Route 66 Holiday - October 2022 - Part 3

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16^thOctober 2022

We left the hotel in Springfield, Missouri, and made our way off the planned route towards Joplin. This is because a very small section of Route 66 exists in Kansas. The first stop along the way was Spencer and the famous Spencer Garage that is home to the Rock Café – it is called this as the building is built from rough rocks rather than brick. From here we arrived in Galena where there are many old train cabooses, tanks and other machinery scatted around the town.

Kansas is home to a few sites and people that inspired the Disney movie Cars. One being the Texaco garage that has several of the Cars characters outside, as well as the Galena City Jail. Further on is the Cars on the Route, this is a café which makes a great stop to fuel up on the trip, plus it has more characters from the film dotted about including the original car that inspired Tow Mater. From here we went to Riverton and took a photo of the old store which was closed. Then off to Baxter Springs Route 66 Visitor Centre. This is home to the man who inspired Tow Mater, in both voice and why he drives backwards – Dean “Crazy Legs” Walker. He is called Crazy Legs as he can turn both his legs around 180 degrees so his feet face backwards.

We left Kansas without any sight of a Tornado or a flying Monkey and made our way to Commerce, where an old gas station is set into a wall – bright green with a red trim. Opposite the gas station is a Dairy King. A small ice-cream place that is the only place you can buy Route 66 cookies – it was shut. Commerce is also the childhood home of Mickey Mantle – a famous baseball player. Next stop was Miami where the amazing Coleman Theatre stands.

Along the road, just before Narcissa is a roadside landmark for the old Ribbon Road. This was a 15 miles stretch of road between Miami and Afton and is only 9 feet wide. Amazingly it is still in use today. From here we drove to a town called Chelsea, where there is an old bridge call the Pryor Creek Bridge. There were a few people already parked up taking photos of the bridge and surrounding area. it is quite a weak bridge as it is so old and only 1 car could go over it at a time. I got out on one side of it while Stephen drove over it as I took a few pictures.

A short 10-minute drive brought us to a famous Route 66 roadside attraction - Totem Pole Park. This was by Ed Galloway in 1937 and hold the world’s largest concrete Totem Pole. The park also holds the 11 sided fiddle house which houses hand carved fiddles, furniture and a gift store. When I visited, one of the poles was being repainted – I watched the restoration for a while, with the volunteers using tiny brushes for the most detailed of areas.

Our next stop was another 20 minutes away. The Will Rogers Memorial Museum is a huge museum in Claremore that is dedicated to the entertainer Will Rogers, to whom Route 66 is names after – Will Rogers Highway. The land the museum sits was owed by Rogers and is also his burial site. A little further down the road is the iconic Blue Whale of Catoosa. This was built in the 1970s by Hugh Davis as an anniversary gift to his wife. The site is now a popular RV park and swimming attraction. It used to have a reptile exhibit but it is now closed – however there have been fund raisers to renovate the whale and the nearby picnic area.

Tulsa is the home to the giant Golden Driller. The Driller is a 75-foot-tall statue of an oil worker and has stood proudly outside the Tulsa Expo Centre since 1966.Just outside of Tulsa is a town called Sapulpa where one of many remaining original Route 66 bridges is. Rock Creek Bridge is also known as Bridge Number 18. This bridge was built in 1924 and became part of Route 66 in 1926 and was in use until the new alignment of the Route in 1952. It is now listed on the National Register of Historical Places.

From here we drove on this old road to Stroud to a place called the Rock Café. Again this building was made out of rough sandstones rather than smooth bricks. The café was built in 1939 and the rock was unearthed during the paving of Route 66. Next to the café is a small rundown wooden building which looks to be an old general store – but I cannot find any information about it online. Thankfully I have found a few Route 66 groups on Facebook and I have asked the members for help in identifying it.

A short distance on the Route, we came across Chandler where another abandoned Phillips Gas Station sits. There is nothing left on the inside, however the exterior is painted bright green with blue and red trim.

One of our last stops of the day was in Arcadia to visit the Round Barn. Built in 1898 by a local farmer using fresh cut wooden boards left to soak in water to make it easy to bend the boards in the curved shape. It is now a tourist attraction and events such as weddings parties are held there. When we visited, there was a wedding reception happening so we couldn’t go inside. The last stop of the day was Pops 66 Soda Ranch in Arcadia. This is a restaurant, gift store and has over 100 different flavours of soda – all arranged by colour. Outside is a 66-foot-tall soda bottle that is lit up at night. After this visit, we made our way to Oklahoma City to our hotel.



17^th October 2022



We left our hotel in Oklahoma City and headed further west towards Texas. On our way there we crossed the longest Pony Bridge left on route 66. At 3,944.33 meters long it is reported to be the longest simple-span bridge in the USA – we were lucky to cross it as it is now closed for 2 years for refurbishment. From here we drove to a town called Hydro where an old gas station called Lucille’s is located. This white building was built in 1929 and is 2 stories high and has a porch which many gas stations of the time had. The building was taken over by the Hamons family and the station was named after Lucille Hamons – who ran the business for 60 years. The building is now no longer in use but many tourists visit the old place for a few pictures.

From here we drove to Elk City to the National Route 66 Museum which has the world’s largest route 66 sign outside. This museum complex includes a blacksmith shop, farm and ranch museum as well as a replica old town as well as the first wooden home to be built in Elk City – this is a tiny 1 story building where the owner slept in the one room which was the bedroom, living room and kitchen all together. We didn’t spend too much time here as we had a long trip to Texas ahead of us.

Elk City was not far from the border of Texas and we made our way to our next point of interest and another stamp on the passport to Shamrock. The place we stopped at was the Conoco Tower Station and U-Drop Inn. This unique and beautiful white and green building was built in 1936 and is also known as the Taj Mahal of Texas. It features a 100-foot tower with Conoco on the sides, a cafe and green lights all around the building. This gas station is famous for Disney fans as it is featured in the movie Cars as Ramone’s Body Shop. There were three really nice old ladies there who were fascinated by my hair – my hair is naturally curly and they asked me to take my hair band out to see it properly – which I was more than happy to oblige. We spoke for a long time and they gave me some free gifts of some wooden counters they had made for a special event – they had made too many and were giving them away.

From here we visited the Devil’s Rope Museum in McLean – however it had closed just as we had arrived. This is a museum dedicated to barbed wire and you are able to buy samples of various barbed wire. From here we went to Groom to take a look at the Leaning Tower of Groom. This water tower was a marketing gimmick for a truck stop owned by Ralph Britten – the tower has Britten USA on the side. Unfortunately, the truck stop burnt down years ago but the tower still stands an angle.

We arrived at our hotel in Amarillo, Texas – and no we didn’t ask anyone for the way to it. We only had the one night here and we just had to have dinner at the Big Texan Steakhouse. This huge yellow building is world famous, it features a 72-ounce steak challenge which is live streamed every day. This restaurant also has a large gift store, brewery and its own Air BnB that looks like an old western city street. Of course we had steak! We had to wait around 30 minutes for a table but it was totally worth waiting for, the portions were huge! I had a steak with a baked sweet potato and salad – all of which were huge servings. The restaurant was decorated like an old western type place – lots of taxidermy animals on the walls and they had a live band. We didn’t have room for dessert - but they had an ice-cream bar which we wanted to try but were too full.

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