The Leaning Tower of Texas caught our eyes as we left Texas and entered Oklahoma .
The tiny city of Sayre, Oklahoma welcomed us
and other short-term campers to their City Park near the ball diamonds. It was quiet this time of year – early autumn. No ball games were being played. The kids were back in school. Payment was an honor system. You put your $12 in the slot of a wooden box. A few other campers were set up intermittently through the small campground. Small town America. We love it.
I looked to the west, as the sun set here in Oklahoma, realizing our days of traveling this route were soon coming to an end, and thinking about all the miles we had traveled from Barstow, California. It was still daylight in Barstow, with over an hour until sunset. Barstow seemed so near – yet so far away.
Oklahoma really focused on the original Mother Road. Near Arcadia we ate at Pops 66 Soda Ranch, browsing so long, we missed the nearby Route 66 Interpretative Center at Chandler, not arriving before they closed for the day.
I was disappointed, as it was the “one” Route 66 Museum along this route of many, that I really wanted to see!
You know, your plans just don’t always work out. And we had become accustomed to that happening on this trip. The main thing was that we were together – Ron and I – experiencing all we could fit in – on Route 66 – as we had on the Oregon Trail, within the National Parks and Monuments, throughout 17 states, as far north as the Grand Tetons and as far south as Needles, as far west as Sacramento and as far east as our home. Together.
Whenever it was not combined with I-40, the original Route 66 paralleled the highway. We traveled it for a ways in Rolla, Missouri, where we found a cute little RV Park – just the type we like! Nostalgic! The owner, Bob, set us up on Site 14, and the site sign mimicked the Route 66 signs and lit up at night. How cute is that? It’s the little things that make it special.
This was our last night along Route 66, for once we had passed the Arch in St. Louis the next day, we left the highway, heading toward Effingham, Illinois and on to home.
We never again saw the two men in the blue Convertible Corvette, but I do suspect that if you were to travel that same route, looking, and expecting, you’d get a glimpse of them, as we did – along Route 66.
Link to that glimpse. Click here
You can read all Chapters of Route 66 posts. Click here for the first. Each has a link to the next.