What passes for steep in Missouri…

Tuesday, August 31, 2021 Started Day 3

I was going to be so good and keep track of our mileage starting amount each day. Nah. Too much trouble. Pretty much everything is too much trouble when you are just sort of ambling (if a Corvette can amble) along doing whatever with no real goal each day. Heck, we can’t even remember to take Harry the Gila Monster out of his hidey place! Poor Harry hasn’t seen a thing so far. I will try to remember to take him out for a walk tomorrow. “Try” being the operative word.

We started late (for us) from St. Louis, about 9am. We met another couple doing Route 66 and we were going to stay in the same Residence Inn as they were in Springfield, MO, but it was full so we’re in an IHG hotel, Candlewood Suites. Not nearly as nice! Among other things, they have exactly two, count ‘em, TWO glasses: one juice size, one full size. That will make for interesting martinis tonight! The other couple are doing the full route also so we may run across them again.

The Missouri town of Bourbon has a Bourbon water tower.

One of many historic bridges on Route 66.

This is actually the original Route 66, 4-lane, divided highway. There is some grass growing in the concrete.

Randy had to buy some fudge! Mt. Lemmon fudge is better!

Today was quite leisurely even though we covered twice as many miles as yesterday: 200+/- from St. Louis to Springfield (less than 100 from Springfield, IL, to St. Louis). We mostly just enjoyed traveling [Aside: I have a lot of these, get used to it! Why is it traveling in the U.S and travelling in Australia and the U.K.?]  through the countryside. Route 66 mostly parallels I44 in this part of the state and apparently was quite a highway in its heyday. Parts are clearly little traveled (the concrete has grass growing in any cracks) even in areas where it is a four-lane (!) highway. Some are pretty rough with not only grass growing in the cracks, but the cracks have cracks; really glad we got new tires before this trip (Shameless plug: our son works for Michelin so of course we got Michelins [which were also the original tires] which have performed beautifully even though we [OK, OK, I ] hit a couple of pot holes). Others are still heavily used (I had a UPS truck climbing up my tailpipe for a while today).

Largest belt buckle in the world! Aren't you impressed?

Don't know if this is the largest rocking chair, but it is pretty darn big!

Lots of giant-this and giant-that! Bowling pins, rocking chairs, belt buckles, dripping faucets—really? A giant dripping faucet? Yup. In neon, no less. I have to say, though, that the Aussies have much, MUCH better giant-whatevers!

One town was particularly memorable, Cuba, MO, the town of murals. Lots and lots of murals including one about Amerlia Earhart. She ALMOST landed in Cuba but crashed (unhurt and her plane was undamaged) before she could. So there’s a mural celebrating that she almost landed in Cuba. Plus lots of others. It also has a really nice bakery and deli (where, of course, we had lunch).

Mural dedicated to Amelia Earhart.

The next few photos are just some of the murals in Cuba, MO.

Sort of a 3-D mural!

There are murals inside as well!

One of the roads we took warned us it was steep beyond a certain point. With some trepidation, we decided to take the road. It was paved and a County road, how bad could it be? Well, it turns out that what passes for steep in Missouri would barely register in, say, the mountains of Colorado or Utah. We dropped (!) a whole 250 feet in 7/10^th of a mile. 

Onward tomorrow to Tulsa, stopping along the way to see the Catoosa Blue Whale!