Route 66: Cuba to Branson

This day was definitely a day of up and down and paralel roads. The roads that we drove passed through beautiful country. We crossed Piney Creek (peaceful, lots of canoes), took Hooker Cut, the deepest cut by the original road, with the two lanes still in local use today, to get to Devil’s Elbow Inn. The Devil’s Elbow is a section of Sine River known for being hard to negotiate, and also the site of floods that affected the Mother Road five years ago when debris was left high in the bridge trusses.

The first attraction was the miniature Stonehenge monument in Rolla created using water cutting tools that the local Uni specialises in.

We drove past an interesting mix of advertising panels for religious stuff, lawyers, cannabis and Kratom.

Some petrol stations sold fireworks too.

We stopped at Uranus, where they sell all sorts of funny, crappy, expensive things, before driving past the giant frog in Waynesville hillside.

We stopped to walk the Gasconade Bridge and helped a box tortoise cross the road.

Next stop was Lebanon to see the small route 66 museum in the Laclede Country library. They have interesting pics on how they built / paved the mud roads and also stories about the “bloody 66” – accidents and crimes committed along the route (including by Bonnie & Clyde).

From there we drove past Munger Moss Hotel to Marshfield where they have a smaller Hubble telescope replica (~1/4 size) dedicated to Edwin Hubble who spent some years in Marshfield as a child (and interestingly despite being born and spending his childhood in the Bible Belt was able to study and think about the universe / space).

Next we visited a wrecker’s place

before we reached our final destination for the day, Branson. There was a Bible open on the table in our room (and probably a subtle message on that page – that we didn’t read). It is a definitely a Trump and guns stronghold. It’s meant to represent Ozark culture – Ozarks are the mountains/ plateau around this area. They have a replica of the Titanic, a large King Kong on a building, an artificial lake with a zipline across. We tried the famous frozen custard – which was mixed with various other things and very sweet (but nice). Most of the shops are along a strip called Branson Landing where there was a flaming water show as well.

In the evening we went to see a show with a local country band, the Haygoods, and we felt “safe” as soon as we arrived at the hall as there were messages warning criminals that wearing concealed weapons was permitted.

A short video with driving highlights of the day is available here.