Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri

First up in Oklahoma was Elk City and the National Route 66 Museum. This is a pretty cool 4 museum complex that includes the National Route 66 & Transportation Museum, the Old Towne Museum which gives the history of Elk City, the Farm & Ranch Museum with lots of old farm equipment, and the Blacksmith Museum, which was mostly closed off to close inspection. The Route 66 portion was a walk-through museum that told the history of the Mother Road through all 8 states. Our weather was beautiful and we strolled through most of the buildings and took lots of pictures. You can’t miss this place as it has a huge Kachina doll standing out in front. Kachina dolls were carved by the Hopi people and used to instruct young girls and new brides about the immortal beings that bring rain and control all the aspects of the natural world. There were a number of displays in the museum of these dolls showing the various cultural characteristics taught to the Hopi people. The dolls are usually carved by the men of the tribe but maintained and studied by the women. The museums were interesting and a great introduction to Oklahoma.

Our next stop was Hydro, and Lucille’s Famous Rt. 66 Gas Station, which was a photo op. This gas station was built in 1929, but still looked pretty good for its age. By now, we had picked up several maps, numerous Oklahoma Route 66 guide books, and were using 3 different online apps to identify things we wanted to see. Things were getting complicated! In El Reno, we found an abandoned Drive-In Theater, with one side in faded but still colorful paint, and the other side waiting for movies to be projected. We sat there 4 for a while, but alas, no movie. In Arcadia, Oklahoma, we stopped at Pops Soda Ranch, one of the busiest places on our journey. This place emerges from a winding back road with a huge pop art soda bottle. There is plenty of parking and that’s a good thing because the place is packed. Pops is a full-service restaurant, gas station, and convenience store, and has literally hundreds of different kinds of soda displayed all over the place. You can mix and match and make your own 6-pack. If you can imagine it, Pops has it in a bottle! I honestly found it crowded and overwhelming, but if weird soda is your thing, you need to go to Pops. Down the road a bit, we found a circular barn and a plaque telling us that Route 66 had a number of names in Arcadia.

In Chandler we dropped in to get a picture at the Lincoln Motel. In my research, I had made a note to stop for a picture but that the place had terrible reviews so don’t stay. The place was shuttered so maybe I was psychic.

Stroud, Oklahoma brought us to the Rock Café. This restaurant was featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.” Hmmmm. Which one would it be? Well let’s find out. The author of the guide book we used suggested we order the “mouthwateringly golden-brown chicken-fried steak.” So we did. The Café was actually very cute and the wait staff were sweet, attentive and fun. The character in the movie Cars, Sally Carrera, the Blue Porsche and the love interest of Lightning McQueen, was modeled after the owner of the Rock Café, Dawn Welch. John Lasseter and the Disney crew spent time here creating the film and the place is full of Cars memorabilia. I just hope they didn’t eat the chicken-fried steak.

In Sapulpa, OK, we stopped for a picture at the brightly colored water tower and the Rock Creek Bridge, one of the best remaining examples of the steel truss architecture pre-WWII. It’s pretty narrow, and we were surprised to find several cars sharing it with us, but it was a cool stop. The Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum was also here. Opened in 2016, this museum is a classic car lover’s paradise, so of course, Bob was in heaven. The cars are beautifully displayed and run the gamut from hot rods to military vehicles. It also boasts the largest gas pump in the world. Once we enter a car museum, the approach is the same. Bob starts talking auto geek to any or all of the proprietors, and I wander off to amuse myself. Eventually one of the staff comes over to me and says something in the neighborhood of “Wow! Your husband sure knows a lot about cars!” I’m surprised Bob doesn’t get job offers.

Tulsa didn’t have much we were interested in although we did find what looked like someone was building Noah’s Ark. We’re pretty sure they needed someone with shipbuilder experience as it didn’t look like it would float, but we got a picture anyway. This brought us to Catoosa and the Blue Whale. This is an 80-foot concrete blue whale that was built in the early 1970’s. It sits in a swimming hole filled with fish and turtles. You can’t swim there now—not sure why, but you can climb into and all over the Blue Whale, which Bob proceeded to do. This was originally built by Hugh Davis as an anniversary gift to his wife and was originally intended for family use only. But when the townsfolk started to come, Hugh added sand and welcomed everyone. Eventually he included the Animal Reptile Kingdom, with snakes and other reptiles featuring Hugh’s brother-in-law, Chief Wolf-Robe Hunt, a full-blood Acoma Indian. Eventually however, the park fell into disrepair, the animals were not well tended to, and the attraction crumbled. Finally, the people of Catoosa launched a fund-raising effort to restore it, and now it has a nice picnic area, and a small gift shop. In Claremore, we stopped at the Route 66 Nut House, which is actually a gift shop, nut shop, and fudgery. Root beer is pretty big along Route 66 and most restaurants serve their own home-made brew. If you get a chance, order it anywhere. We never had a bad batch.

