I seems no matter how well we prepare, we never leave any earlier than 10 AM. Today we left Oklahoma city heading east and north through the rest of Oklahoma, a small bit of Kansas, and in to Joplin, Missouri. Our first stop today was Pops, a new addition to Route 66. It's a modern tourist trap boasting over 500 type of soda and has a 66 foot tall neon soda bottle out front. We all picked out some flavors to try. Michelle grabbed a lemonade, tony another root beer and Anne choose a Shirley Temple flavor as well as an original recipie Dr. Pepper. Not too far down the road was a sight from a differnt century, the largest Round Barn in Oklahoma. It has been lovinly restored by the local farmers and now houses ... read more

Today was a longish drive (280+ miles) from Amarillo to Oklahoma City. We decided not to try and leave super early, given the time change yesterday, so we did some laundry, rode bikes, played on the playground and left just before 10. We did not eat breakfast, other than a small snack, preferring not to cook in the heat. We thought that we would grab a bite at a restaurant right away. Turns out that our Route 66 path did not have a restaurant any time soon.. What the route did have is a few interesting diversions. At one point, they built an airport on top of the old route, so we had to go miles out of the way to pick the old road back up again. The road in this area is mostly original ... read more

After Albuquerque (or before depending on the direction you are traveling) there are two major alignments of Route 66. The earlier alignment goes north through Santa Fe before heading into Santa Rosa, NM while later alignments cut staight east. We decided to take the Santa Fe loop today and spend some time in the city. We were able to spend most of the trip on the backroads close to Route 66 today. The first feature of Route 66 we saw today was La Bajada (the descent in spanish). This was a major obstacle for early travelers on Route 66. The earilest path of Route 66 (before it was Route 66) went down this 500 ft volcanic escarpment at a 28% grade. It was improved in the early 1900s to have over 20 switchbacks and a more ... read more

Today we actually made it out very early, drove 5 hours round trip through the Navajo nation to Four Corners (where we spent 30 minutes), took some fun pictures, browsed some native crafts, and Tony took a nice nap on the way back (and the way there). The scenery in the Navajo reservation is fantastic. There is a giant lava mountain in the middle of a big valley that is 2500 feet tall (basically, the throat of an extinct volcano, eroded around)... called Shiprock since it kind of looks like an old clipper ship if you squint right. After a quick trailer hookup and packing (during which time Michelle played and ran around), we headed off towards Albuquerque. We stopped at the Continental Divide, then took a neat drive on Route 66 for a short while. ... read more

Today we stayed in the same place in Flagstaff. This KOA is really nice.... crowded, but nice. We intended on leaving for our day's adventures at 9am, but didn't get out until 10:30. Anne drove about 50 minutes south (giving Tony a break) to Camp Verde where we explored the African wild animal park "Out of Africa". It was very cool... actually, very hot, but we liked it a lot. First we went on a safari tour to an area where they have giraffes, water buffalo, zebras, and all sorts of other African safari animals. Then we took the tram up to the snack shop in the middle of the reserve where you can walk freely around the outside of lots of habitats. We saw grizzly bears, lions, tigers, panthers, prarie dogs and lots of other ... read more