The Road Goes On…

Category: Missouri

Southern US Trip Summary

This morning at home we feel as though we are living between two worlds. Before we enter back into our everyday life with all its responsibilities we look back on six and a half weeks of excitement and adventure. We’re happy we did write the blog so that we don’t forget all the things we saw and experienced. It definitely is a trip to remember and does rival our Route 66 trip from two years ago.

What worked well:

WIND Mobile’s Unlimited US Roaming. We’ve been WIND Mobile customers for a number of years now and their price just can’t be beat. For $15 a month we had unlimited voice calling, texting and 1GB of data while in the US. This allowed us to keep in touch and look up things on the road.

Good Sam Membership: This RV club membership cost $25 a year and give you 10% discount at member campsites. It definitely paid for itself.

America the Beautiful Pass: This $80/year pass gives you free entrance to US Parks and other recreation sites. It paid for itself as well.

Garmin GPS: We love our Garmin GPS system. At the start of the trip we had the RV/Trucking dezl 760 model but it was stolen in Albuquerque so we bought a nuvi 2689LMT to replace it. These GPS units have campground locations pre-installed and provide lots of information on arrival times, traffic conditions, etc.

Allstays Camp and RV App: We use this app on our iPads all the time to look for campgrounds. It shows the location of campgrounds and gives information about their rating, facilities and distance from your current location.

NOAA Weather Pro App: This app for the iPad and iPhone shows a map with weather conditions. It also has the ability to send alerts to your phone when severe weather is nearby.

Visitor Centres, Park Rangers and Bureau of Land Management offices: These are always a source of great information and have invaluable knowledge of local conditions and opportunities.

Frugal RV Travel Guides: These guides have great route information as well as tips on inexpensive places to stay overnight.

Here’s a map of the entire trip. This is an image grab from Google Maps as it wasn’t possible to use the entire GPS track on a live map, probably because of its size.

August 26, 2015
Newton Kansas to Cloverdale, Indiana

Wow, US states just fly by when you’re on the Interstate and there isn’t much to see. We decided to make this a pure driving day to make it as close as possible to Indianapolis for a visit with Kevin Raber tomorrow.

Our campground for the night was interesting to say the least. It was a tucked away, old, treed park with inhabitants who seem to have lived there in their decrepit, permanently parked trailers for a long time. The bathrooms were old as well, but we were happy to smell the bleach when we entered the facilities.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

August 24, 2015
Carthage, MO to Tulsa, OK

Homework – routing Kansas and Oklahoma – was on the agenda even before breakfast. E-mails were written, notes for next blog entries crafted, needless to say it was lunch instead of breakfast at our restaurant that let us sleep in their lot. When we left it was very hot and humid … we should have known.

The 66 Drive-In Theatre still in Missouri was in beautiful condition and is still in use.

The gas station in Kansas of the four women received an exceptional face lift. We talked to one of the four women who owned this gas station during the hey days of Route 66 and she told us that the gas station and the tow truck at the station were inspirations for the animation movie Cars.

The building next door was a brothel with very interesting stories of crime and intrigue. We were told to stay tuned.

One more stop at the Blue Whale, a former water park and from then on we only looked at beautiful Route 66 sites briefly because we were on the run chased by tornado warnings.

And in the end we made it safe and sound to one of the places the least hit in the tornado zone today, to Tulsa. Here we parked the RV at the Hampton Hotel and splurged by taking a room for a safe night.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

May 31, 2013
Devil’s Elbow, MO to Carthage, MO

We left our private ‘campground’ at the Elbow Bridge early in the morning before breakfast, crossed elbow bridge, traveled through Devil’s Elbow and booted it to Lebanon to visit the Munger Moss Motel.

The former restaurant and the motel, which is still in business were established by the same people how had a sandwich place where the Elbow Inn is today. We talked to the female owner and discovered that there are states in the US that are not necessarily Obama fans.

We had liked Springfield Illinois and we liked Springfield Missouri as well first of all because of its wonderful chocolate store Askinosie, a famous judge. He established chocolate manufacture after a cup cake stint and imports the coco beans from select farmers in a couple of counties. He produces his own chocolate and shares the profits with his selected farmers. 3rd world projects are another item on Mr. Askinosie’s list. Food items are for sale in his store and the proceeds go the countries in need 100%.

The nearby Jefferson Avenue Footbridge across railroad tracks is still in use, we walked it and it is in very good shape for being in use since 1902.

We left Springfield and our next ‘quick’ stop was Gary Turner’s gas and repair station in Paris Springs.

We had a lovely visit, good chats with the family and bikers from Austria during a torrential rain. Gary, one of the experts when it comes to Route 66 in Missouri, suggested we pay Lowell Davis a visit in Red Oak II, which is what we did.