In Vinita, the guidebooks recommended stopping at Clanton’s Café. It was closed. And obviously not recently. In Afton, the Nowhere on Route 66 Barbecue was recommended and it was open and very, very busy, so we passed. We went on to Darryl Starbird’s National Rod and Custom Car Hall of Fame, which looked like it might be cool, but it was also, you guessed it, closed for the day. In Miami, OK, Ribbon Road was recommended as a drive, but it was a real dirt road and narrow, so we passed. Waylan’s Ku-Ku Burger was noted as a place to eat, but it was drive-through only, and didn’t look too terrific. In Commerce, the guide books pointed out a Dairy King for a burger and ice cream, but it was closed. By this point, we were looking forward to getting out of Oklahoma. There was some really cool stuff here, but also a lot of empty promises. In addition, we had a near-death experience trying to navigate through Oklahoma City. Penny is always the fastest thing on the road, and Bob is more confident with that little piece of information than I am. In this case, I was driving and Bob was navigating, the exact opposite of our best skills. I missed a turn and ended up stopped in the middle of a 20-lane intersection (maybe it wasn’t 20, but it was close) between the lanes and had to blast into the traffic which was all going at least 20 miles over the posted speed limit. It reminded me of the time my mother messed up on the Fort Pitt Tunnel in Pittsburgh when I was a teenager, and almost had to be put on Valium. Once I talked myself down, and saw a small break in the traffic, I gunned Penny, and she rocketed into a lane like it was nothing. From then on, Bob drove in cities and I navigated.

Kansas was up next. Route 66 has only 14 miles in Kansas, but it is definitely worth a stop in Galena for Cars on the Route. It was in this old garage that Director John Lasseter saw the rusty old truck that inspired the character, Tow Mater. We hit this town late in the day and everything was closed, but in some ways that was good because Bob could pull Penny right up close to the iconic cars and get pictures.

Finally, we pulled into Springfield, Missouri. This was our last stop on the Mother Road as our route would then take us to Memphis to see Jessica and Ben, but we had two things to do in Springfield. One was the Rt. 66 Car Museum, and the other was the Fantastic Caverns. Once we got there, we added the Branson Celebrity Car Museum.

The Rt. 66 Car Museum was pretty cool. It was well notated and each car had interesting facts posted nearby. Bob went off with all the car geeks, but this one was my favorite museum of the trip. They had a 1963 Morgan (same name as our granddaughter) that was owned by General Schwarzkopf. They also had a speedster 1926 Hudson that was the truck that was reconfigured into the truck driven in the Grapes of Wrath by the Joad family. It is now restored to its previous form, and it was amazing to see the difference between what it looked like in the movie. Finally, they had a 1936 Horch Cabrolet, which had a very interesting story, told to us by one of the mechanics at the museum. It seems that this car was owned by the German’s during WWII for Officer transportation. It was later brought to the US and restored to its current glory, then was presented at the Pebble Beach Concours in 2014, where it won second place in the pre-war preservation class. While there, the car was rear-ended. By a Hungarian businessman. Who was incensed to discover that he was being held responsible for damages to a car that held the Germans that invaded his country. To be fair, the accident was his fault. But it was a great story. And a beautiful car.

The Branson Celebrity Car Museum was fun and much more on the kitschy side. They had the Batmobile, the Scooby Doo Van, cars from Fast & Furious, Jurassic Park and Stranger Things. The staff told me that 40% of the cars turn over every year, so there is always something different. See if you can identify the ones in the pictures. Finally, our visit to the Fantastic Caverns was very cool. The story goes that the cavern was discovered in 1862 by Juno, the bloodhound, who tracked a small animal into a hole in the ground. When he couldn’t find his way back, his owner, John Knox, went in after him, and found the immense cave. Five years later, the cave was explored by twelve teenage female spelunkers who wrote their names on the cave walls. You actually go through this one in a wagon pulled by a tractor. The cave is huge, beautiful, and the tour guides really seem to know their stuff. Missouri is known as the Cave State, and this was a treat.

This ends our journey on Route 66, but we’re not done. Our next stop takes us to one of my favorite places, Memphis, Tennessee and our daughter Jessica and her terrific guy, Ben. Memphis is food and music, and there are no better people for that than Jess and Ben.