Route 66: Carthage to Stroud

We started with the best breakfast we had on this trip, at Maple Leaf Cafe – nice cafe with proper coffee and crepes, avo smash etc. The owners had been inspired by their trip to Guatemala where they liked the crepes and diversity of food so decided to try something similar in the US.

Once we got going we drove past Zinc city, Webb city (lead & zinc), Joplin (and saw the Praying hands statue) before crossing into Kansas.

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We saw Luigi’s Pitstop

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then stopped in Galena, at Cars on the Road, where we met Melba the Mouth, who speaks very fast and has the truck that was the inspiration for Tow Mater, the tow truck in Cars.

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Not far from her we met Dean with the funny legs at Rainbow Bridge.

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Next stop was in Baxter Springs at the visitor’s centre. It is a pretty sad-looking town, almost deserted. But the visitor centre is quite interesting and hosts what has to be Luigi’s tyre shop from the movie.

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This was the end of our time in Kansas (13 miles only), we crossed into Oklahoma the same morning. The first place was Miami in Oklahoma (pronounced [meeama]), home of the Dairy King place, and Coleman theatre built in 1929 for a mining magnate, George Coleman.

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From there we drove an old section of route 66 that was only nine feet wide and had the concrete edges visible.

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An interesting place was Al Child’s place in Afton, another “antiques” store that had Halloween-themed paraphernalia at the front and number plates from different countries towards the back.

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We met Rod Jones aka Tattoo Man in front of a Pizza Hut store – a Vietnam Vet covered in route 66-themed tattoos who has a shiny ’56 Chevrolet done up in the colours of the American flag.

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We crossed (and stopped briefly at) Pryor Creek Bridge

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then the Blue Whale of Catoosa.

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Drove past Tulsa and, then stayed in a small place called Stroud.

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Here is a link to watch some of the roads we drove today.