Route 66: Branson to Carthage

The first stop was a huge hunting and fishing store, Bass Pro, in Springfield, Missouri where we spent close to 2 hours and didn’t manage to see it all! They had a very interesting firearm museum there (with the balustrade leading to it made of rifles).

Next destination was the Route 66 car museum, also in Springfield, where they had quite a few very interesting and unique cars: Batmobile, Ford Brewster, Hummer 1996 – the 1st edition when they started civil manufacturing of the initial military car. The owner of the museum invented (and used to manufacture in this building) the turbines that ended up being used at the Hoover Dam and also the desal plant technology.

From there we drove past old gas pumps and barns to arrive at the old route 66 station Gay Parita just as it started raining. We took shelter in a shed where the owner told us a few things about the place, then we went to have watermelon in a different shed where we met some French motorbike riders and two bike riders from Kentucky. Many of the buildings in the area, including this, and the house where they lived, were made of giraffe stone.

From Gay Parita we drove just around the corner to the Spencer Station where we met the owners (Ed and Steph) who are in the process of restoring – they will keep the old store but also have a restaurant next door.

In Red Oak II, Lowell Davis, a sculptor, wanted to recreate the village he had come from (and is only 18 miles away from this one), so he encouraged people to move to this new place and bring a cabin / house with them. He died last year, his Philippino wife (Rose) survived him and she looks after the place. There are many of his sculptures around the place, as well as at the entrance to Carthage, the place where we stayed the night.

We stayed at Boots Motel, with its many neon signs. We started seeing some Cars characters and went to drive-in movies to watch the latest Transformers movie.

Some driving highlights can be watched here.