Route 66 Holiday - October 2022 - Part 2

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October 14^th – 15^thOctober 2022

We arrived in St Louis in the evening and we only had the one night at the hotel. We already had dinner on the road, so we checked in, left our bags in the room and went out to see the Gateway Arch. It was nice to take a night time walk – my night time photography isn’t all that but I am working on it. I got a few pics and we set off back to the hotel as we had a long day and were both tired, plus we had another long drive the following morning.

From St Louis, we made our way to the Route 66 State Park in Eureka for a stamp on the passport and a few photos. From there, we drove to the Fanning Outpost where the world’s largest rocking chair resides. We missed out on a lot of places to get the passport stamps as they were closed on a Saturday or were off the route. Unfortunately, we missed out on the Famous Devil’s Elbow road and bridge as it wasn’t sign posted – well it was but at the very last second before the turning, we continued to a place called Uranus. It is a fun tourist place with the world’s largest belt buckle, tattooist, a freak show and of course a huge gift store which had everything from sweets to t-shirts…and everything was Uranus themed. A lot of things had innuendos and funny pictures I relation to Uranus. Of course, I got a couple of fridge magnets, a t-shirt and some fudge for the car ride.

We got to Lebanon and I discovered that the last home and gravesite of one of my childhood authors was just an hour away in Mansfield. Here is the location of the last home of Laura Ingalls- Wilder where she wrote her books The Little House on the Prairie. Unfortunately, we arrived just as the museum closed, however we managed to find a place to park so I could walk close to the house and get some photos. We then found the gravesites of Laura, her husband Almanzo and their daughter Rose.

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