Route 66: Day 4 Illinois - Kansas - Oklahoma Part 1

 I actually jumped ahead a little when I blogged last, the Jesse James museum was on Day 4, not Day 3. But it all starts to run together after a while :)

Day 4 was a huge huge day for us. We stopped at a lot of places and had a lot of fun. We made some tough decisions and we met some more great people. Because I'm feeling a bit sleepy I'm only going to post a few photos for now. I'll show you more later when I have more time to choose and edit.

 Anyway, as I said I jumped ahead last time and day four actually started with the Jesse James Wax Museum. After that we drove through the Ozarks some and came across The World's Largest Rocking Chair, which excited me because I'm all about anything "World's Largest". Also exciting was the penny crushing machine inside; I made three in case I don't see another one along this Route 66 journey.

 We hopped on the highway for a bit after this, to save some time, and then went back to Route 66 to see a half replica of Stone Henge that was actually pretty disappointing. I guess after seeing CarHenge and Foam Henge who wants to see a silly half replica? Anyway, it was interesting but didn't stop us for too long.

Next we found a small Route 66 Museum inside a public library. There were three room set ups - a hotel room, a diner and a gas station all via the 1950's. It was pretty cool and a nice little break from driving.

 I was both excited and saddened to find our next stop - a drive-inn movie theater. Excited because I love them, but saddened because it was daytime and we couldn't attend that nights showing. At the drive inn, though, we came across two Route 66-ers named Lulu and Barb.We had a lot of fun chatting with them about Route 66 and were sad when we realized that we just couldn't attend the Meet Up that was happening in Joplin that weekend. They gave us the flyer for it, and we did seriously think about it, but in the end we were already 5 hours off schedule and it would have been too much. Perhaps we'll arrange a trip around the next meetup.

As we crossed into Kansas, we encountered the tow truck on which Mater from Cars is based. At the little restored gas station (which was unfortunately closed) we also saw the fire truck from the movie, complete with plants growing in tires.

Whew! Like I said, day four was a HUGE day for us. This is only half of that day! Today (day 7) was wonderful, but long and I'm getting a bit sleepy. I hope to be able to catch you all up in the next couple days, but for now I hope you are enjoying following along.