Day 8...we left Joplin, MO headed for Oklahoma City.  The first place we stopped at was in Galena, KS.  There we were looking for Four Women on the Route, which has been renamed Cars on the Route.  This is the home of Tow-Mater, Cars 2.  This was a fun stop and "The Mouth", the proprietor, was a kick.  In Riverton we went over Rainbow Bridge after we got the tractor parked on the bridge to move.  Apparently Riverton is hosting a marathon so were doing some cleanup of the river bed below us.  The rest of Kansas was pretty much a road trip and we soon found ourselves in Oklahoma.  Commerce is the home of Mickey Mantle.  We drove around in circles looking for the barn with dents from the ball.  We never found the barn, but we did find the statue in town.  In Miami we drove past the Coleman Theater for David to check out the architecture.  We had lunch at Clanton's in Vinita.  Boy, do these places serve a ton of food and it is delicious.  We passed up the J. M. Davis Arms and Historical Museum in Claremore.  Steve said he could spend hours in it so chose not to stop.  In Catoosa we tried to find the Blue Whale, but the darn GPS took us in another circle.  We finally found it as we were driving by.  Too late to stop.  In Tulsa we went to the 76 foot giant oil worker sculpture, the Golden Driller.  Very impressive.  In Bristol David had an issue with the alternator.  Found an auto parts store and 45 minutes he had a new one installed and we were on our way.  Our next stop was at Pop's gas station dominated by a 66 foot tall illuminated pop bottle and inside the store they have hundreds of varieties of soda pop.  From here we hightailed it to Oklahoma City and met John and Sam (Samatha) Swink, 4-wheel drive and California friends for dinner.  The Swink's relocated to Oklahoma City about 5 years ago.  We had a great visit.  We were tired from a long day of adventure so found a hotel for the night and called it a day.

Day Seven - Monday

Day seven - Monday

Turns out Cuba is the town of murals. The murals depict the business or an event or just busy work on the side of the building. In any case, pretty interesting and no graffiti!

Leaving town and finding Route 66 was a challenge but after a few U turns, we found it.  The places we found from the old road were in pretty bad shape and in some cases the sites we were to find in the travel book did not exist. We went a long way traveling the hi way.  A beautiful drive though. We finally found a 66 dinner for lunch and had a great meal, then back on the road. Around 4:30 we entered Joplin, Mo.  We found another Super 8 and settled in for the evening. 

 

Day 6...if you are ever in or going through Staunton, the Super 8 is a good place to stay.  We left Staunton to a cold morning.  We got lost a few times today, but eventually found ourselves driving by the Pink Elephant Antique Mall in Livingston, the St Paul Luthern Church in Hamel and the Glen Carbon Covered Bridge in Glen Carbon.  A must see is the Brooks Catsup Bottle Water Tower, giant Catsup Bottle, in Collinsville and we were headed out of Illinois to St. Louis.  Today was very cold and Steve and I were really bundled up.  We got to St Louis and drove right to the Arch just like we knew what we were doing.  The Arch  is a sight to behold.  The Visitor Center was closed again due to our Govt. BS.  After the Arch we headed to Ted Dawes frozen custard shop.  The original was closed, but a guy stuck his head out of the window of a bus that was parked in front of the custard shop and told us that there was another one close by that would be open, so off we went.  We found the Donut Shop just down the street from the custard shop so had to stop and David and Gil splurged on a filled donut.  Steve and I saved our calories for the custard.  Wow was it good.  Our next stop was at the Museum of Transportation.  This museum had BIG Iron, train cars, that we're antique and very impressive.  Our last stop was at the Rt. 66 Information Center right out of St. Louis.  There we found a wonderful lady that gave us a map of Rt. 66 through Missouri and suggested stops along the way.  We ended up in Cuba at the renovated Wagon Wheel Hotel that was wonderful, dinner at Missouri Hick Bar-B-Q where the ribs were delicious.  Back to the hotel, a hot shower to thaw out from the very cold day and an early night.

Interesting funny thing.  The Cobra gets a lot of attention in town, on the road, and at gas stops as does the Cad. But when we were on the back roads in St Luis all of the attention was on the Cad. Wonder why:)

More Missouri tomorrow.

Giant catsup bottle