Columbia MO to Dawsonville Georgia

Our morning at the Days Inn started as badly as it had been good the night before. Does that make any sense? I woke from a bad dream, a little later than planned and we went to breakfast. The woman working the room was angry and surly, the rest of the people eating breakfast were quiet and nervous seeming. Everyone else at the hotel was so nice that it was a bizarre way to open the day.

From there the drive was okay, but a bit hectic. We made sure to keep laughing, but I think we were both tired and cranky. We drove through a lot of states to get to Georgia and somehow managed to arrive just around sunset. We camped at Amicalola Falls in the mountains of Georgia where the Appalachian Trail begins.

Matt had trouble building a fire because he only had small and large wood but nothing in between to keep everything balanced. Finally the fire started to get big enough to cook on, and that is when the sprinkling rain began. We had just enough time to cook one hot dog each before the downpour started. We ate in the car in silence and then moved into the tent. Listening to the rain we both started thinking about how we would be packing up a wet tent and just got a little more frustrated.

The rain slowed down and we walked to the bathroom feeling a little hopeful that maybe the rain was done and we would get a nice breeze to air out the tent. When we got back we noticed that the water pump at our site was dripping water. Matt was able to get it to stop, but then he pumped it and a fresh flow of water began.. and didn't seem to want to slow down or stop. We called the lodge and they sent someone to fix the pump and we crashed for the night.

It rained even more as we slept, but was simply foggy when we woke. Breakfast was delicious at the Lodge, but as soon as we had packed everything up (wet tent and all) the rain started again. We were unable to really see the mountains because of fog, so we just drove to our next destination. I think this was the only day I didn't take any photos. Someday we'll go back, I think.

I promise that our next few days were much much better than these past couple. Stay tuned!

Clearfield UT to Colby Kansas to Columbia Missouri

 Part 1: Utah to Kansas

We drove a lot on this part of the trip with little stopping. We wanted to get as far as possible because we knew we would be crossing mostly states we had seen before. We drove through the beautiful Rockies again, a lot of Wyoming and then went south into Colorado. Unfortunately, we drove through the corn field part of Colorado instead of the mountains. Some day I want to go back and visit Boulder.

Through a lot of Colorado I napped. I was so incredibly exhausted that I just couldn't help it.  Napping made me more refreshed and felt good.

In Colby, a smallish town, we were surprised to discover that the Days Inn we had planned on staying at was full except for one smoking room. We ended up at the Super 8 down the road, in a decent enough room with supposed working internet. It didn't work. I brought the netbook to the office and they fixed it, but it was so slow that it wasn't even really worth using.

We slept well though, and overslept a bit because we knew we had a short day ahead of us.

Part 2: Colby Kansas to Columbia Missouri

One of the first slightly strange billboards we saw upon leaving the hotel was an ad for a store proclaiming that it was the SECOND FRIENDLIEST YARN STORE IN THE UNIVERSE! This billboard raised a lot of questions for me. Why the second friendliest? Who is the first? Why wouldn't you just say you were the first? And - the Universe? Really? Have you been to that yarn store out on Venus? Mars? It all made me smile, but I can't remember the name of the store.

I wanted to go to Liberty Kansas, home of animatronic Wizard of Oz displays. But it was three hours out of our way, so we went to the Oz Museum instead. We first saw billboards for it not long after the yarn one and immediately knew we would stop because we both love the Wizard of oz and the billboard just looked cool.

So, a few hours of driving later we got off of I-70 and on to "The Road to Oz" towards the museum which turns out to be in a town full of a whole lot of nothing. Indeterminable stores lined a downtown area with one restaurant that I could see - Toto's Tacos - and an Oz Winery.

The Museum itself was set up well, if a little cheesy. You opened the screen door on a farmhouse facade and entered a very colorful Oz with wax figures of the main characters and lots of glass displays. I particularly liked seeing the old Oz books and illustrations. There were also Oz games and toys from around the world and a really cool selection of props from the musical Wicked. Overall, we spent about a half an hour wandering there and it was pretty fun. We could have sat and watched the movie too, but of  course had to keep moving.

A tale of Smelliness and a Lesson in Curiosity:

We stopped to get gas somewhere in Missouri and Matt goes in to the bathroom while I pump the gas. He comes out laughing a few minutes later and I have to ask what he's smiling about. He tells me that in the bathroom there was a box on the wall that you could buy cologne from. There were these little knobs to pick which scent you wanted and then a big knob. He pulled on the big knob out of curiosity, not really expecting anything to happen, and a stream of cologne shot out straight at him. We had to drive with the windows down for a while until the smell went away.

After that little adventure things got boring until we stopped for the night. This time the Days Inn was empty and we watched Dave and munched on ordered Dominos. By the way, their Mac N Cheese bread bowl is crazy good. And the chocolate lava cake is even better. The internet worked perfectly and I blogged a lot that night. It was good.

