created at different times in the life of the road. Therefore sometimes we are on the 1920’s alignment, sometimes the ’30’s or forties, etc. Today we had the chance in Kansas to drive a couple of miles on a paved section that actually predates Route 66, dating back to 1922. When 66 was later commissioned this section became part of the Mother Road. The neat thing about it is that the road is only 9 feet wide with about 2 feet gravel shoulders on each side. I could imagine the confusion when a farm cart met a flivver on this section of the road.
We had lunch in Kansas at a restaurant called The Cafe on Route 66. This building had originally been a bank, and one that Jesse James and Cole Younger had robbed. We had seen this place on the DVD Jeannie W. had given us, and low and behold recognized the owner who gratiouslyagreed to have her picture made with me in front of the mural outside the restaurant.
Upon entering Oklahoma I felt forthe first time we were in the West. We saw mile after mile of extremely flat land, huge cattle ranches and farms, and just plain old wide open spaces.
There were so many highlights today it is hard to remember all of them but a sampling: 1) The ruin of the oldest gas station on Route 66, 2) A house in Chelsea, OK built in the 1918 that had been bought from Sears and assembled in Chelsea, 3) The Buffalo Ranch in Oklahoma, 4) The largest totem pole in the world (90′) in Foyle, OK 5) A statue in Foyle to Andy Payne who won the Bunion Derby in 1928 by running Route 66 from California to Chicago, 6) The Big Blue Whale in a defunct swimming lake in OK, and, 7) (my personal favorite) a sculpture in front of a gas station in Maxville Mo. that depicts a WWI flying ace sitting on a winged manure wagon. The work is entitled “The Crap Duster”.
Life is not only good it is, at times, very funny.
