DAY 3-- The road less traveled

We left St. Clair, MO this morning planning on stopping at Meramac Caverns in the next town but decided to just drive due to the strong storm front coming through today.  I kept missing good pictures and realized that if I had my head in the guidebook planning our next stop, I would miss the experience of "now".  The road was deserted most of the way as it ran parallel to the interstate and it was nice to know that we aren't in a hurry to get anywhere. There are many small towns to go through with all their twists and turns but you get to pay attention to the details.  We missed a few places going too fast but Sonny started stopping in the road so I could get my pictures since we were the only ones on it.  I wanted to stop at the St. James Winery to buy gifts since I wasn't at my St. James Church this morning but we somehow missed that too.

In Cuba, we stopped at the restored Wagon Wheel Motel and talked to the woman running the gift shop. She told us about the work the owner had done.  It was a beautiful old place and I wish we could have stayed there a night but it was still morning.  Cuba also wes known as the "route 66 Mural City" and they had the world's largest rocking chair and a restored drive in theatre. After Cuba, we were forced to go back to the I 44 so we decided to stay there a while and just cover some ground.  By then the skies were looking ominus and we weren't planning to stop and look at anything.

 

 

 

We got back on to the route 66 at Lebanon as we wanted to drive it into Springfield for lunch at the original Steak and Shake on route 66.  Kept driving through the storms watching for tornados.  We went through Carterville and Webb City towards Joplin.  There was a lot of rolling meadows and lakes and trees, farmland.  Took random pictures of old original buildings all along. AND the scary skies! 

After leaving Joplin, MO we crossed the border into Galena, Kansas.  There are only 13 miles of mother road in KS but  we got a little messed up trying to follow it.  I decided they didn't think it was worth marking the road for just 13 miles! We ended up where we were supposed to be and crossed the border into Oklahoma.  This is one of the four states we had never been to.

We went through Commerce which was Mickey Mantle's hometown and took a picture of a statue of him.  We also saw a 1925 gas station converted into a Dairy King and various other original businesses.  We moved on to Miami and that's where the road was the most interesting so far. We took the older stretch from 1922 called the 9 ft Hwy.  It was paved in 1922 and because they didn't have enough money to do the whole thing they decided to make one lane the whole section and it served as the road until 1937.  Today, they have added dirty to the whole road section but you can see the original pavement.

 

We drove off into the sunset as we got away from that awful storm sky

We don't KNOW  if those were tornados but we were sure praying they weren't going to come our way.  I felt like a stormchaser! Our prayers go out to those that did get hit by the tornado in Oklahoma today.  Six lives were lost. 

 Then we got into blue skies and sunshine we decided to stop in Claremore, OK, just east of Tulsa, to spend the night.  We decided to stay at our first original 66 motel.  I've become a bit of a hotel snob so I had to overcome that to experience that history of the road.  We are staying at the Will Rogers Inn which is on the National Registry of Historic Places.

.  Tomorrow we will be able to explore OK since we are hopefully through with the storms.