Day 8 St. Louis Missouri

We started out day in Edmund outside of Oklahoma City with a hearty breakfast at Waffle House. We haven't been to a Waffle House since our 2013 trip when we had our first Waffle House experience in Virginia. It was fantastic and a great way to start the day.

I had a chance to meet up with Mark Zimmerman who lives in the Oklahoma City area. In 2007 Mark and I traveled to New York together to visit John Coffer for the annual wet plate jamboree. It was nice to meet up with Mark again after all these years.

Mark led us on a trip down Oklahoma State Route 66 which follows the old Route 66 roadway. The newer road is wider and closely follows or overlaps the the original road, with pieces of the original road still driveable. We traveled a short stretch of original road outside of Arcadia. We also found pieces to drive on along the way as we meandered the state road from Oklahoma City to Tulsa while avoiding the 4 lane interstate.

Abandoned Route 66 roadway next to present day Oklahoma Route 66.

I am big on living history, and it was interesting to drive on the actual original roadway. It is narrow and wanders tighter curves than our modern roads. The concrete where visible is lined with white concrete on either side of the road. I have nostalgia for these pieces of roadway but can clearly see how this narrow wandering road needed to be upgraded for large vehicles and interstate travel. 

In Tulsa we were snapped back into reality. Bumper to bumper traffic with trucks and congestion as we crawled through town. The trip was diverted to state roads due to an accident on I-44. We hit Missouri and had multiple delays with five different accidents on the highway. Two were really bad, with one parking us on the highway for an hour. The worst traffic of the trip was today- go figure. 

We traveled through the heart of Missouri and made one last stop at the Uranus Fudge Factory in Uranus Missouri.  Fudge packed in Uranus! Talk about a great business!! After a day of stressful driving it was a welcome diversion. They just opened their business a few weeks ago on the historic Route 66 roadway and will fit in nicely with the past and present attractions along the road.

Tonight is our last night of vacation. We are staying in St. Louis and will be visiting the Arch and St. Louis Zoo tomorrow. Mileage should be over 4,000 miles for the trip. It is sad to be almost done but it will be nice to sleep in our own beds tomorrow!

Day 1 Salina, Kansas.

We started our summer vacation journey on July 3rd, leaving home and traveling 580 miles for our first overnight in Salina, Kansas. After about 12 hours total time on the road (with gas and food stops) we are calling it quits on our journey west.

We stopped for a bit in Hannibal. Missouri to see a few of the Mark Twain sights. Unfortunately the town was packed for an annual festival weekend. We walked around town and vowed to return on a weekend this fall when it isn't so busy and crowded.

We walked to the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse. It is 54 feet tall, 200 feet above the Mississipi River and 244 steps to visit. There are names carved and written on the side of the light house.

Downtown Hannibal is quaint mixed with tourist stores and shops. When it isn't wall to wall people it will be a fun place to explore.

Missouri is lush and hilly with corn and bean fields mixed with livestock and fence rows. Kansas starts out the same but transforms into vast rolling hills of grass and sparse trees. Heards of cattle look like dots on the hillside as they freely roam the hills and valleys. The sun was setting and the shadows excentuated the shapes and lush green colors of the horizon filled landscape.

We are roughly 6 hours or so from Denver. I look forward to rolling hills of grass giving way to the Rockies! We will be traveling through Colorado tomorrow. Wondering what our 4th of July adventure will be like this year? We shall see tomorrow.