Driving day two Wildwood, St. Louis to Carthage (270 miles & 9 hours)

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Day 2 of driving and today we are driving from wildwood, St. Louis to Carthage in Missouri. Its around 270 miles. We crossed the stateline from Illinois to Missouri last night before reaching the hotel. We got up pretty early about 7.15am although to be honest so long as we've had a good sleep it doesn't feel too early although I'm sure that will catch up with us at some point.
We stayed at the wildwood hotel which was nice and we got complimentary breakfast which was a bonus even if it was help yourself on cardboard plates. We filled up on scrambled eggs, bacon and waffles. The waffles were pretty good as you made your own, well kind of. You filled a cup up of waffle mixture from a machine and poured it into a waffle iron, close the lid and flip it round. Then when it beeps you flip it back and it's ready for lots of maple syrup. Steph being the perfectionist she is decided to put one and half cups of mixture into the iron so it filled up every little crevice. However when she closed it and turned it upside down loads started coming out the sides dripping out of it with lots of steam coming out. Embarrassment ensued although I think this incident probably rates below yesterday's smashed bottle.

When we woke up the weather was cloudy but when we hit the road it was blue skies and sunshine again. We set off determined to see and stop at more sights today than yesterday. Stephs driving this morning with Kerry in the afternoon so Kerry took up co pilot position while I settled in the back. We drove through a place called Shrewsbury which had a sign saying Shrewsbury my home which Kerry was desperate to get a photo of but we couldn't stop anywhere. We had what seems to be our usual half an hour drive in the wrong direction whilst we tried to link back up with Route 66, then with the help of the sat nav finally got going again on 'ol' Route 66. It's definitely getting warmer as we drive south.

Yesterday through the state of Illinois there were lots of Route 66 signs by the side of the road pointing the direction which was great for us to use as a check we were reading the directions right and heading in the right direction. The signs have continued as we head through Missouri which is handy and nice to see these two states recognise the importance and nostalgia for tourists of Route 66. We carried on through small towns with the road alongside the interstate for a lot of the way then came across the wagon wheel motel in Cuba where we pulled in for some photos and a quick leg stretch before heading on to Fanning - yes that is the name of the town! This is where the giant rocking chair is where we again stopped for some photos and fresh air.

A bit further on we stopped again at a McDonald's to pick up some wifi and decided to grab something to eat. I stepped up to order and the guy behind the counter started laughing when I placed my order. Looking a bit confused I though it was cause I said tomato sauce the British way rather than the American way but he explained it was just my accent in general that made him laugh. He then giggled his way through the rest of the order and when steph stepped up to order chips he looked confused then laughed again realising she meant fries. He was nice enough but no idea why he thought it funny about our accents, strange maybe but funny??! Anyway we piled back into the car and carried on. We then came across part of Route 66 which had four lanes (two each way), this bit was nice but only because we all agreed it was much more like what we imagined it to be like, dusty roads and quiet. We turned left to head towards devils elbow bridge but found it closed as they are doing repairs. We parked up by it anyway by the elbow bar which is closed on a Sunday and took the opportunity to stretch our legs. There is a river that runs under the bridge at an angle which apparently used to cause many problems for boats. We wandered around for a bit but it was a little eerie, there were other cars pulled up with no one in sight and we all agreed that the whole thing seemed a bit of something out of nothing.

We jumped in the jeep and carried on, a lot of the towns seemed a bit poor with the houses looking a bit dilapidated although a few still had swimming pools. As it headed further into the afternoon Kerry switched to drive and I admit I took a little nap being woken up briefly by steph to see the munger moss motel speed by in Lebanon. We then stopped at a Walmart to get a cable so we could play the music on our phones through the radio and picked up some bud light as well. Turns out over here anyone under 40 gets id'd. It was about 5.00pm by this time and we were making better time than yesterday with only about 60 miles left to go. There is a drive in movie night at Carthage tonight where we're staying which starts at 7pm so we wanted to try and get there before then so we could decide whether to go or not. It says online that they show two movies in a row, so we'll see. Kerry hooked her iPhone up to the radio and we got a rendition of her singing private dancer which will be worth the wait to see once the video footage is edited! as the weather turned cloudy we suddenly came across the gay parita service station but didn't have time to stop unfortunately.

A bit further on we headed into Carthage and pulled up at the boots court motel to be met by Debbie Dee who volunteers at the motel and lives there in one of the rooms that haven't been refurbished yet with no electricity or running water! The motel is very cute and a classic one from the 1940's. Up until this point we felt we had been missing the nostalgia and welcome from locals enthusiastic about Route 66 but Debbie was so bubbly and enthusiastic she's made up for it in bundles. She gave us a quick talk about the motel and showed us some old photos and explained the back five rooms are the only ones who have been refurbished yet as they needed some things stripped off to take them back to their original state. She told us a few interesting bits of information including why the costs of the room are $66 for a single double room and $71 for a double double. The boots court is on a cross roads with Route 66 and what used to be route 71 which was a route starting in Canada going all the way right through the USA. So the motel is at the crossroads of 66 and 71 so they decided that the rooms should cost $66 and $71, though im not sure when this was though as I bet they didn't charge that much back in the actual days of Route 66!

In the guest book we noticed that a couple from Scotland had stayed in the motel a few nights before on their honeymoon and at the same time Debbie asked us where we were from. We told her Shropshire and she said oh like by Shrewsbury! Kerry explained that's where she lived and Debbie was excited as she explained she lived the tv series cadfael from Shrewsbury and had read all the books.

Debbie walked us to our room (number 12) explaining there was bad weather forecast for the night and advised us to park in the car port as they get bad hail here. She also explained that Joplin the town hit really bad by a tornado a couple of years ago is only a couple of miles away. Half the town was wiped out and is still being rebuilt. Debbie explained they have a storm shelter and it's right in the tornado zone and she said if the siren goes off she'll wake us up to go into the basement.

We went into the room and there was an old fashioned radio playing old fashioned tunes. The floor was wooden and there was a heater in the floor or furnace as Debbie Dee called it. It was perfect and very Route 66. There are some more people staying in the rooms including one guy who writes the Route 66 magazine who travels up and down it a lot researching and another guy who had just bought a Route 66 property today to do up and turn into an art gallery. The other car was a couple from Kentucky.

We dropped the bags off and headed straight out to the drive in movie theatre at Carthage. It's very classic neon Route 66 like with a refreshments building in the middle. The movies being shown are Mr Peabody & Sherman and The Lego Movie. The other cars at the drive in are a mixture of jeeps and cars and lots of people have chairs to sit on with as well as people wearing pyjamas and blankets!!

We visited the refreshment stand and got hot dogs, nachos and popcorn. we tuned the radio into the movie channel for sound and sat ready to watch. During the movies we saw some fire flies dotting around and then it started to rain. We were all pretty tired by the end and headed back to boots court for some welcome shut eye. I'm currently uploading this at midnight here so it's been a very long day.

Next up tomorrow is the drive from Carthage to Oklahoma City which is 276 miles tomorrow So it's gonna be another long one with lots to see.

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