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Welcome to Day Two! We woke up this morning around 8am, showered, ate some cereal and headed out on the road. We got a bit turned around in the beginning, just finding our way back to Route 66, but after we found it it was smooth sailing....we kind of. We finished up Missouri and continued on to Kansas, a whopping 13.2 miles!!! In Kansas we passed over the Marsh Arch Bridge (the last of its kind), it was very cool (sorry that it is a bit crooked). After passing over the bridge and driving a couple more miles of Kansas we crossed the state line into Quapaw, Oklahoma. In Quapaw we passed the Spanish Revival-style Coleman Theater. Many more miles down the road we entered the town of Miami, Oklahoma only to find out that half the town has been flooded forcing us to double back to the highway, creating our own alternate route to Vinita. In Vinita we stopped at the Buffalo Ranch, once a restaurant famous for buffaloburgers, now is a gas station and convient store. At the Buffalo Ranch we filled up, picked up a coke, put up the top and continued on our
way. Just down the road we came upon the Rest Havon Motel. The Rest Havon sign still exists while the motel does not . Farther down in Vinita we came upon the Eagle Tree Art Gallery and Trading Post. I'm honestly not sure if the trading post has been around as long as 66 has, but it was sure cool to look at. Continuing on we saw the old location of the Lanton Cafe, and the Chelsea Motel . Outside of Vinitia and in Foyil we took a small detour to the World's Tallest Cement Totempole. The Totempole was built by Ed Galloway from 1937-1948, it is 90' tall, 18' in diameter, and has a 54' base . In picture #4 (if it comes up) notice at the base of the pole, on the right side of the door is Dad standing upright and in picture #5 (if it comes up) is the front side of the pole with the base in the shape of a turtle, and i am sitting on the head of the turtle. Continuing down the many miles of nothing along Route 66 we finally arrive in Catoosa,
Oklahoma home of the Blue Whale Water Park. Although the water park is now closed and it is forbidden to swim in the lake or slide down the slide, the Blue Whale still stands . A funny thing happened at the Blue Whale this afternoon. Dad and I were pulling in to park a the Blue Whale and we park next to the only car in the lot, a Red Mustang Convertible from California. Viewing the Blue Whale is a couple from Great Britian who started in Californina and are driving Route 66 east to Chicago. Dad and I driving a red Mustang traveling West crossed paths with a couple also driving a red Mustang , but who were going east. After leaving the Blue Whale we continued down the road. On either side we kept seeing Old Route 66 signs weaving in and out of the road we were currently on. We decided to hop on one of the old sections and see how it looks- big mistake!. We got totally turned around and ended up on a completly different highway, so we had to retrace our steps to get on the right path. While driving today
we got rained on every now and then but it didnt really affect what we wanted to see. In Stroud we visited the Rock Cafe for a root beer float, sweet tea and an order of Fried Pickles- delicious!! In Arcadia we saw the Round Barn . Heading on down the road to Yukon we passed the landmark Best Flour Sign. On the way to the Pony Truss Bridge, a 3/4 mile long bridge over the Canadian River we drove along the old Route 66 road, still made of individual concrete blocks. Since it had been raining so much, and flooding had been so prominant the road got to dangerous for us to continue on all the way to Hydro. Did you know that our little Mustang is also a boat. That's right we floated down parts of 66 today, at one point we almost had to take out our oars and paddle our way down the road. We passed through Hydro but it was getting late so we hopped onto I-40 all the way to Elk City where we got a room at the Holiday Inn and are currently staying the night.
So far we have
traveled about 700 Miles. Tomorrow we are going to sleep in a bit and head out for Tucumcari, New Mexico.
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