Route 66: Day 5 Oklahoma - New Mexico

 Day 5 was a long on driving and no so much on attractions - but the attractions we did stop for were pretty awesome so it was a really good day. At it's hottest, though, it was 104 degrees with a brutal hot wind coming at us while we were at Cadillac Ranch in Texas.

First of all, my apologies on the delay in continuing this story, but we've had a series of internet problems / arriving too late to do anything but sleep nights.

 We drove a nice piece of Route 66 through Oklahoma, but the signs weren't as good as the previous states and we got a tad lost. Driving through corn fields and cattle grazing land, not for the first time, wondering where we went wrong. It was fun though, and a beautiful blue skies day. Once we got back on track we crossed the bright yellow pony bridge that you see above.

 Our next stop was a Route 66 museum in Clinton Oklahoma which led you through the decades of Route 66 from beginning to end. There were lots of informational things to read, full displays to represent each era, music you could listen to and lots of memorabilia as well. It was a fun little stop and a great museum.

Not long after we stopped at another Route 66 Museum but we decided to just walk around the outdoor "cowtown" instead of the museum inside. One thing we noticed first was the GIANT Route 66 sign guiding us into the parking lot.

The "Cowtown" was just like an old western town with store fronts and an open ice cream parlor. There were also a few large Kachina Dolls outside. Around this time the heat became ridiculous. We hopped the highway all the way to Texas and next stopped at Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo.

Cadillac Ranch is similar to Carhenge in Nebraska, but the cars are in a row instead of in a Stonehenge formation. They are also heavily graffitied by the crowds that come to see them. It's a pretty cool sight, walking down a path in a huge wheat field and arriving at this row of cars. At 104 degrees with a hot hot wind, we didn't stay too terribly long but I think I got some great photos and I'm really glad we went.

As we passed from Texas to New Mexico we started to see mountains in the distance, an exciting thing after so much flat farm land and desert. We drove through Tucumcari - a town that used to be a hot spot on Route 66 but is now a bit rundown. Their motto is Tucumcari Tonight! and there are some great hotel signs and unique buildings to take photos of. I think I got some great shots here as well and I'm excited to really look at them when I get home.

From Tucumcari we drove through more desert and up to Santa Fe New Mexico. We rode into town just as the sun was setting and the view was beautiful. I wish we could have spent more time there, but unfortunately we had to keep moving. I think that is the first place we stopped that I consciously thought "I should come back here sometime". One thing that amazed us both was a double decker TRAIN that passed by when we were at a red light. I was so baffled I didn't know what to think of it, but upon later thought - damn that's cool!

We set up our plan for the next day and crashed for the night. Stay tuned, another post coming right up!

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.

Route 66 Continues : Illinois / Missouri

The next day we continued on Route 66, alternating occasionally with the highway just to keep moving past towns with not much in them. Because I don't have my journal entries on me right now, I don't specifically remember what happened on that day. So instead I'm going to guestimate and talk about the next set of photos that I have ready for this blog.

As you can see, we've started to decorate our mascots, though they don't have names yet. If I'm remembering the days correctly, one of our first stops was the Jesse James wax museum. Matt was almost named Jesse James, so he has a special affinity to the name. We visited the gift shop and talked with the woman in there for a while, but decided to skip the museum itself. Next door was a Toy Museum, but it looked closed so we kept on our way.

We stopped for lunch in a cute little town called Atlanta and ate a diner called Palms Grill. It was packed for lunch, although the town was crazy tiny and I swear the whole joint when dead quiet the second we entered. A kind older gentleman asked us if we were doing Route 66 and suggested we visit the museum next door, which we did. After a short video about town a woman took us upstairs to the towns museum which included a lot of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia.

 Despite being f ull from lunch, I insisted on stopped at the Cozy Dog a short couple of hours later because I love love love corn dogs. I know they are terrible for you, but they are the best State Fair food ever. The corn dogs did not disappoint and I only wish we were heading back that way for more.

Our next stop was Henry's Rabbit Ranch in Stanton, IL, a famous Route 66 stop. As we were poking around and taking photos, a Volkswagon Rabbit pulled up and the man that runs the shop opened up for us to take a look inside. He sold us a Route 66 book that we've been using to navigate and a decal to put in my car window.

From there we made a crazy dash to St. Louis to hit up a camera shop before they closed. Matt's lens had broken the day before and he wanted to replace it. We literally arrived minutes before they closed. From there we went across town to the famous St. Louis Arch which is an absolutely amazing thing to see. It's almost impossible to describe the pure scope of this monument, you really have to see it for yourself. We oogled outside, then went inside to visit the gift shop and see the Museum of Western Exploration which was pretty nifty. Circular in shape, the museum went through the ages from the 1800's up showing old wagons, stuffed animals like buffalo and photos of famous explorers. It's a fun free visit if you're at the arch.

Our final stop for the day was a hotel just outside of St. Louis. We crashed a little later than planned and fell asleep almost immediately.

Stay Tuned for Day 4 when we saw the original Mater and an absolutely gorgeous theater under restoration!