Driving through sheds of water we finally arrived on Red Oak II and met with Lowell and Rose. Lowell was born on a farm and used some of this land to create his own town using the buildings from the old village of Red Oak (I) and having them transported to his land and building Red Oak II. Art work from metal, chickens, cats and dogs add to the colorful architecture. But Lowell himself with his wonderful stories, small sculptures from metal and china, his paintings, cartoons and books was absolutely fascinating.

Finally we had dinner in Carthage at 9pm at the Sirloin Stockade, not a Route 66 must visit! And we received permission from the restaurant to sleep in their truckers parking lot. The truckers were not too pleased with us because we parked right in the middle of the lot, because it was the only level point. All had to drive with their long trucks around us.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

May 30, 2013
Eureka, MO to Devil’s Elbow, MO

Time is just running. We are still following Route 66 religiously but don’t stop everywhere anymore. We drove by Red Cedar Restaurant in Pacific and the Sunset Hotel in Villa Ridge, did stop however at the Gardenway Motel west of Grey Summit. We liked the sign with the glass blocks so typical for the time of Route 66.

The old sign of the Diamond Restaurant we missed but photographed the remnants of the building.

Time for a change of scenery, the Meramec Caverns in the Stanton region were our next stop. Amazing caves with beautiful stalactites and stalagmites and stories on bandits Jessie James and his brother staying in the caverns, sharing their loot and escaping via an unknown exit.

From cave to springs we went this day by visiting Maramec Springs and the ruins of a 19th century iron works. Very nice park and lots of information on working with iron.

We stopped later at the beautiful Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba and missed hwy 19 Drive-In Theatre and did not stop for the world’s largest rocker in Fanning-Rosati but went instead to the Elbow Inn close to Devil’s Elbow with its beautiful bridge for dinner and bear with the boys. The locals were mostly retired officers and specialists of the near by Army base and we had the opportunity to have great conversations with these super nice people. We even parked our RV at the fence of the Inn and slept right there.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

May 29, 2013
Lincoln, IL to Eureka, MO

Left Camp-a-while campground after a quick cleaning of the RV and went to see Lincoln. Missed the old Mill restaurant right away but did see Postville Courthouse, a replica. Lincoln did frequent this court as lawyer and the Deskins tavern across the street to meet with colleagues for lunch and stay overnight.

At the former site of the burned down famous Pig-Hip Restaurant and Motel we only found a plaque and an empty lot.

In Williamsville we had a wonderful hour at the vintage gas station at 117 N. Elm. The owner is a collector of everything and anything collectable and even has a small section with household goods. The die cast auto section however was a bit disappointing, the kittens however in the old truck made up for this.

In Springfield we peeked through the fence at the fine collection of car related ‘toys’ at Shea’s service station. Too bad it was all fenced off.

As the capital of Illinois Springfield gives tribute to Abraham Lincoln in a big way. We visited the tomb and rubbed the nose -as so many did before- of Lincoln’s bronze bust.

Time for lunch at the Cozy Dog Drive-In. Ed Waldmire invented these corn dogs while serving military duty at Amarillo, Texas and established a small chain of eateries in 1949 at the same time as the first couple of Dairy Queen’s in Springfield with corn dogs as their specialty. Corn dogs are hot dogs fried in batter. And yes, they are really tasty.

A nice chat with some of the other patrons followed about the economy in Springfield after the manufactoring sector left the city. After taking a quick picture of the old sign of the former Art’s Motel at Farmersville and of the Sky View Drive-In Theater, which is still showing double features on Friday, Saturday and Sunday since 1951 we visited the Ariston Café, had great cake and got our picture taken behind the bar by the owner. It is a family business still today.

Yet another old gas station came our way in Mount Olive, the Russell Soulsby Shell Station, followed by Henry’s Rabbit Ranch in Staunton, which will not offend vegetarians and make German eyes smile!

Another drive in visit in Mitchell, the old Balair, was followed, and yes, there is a pattern, by another café, the Luna Café.

The Chain of Rocks Bridge was our last item on the Illinois agenda and it was a bit of a scary one. This bridge carried in the old days the traffic of Route 66 across the Mississippi from Illinois to Missouri. Today the bridge can only be used by pedestrians and cyclists. We wanted to do the same, but auto glass on the first parking lot and a lot of young people hanging out in their cars and more people coming and parking next to our RV made us feel uneasy and we took off and started the Missouri leg of our trip.

A KOA camping spot in the Eureka area was nice an quiet after our trip through St. Louis where we did not miss out on Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, the predecessor of the Dairy Queen Product in Springfield.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

May 28, 2013