Tulsa, OK to Springfield, MI (Sat. July 31)

We had a great day today!! We started out at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum and in spite of the fact the thing the boys wanted to do the most was out of order (wind tunnel) the still had a blast with the other exhibits. They met a great volunteer who spent a lot of time with them talking about the fighter jet. From there we took off to Afton Station an old gas station turned into a gift shop and car museum (there are a ton of these on the road) to meet Laurel (the owner) and Ron (a.k.a. Tattoo Man as he has about 80 tattoos
and all but one is based on Route 66. Too bad you can't see the tattoos in the picture but we have a book that shows many of them.) I knew of Laurel and Ron from a Route 66 e-mail group I joined and Ron contacted me to see if we could meet up. Ron kept the boys really entertained because every time they mentioned somewhere we had been he pulled up a sleeve or a pant leg and showed them the tattoo of the place we had been. . We had the added pleasure of meeting Dean "Crazy Legs" Walker while we were there. Dean was the inspiration for Mater from Cars from what we understand. For those of you who have seen the movie you will remember Mater loves to drive backwards. Well that came from the fact that Dean can turn both of his legs backwards. You might be able to see his left leg is backwards in the picture.

We took off from Afton (not paying attention so heading the wrong way, luckily we figured it out quickly!) to Kansas. There are only 13 miles of Route 66 in Kansas so it sure doesn’t take long. We stopped first in Baxter Springs the “Cafe on the Route” for lunch. Colin is a big Dinners, Drive-ins & Dives fan so it was twice as much fun to find a restaurant from the show that was also on 66. What great food!! I could not believe how much we got. The four of us could have probably split two meals and have had more than enough. They even offered to fill to go cups with soda for the boys if they wanted more soda! (after having already had about 4 refills each.) The meal Colin has here is a BBQ burger with "tobacco onions" on top (the whole pile on the plate on your left was on the burger. Then it came with that big pile of fries plus the soup or salad before it all for about $6!!

We headed from Afton to Gelina. We wanted to stop at Four Woman on the Route. (An old gas station turned into a small burger place and souvenir shop). It was already in our plans to stop there and was the plan confirmed as a good place to stop by Ron, Laurel and Dean. But unfortunately when we got there it was closed. I thought we were okay on time when we got there at 4:30 as their website said they were open until 6:00 but no one was there when we arrived. We were disappointed and even debated staying in Joplin (a town very close to Gelina) for the night so we could visit in the a.m. but they are not open on Sunday so we couldn’t see them anyway. Oh well, next trip. We did get some good pictures. Most important picture?? A rusted out tow truck. When the guys writing Cars saw this tow truck it gave them the idea to have a tow truck in the movie. So in one day we saw the truck that gave them the idea and met the guy that gave them the personality now if we just could have met Larry the Cable Guy (the voice in the cartoon!!)

We headed on into Missouri. We drove through all the old towns seeing an old Drive in theater and a wonderful old gas station in Spencer that is being refurbished along with a great bridge old bridge. We stopped at an old Sinclair Station in Paris Springs (another suggestion we got in Afton) and met Gary the owner of the station. We had a wonderful visit! We must have been there at least an hour and a half. He gave us all kinds of great suggestions about traveling on the Route. I wish we had spoken to him (and Ron & Lauren) before we started the trip. We would have seen some things we missed. Guess it gives us reason to try to get back for another trip soon.

We stopped for the night at a campground just outside of Springfield on the West side. Tomorrow we head further east in Missouri hopefully making it to St. Louis. Oh and for those of you thinking we are roughing it in campgrounds. We just want to let you know we have been staying in some real classy places. In fact look what they provided in the ladies' room in tonight's campground . . .