Any lingering rain clouds melted away as we left Springfield, Missouri this morning. We were still chuckling about the chat we had enjoyed with the lady who had served us freshly made waffles for breakfast. She was a veritable ‘Mrs Overall’, although we concluded she may have been younger than either of us. We did learn that instead of our cinema visit last night, we could have gone to a ‘Bare Back Bull Riding Rodeo’, where the winner lasted just 8 seconds!!  Gutted, not!  Poor bulls.

Our first stop was Joplin, Missouri. We found the town centre but struggled to find the promised Route 66 signs, murals, etc.  We did find a cup of coffee but Carolyn had views on that!  However, we now have photographs to prove we went to Joplin (following the song) and were determined to subsequently go “off piste” and discover the historic highways of the original route. What treasure we found.

Ignoring the protestations of the sat nav, we followed the historic route to Galena. That took us on Kansas State roads where their signage pays constant homage to the historic route. Such a pity that the route only occupies some 30 miles or so of the state before disappearing off to Oklahoma. We both remembered the Cars movie and there, in Galena, we found ‘Tow Mater’ and friends at an historic filling station (now a memorabilia shop and a cafe).

The real Route 66ers were there on their motorbikes but we were loving the experience too.  The small town is 66 shades of fun, but sadly deserted and we just hope they can keep it all going.

We enjoyed more miles on the original route before resorting to the Tulsa Turnpike in order to build in some of the 250 miles or so.

Before arriving in Tulsa, we did take a diversion to Totem Pole Park at Foyil. More curiosities for the route and the centrepiece of this whimsical collection of concrete sculptures is a 90 ft behemoth that allegedly took 11 years, six tons of steel and 28 tons of cement to finish.  What can I say?  It was big!

So, here we are in Tulsa, a lovely city, but Oklahoma (on our route tomorrow) also looks mighty pretty….!

Carolyn’s Curios

Let’s start when we were 24 hours from Tulsa… One of us (not me!) decided a Jason Statham action film was the best way to spend the evening in Springfield. The film was violent, had a banal script but… the seats were extraordinary!

As Kath mentioned, Joplin deserved a visit and an apology as Mick Jagger missed it out of the Rolling Stones’ version of Route 66  Mick, it is not “down to Missouri”, it’s “Joplin, Missouri”. For the definitive version, listen to Nat King Cole, please

Having been called ‘Sweetie’ and being told I had ‘super cute’ nails today, I had to get more serious. Are the extremes of weather a contributary factor to the plethora of different church denominations here? If nature is so strong, they need a stronger deity? Is the run down feel to significant areas of mid-America, the reason for Trump’s support. Having done religion and politics, I’ll leave it there, I think.

Less seriously was Galena where Kath finished in the jail!

I’ll post a few photos which I’ve liked from our most Route 66 type day, yet! We finished next door with a steak and, it had to be, a pint of Route 66 Amber.