Category Archives: Springfield, Missouri

Cars, Kansas, Nat King Cole, Politics, Religion, Route 66, Springfield, Missouri, Tulsa, United States

“Just take my way, that’s the highway that is best”

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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.

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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

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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.

Carolyn's Cafe, Common language, Doolittle, Fanning Outpost, Jacket potato, Jesse James, No guns!, Pomme De Terre Lake, Rocking Chair, Route 66, Simpsons, Springfield, Missouri, Storm Shelter, Tornado, Uncategorized, United States

Another day, another Springfield!

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Still no sign of the Simpsons, so they probably don’t live in this Springfield (Missouri) either!

The day started anything but bright and fair and the only brightness in St Louis came from flashes of lightning. The TV announced localised flash flooding and a cold front where the temperatures are dropping to 82 degrees Farenheit. How fortunate then that about 50 miles beyond St Louis, normal weather service was resumed. We took the Tulsa Road for part of the journey and as we are staying there tomorrow, I guess you could say that we were 24 hours from Tulsa!!  Hmmm, perhaps not the most amusing or original thing to say, but it tickled us.

Today, we were driving about 250 miles and when possible we skipped off the main highway to actually drive along the old Route 66. This is harder to do than you might imagine as much of the original road has been covered over by a much larger highway which by-passes the old small towns and villages. We went to find one such place today, Fanning 66 Outpost, which is famous for (of all things) the largest rocking chair in the world. Next door was a store that once sold all kinds of Route 66 memorabilia, but sadly displayed a sign to say they had gone out of business.  I wonder how many more such Route 66 icons will go the same way? On the stylised mural on the wall, we were both surprised and amused to find the only name which was mentioned was Carolyn’s Cafe! As for the petrol sign, Route 66 was so famous they named a petrol brand after it

Underterred, we headed into Springfield in glorious sunshine and went off to explore.  It was good to be back in the sun, although the heat and particularly the humidity are crazy.  We seem to attract attention when we speak and find ourselves ‘novelty attractions’.  We should talk more and charge!

Carolyn’s Curios

Occasionally, on the roads, we notice that Tarmac has been discovered… albeit recently. Concrete rules! We saw our first real hills today and the countryside was green and tree laden. The places we passed through included: Cuba, Lebanon and the quaintly named Doolittle, which was quite near a sign to ‘Pomme De Terre Lake’. What?! We came across travelling stacked tractor units. Impressive and expensive.

imageWe passed several fireworks factories, Jesse James hideout (then) and waxworks (now) but noted the Nuclear War shelter and a Mule Tradng Post. More likely and more frequent events are the tornados in this area. Astonishing for us to realise that these are normal events and have to be accommodated.

 

Another unusual (for us) sign, which we came across first in Chicago and several times today, is ‘No guns allowed’ – and we, rightly, in the UK think smoking cigarettes should be banned.image

Finally, for today… as Shaw said, “Two countries separated by a common language”. I saw on the menu ‘Baked potato’ but, without much thought, asked for ‘Jacket potato’ much to the puzzlement and then amusement of the waiter. He told us later that he had immediately briefed/warned the kitchen staff about the English!