Day 7 - Three on the Trot
- Paul Mullan
- Sep 25, 2017
- 2 min read
Our plan to breakfast at The Mother Road Café fell apart earlier… seems the only day they’re not open is Sunday, so we returned to the diner next door to Boots for eggs, toast and a hot drink that really didn’t resemble real coffee!
Heading west out of town we stopped at the R66 Drive Inn. Closed early this season but at least we could imagine the projector blasting images on the big screen and the sound that once was delivered through speakers on a pole.
We sampled three states today, leaving Missouri, through the corner of Kansas and on to Oklahoma. At just 13 miles Kansas is the smallest but it packs plenty of punch. The Marsh Arch bridge is an iconic example and runs alongside the new road allowing tourist pictures to be snapped.
Not far away ‘Cars on the Road’ is home to the 58 International that was the real life inspiration to Tow Tator. Linda opened up for us on her day off and gave us the drum on Cars - the movie.
We snapped a quick shot at the gas station in Galena before making our way along some of the oldest stretches of the Mother Road and on to Afton to the Packard Museum.
This trip is about colourful characters and none more literally than the Route 66 Tattoo Man, Ron Jones himself. He drove 50 miles to meet our group and shared lunch at Vinita at the take out capital suspended above the interstate.
The green cropping fields of Oklahoma are starting to give way to livestock but we'll need to saviour it... a dry dusty Texas is not far away.
In Catoosa the Blue Whale hadn’t moved… and neither had the water judging by its colour. Once a spring refreshed the water daily but with the risk of local homes flooding it was stopped and so to was the swimming that kids always did back in the seventies.
The water might have died in Catoosa but the town seems to have died in Depew, a graphic example of what happens when you shift the traveling population away from small towns. Evidence of the dead ends created now nothing more than a chance to capture the clash between past and present.
There has been no killing off the Rock Café in Stroud, a proud old road tradition that even a building fire couldn’t destroy.
All said and done our seventh day on the road has been long and varied and ended with a home made dinner (thanks to Robyn & Walmart) at the Bell Cow Ranch on the outskirts of Chandler. Tomorrow promises to be even more full of fascinating people and places.
