Day 23 Route 66

Our first stop today was at the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma, which had as advertised “a mother lode of stuff”. 

Our next stop was McLain Rogers Park, site of some beautiful neon and a Depression era outdoor ampitheater. When we drove under the sign I heard a terrible scraping noise and thought we were surely tearing something off the roof. Nope, it was just our Segway hitch scraping on the dip in driveway. I should recognize that sound by now.

Then we drove by the Tradewinds Motel but the sun was wrong so our picture of the sign is not worth posting. The Tradewinds claim to fame is that Elvis slept there. Four times. So, if you are an Elvis fan, you’ll want to stop there sometime yourself.

Next we went to the Anadarko Basin Museum, in Elk City, Oklahoma, which has a display portraying Route 66’s relationship to oil and gas. We didn’t get to see the display, though, because the museum was closed. And it wasn’t even late in the day yet. We did take pictures of the rig on display outside. We had to take two pictures because it’s too tall to get it in one. That’s our RV parked at the base of it in the second photo.

Then we stopped at the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City. I don’t know why they got to call theirs the national one. It was located in the Old Town Museum. My impression is the Old Town Museum wasn’t drawing enough traffic so they put a few things from Route 66 into part of it. It did have a good video, though, which made it worth the stop. If we had more time and mobility we might have enjoyed the rest of Old Town but we only paid for the Route 66 part.

Then we headed west, enjoying the scenery but not making any stops. It was interesting to watch farm land turn to ranch land. You can feel the transition from Midwest to Far West.

Texola is the last town in Oklahoma before you cross into Texas. We made that our stop for the night. Actually for two nights since we decided to do laundry here. The Double D RV Park is located at what I suppose is technically a truck stop, but it’s gravel drive kind of place with a small town feel to it. You check into the RV park at the gas station. The restrooms with their showers are shared with the restaurant where we ate supper along with plenty of locals. And the laundry had one good washing machine and one dryer. So Dave spent most of a day doing our five loads of laundry while I, once again, worked on our trip research.  

I’m far enough along on that project now to be able to start branching out beyond Route 66. I started a new spread sheet for Highway 101 since I’m sure we’ll do that sometime. I probably should have focused on the southern U.S. border, though, since that’s where we plan to go when we finish Route 66. Highway 101 traveling south to north is not something we want to do at this time of year.

TTYL,

Linda