Route 66 Part Two: Through Missouri, Kansas and into Oklahoma

Business along the original Route 66 once boomed, then languished while the super highways expanded.
Some, like Wrinks Market in Lebanon, MO are coming back to life, neon and all.

The decision to get married was almost instantaneous after we heard the California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage on May 15th. The place, also a quick choice, as soon as Ruby Montana announced her impending minister certification, the Coral Sands in Palm Springs was the obvious venue. The date, September 7th, the 12th anniversary of our Domestic Certification in Seattle. Mode of transport: I’d been itching for another cross county trip, an opportunity to show Brian my favorite landscapes and to initiate him as a national park junior ranger. And if we drove, we could take the dogs.

Then that song popped into my head, like the voice of an angel heralding a plan. “If you ever plan to motor west, travel my way, take the highway that's the best. Get your kicks on Route 66”

The planning began, websites, books, maps, motels. Motels still live on Route 66, but finding ones that allowed two Weimaraners wasn’t that easy. Most of the classic restored ones consider themselves too fragile to allow canine. Their loss, ours too. But while we missed out on the Munger Moss and the Blue Swallow, there was plenty else to see.

The Mother Road starts in Chicago and ends in Santa Monica. We had enough time to drive it from St. Louis to Amboy, California. The road isn’t a straight shot. Not only does it wind and turn, sometimes it disappears completely. Parts have been consumed by Interstates and some have been abandoned or lay on private land. But there is enough left to follow for miles and days and plenty of magic remains.

Through Missouri, 66 sticks pretty close to I-44 but the parts that take off into the hills and valleys of the Ozarks are buccolic and the little towns still hold friendly cafes and vintage motels. we stayed and ate in Cuba, Mo our first night and visited a great section the next day that took us to Devils Elbow. At Lebanon we took a spur that revealed Wrinks Market (top photo) and the “exclusionary” Munger Moss Motel. The motel has a gift shop, run by the owners, that is crammed full of 66 curios and souvenirs. We stocked up on postcards and decals.

After Phillipsburg, the road strays away completely from 44 and we got to experience complete solitude. After Springfield it got even better. We brought along a spiral bound book, EZ66, which guided us to a 1920’s section of the road and into the remains of Spencer, MO. We crossed a 1926 steel thru-truss bridge and stopped at an old filling station that someone is restoring, complete with sign, canopy and Ethyl gas pumps.

The old station, bridge and roadway were eerie and beautiful, we now officially had 66 fever and we were still in our first state. West of Joplin we followed a remote stretch and crossed into Kansas where 13 miles of 66 cuts the corner of the state and leads into Oklahoma. Construction and bad directions got us a little lost, but we didn’t care we found our way to the border of Oklahoma.

It was small towns with one-of-a-kind names like Quapaw, Narcissa and Venita that greeted us in Oklahoma. In Vinita we used our Road Food online guide to find Clanton’s, in business for 81 years, and famous for it’s chicken fried steak, which of course I needed to try, and I did.

17 miles east of Tulsa is the town of Catoosa which is famous for a little roadside attraction called the Blue Whale. It was built in the early 70’s by Hugh Davis for his wife Zelta. Zelta loved whales and collected figurines. It is the ultimate collectible. It is the center of a swimming hole that went from family use to a tourist attraction. You can’t swim anymore but it’s easy to have fun. We even met Hugh’s son who still watches over the place and who told us tales while he walked around hunting for litter. He had no problem letting the dogs join us on a tour.


From Catoosa, it was through Tulsa and Route 66 down to Oklahoma City. It was getting dark and threatening rain but we wanted to make a detour to the Oklahoma City National Memorial on the site of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

By the time we found our way there it was dark. We got out of the car to booming thunder and flashes of lighting. We walked through a monolithic gate that marks the time of the explosion and down into the park. We were met by a large reflecting pool that is faced on one side with ghostly glowing chairs. The thunder got louder and it started to gently rain. There are 9 rows of chairs, for the people killed in the explosion and a group of 19 smaller chairs representing the murdered children. It is a beautiful memorial made even more poignant in the flashing thunderous dark of the night. We walked around the pool to the Survivor Tree, an American Elm, that withstood the the attack. The tree is protected now by a wall that encloses it and you like a chapel. We slowly walked up to this symbol of enduring life. By then my tears were mixing with the rain.

- - - David