DESTINATION: JOPLIN, MO

 Leaving Branson

After experiencing the epicenter of concrete country entertainment, Carl and I took some photos as we left, not quite believing what we were actually seeing.  Branson was bizarre, but certainly enjoyed by a multitude of families…a very family oriented town for all those vacationers in the Ozarks.  Here are some of the street scenes we saw:

Red Oak 2

Wow!  This. Was. Awesome.

Red Oak 2 is a tiny, true little village that is in a time warp of early 1920-1945.  It came into existence because an artist, Lowell Davis, who was born and raised in Red Oak, MO had a successful career in Texas and when he came back home to live in Red Oak it was like a ghost town…so he bought and moved most of the original buildings from Red Oak down the road 23 miles to acreage he had purchased and reconstructed his little town on his own property.  People actually live here in some of the repurposed buildings.

I could NOT stop taking photos of this place…it was like we were walking through this artist’s canvas of structures, sculptures and art.  The whole place was so authentic but at the same time, dreamlike.  Locally Lowell Davis was dubbed the “Norman Rockwell of the Midwest”.  I think his art had a touch of Dr Seuss joviality to it as well.  It was so delightful!

Buildings in Red Oak 2

                                                The wren house

                                                This was Belle Starr’s (the outlaw queen) original house

Carthage, Jasper County 

Upon leaving Red Oak 2, we drove to Carthage and when we entered their town square, my jaw dropped when I saw their courthouse.  I’ve been in many courthouses but never have I seen such a unique, stunning county courthouse.  This was a Saturday night and the doors were all opened with people walking in and out.  There was a small festival going on with the local sheriff’s office having a fundraiser for Shopping with a Sheriff program.  We went in and got a great tour by several locals.  

 

                                        This is their elevator…we were given a ride in it

Branson, MO

 Today, Sandy and I said goodbye to Ramona, grabbed breakfast at a local coffee shop, then drove from Lebanon to Springfield, MO on old Route 66.  Then we drove south to Branson, MO.  No iteration Route 66 ever went through Branson, but we felt that since we were so close to this over-the-top town, we should go take a look.

Our first stop along the way was in Marshfield, MO, home of Edwin Hubble.  Hubble was an Observational Cosmologist and the man who proved there were objects outside our own galaxy.  He did this by determining that objects that were previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas, then classified as nebulae were in fact galaxies, and that there were billions of them.  It was also his work that provided the data and math that helped prove the concept of the ever expanding universe.  On the courthouse lawn, Marshfield celebrates Edwin Hubble with a replica of the Hubble Space Telescope.  It is one quarter the size of the actual telescope but still an exciting thing to see.  To think, a little town like this, in the middle of Ozark hillbilly country had a little barefooted boy running around that some day was going to change how all scientists view the universe.  Just shows we should be careful of who we look down upon.

While we were looking at the telescope a man came out of the courthouse and thanked us for visiting Webster County.  It turned out he was the county recorder.  He talked to us for the better part of an hour, with many interesting stories about his family, the county, and the people that lived there.  He explained to us how he was related to David Letterman, but by far his most interesting family tie was that his wife was a Dalton (Ma Dalton and her boys) and also related to the Younger brothers (road with Jesse James).  We enjoyed his conversation, but I was saddened that my wife only descended from Scottish pirates. 

While driving through Springfield, MO we came across the first ever "Steak and Shake".  Who's not going to take a picture of that?

 

 Destination: Branson, MO

Carl and I are staying in Branson tonight…and when in Branson, one has an obligation to pick a show to go to…and that’s how we ended up at Dolly Parton’s Stampede.  Knowing the astute and savvy business woman that Dolly is, we knew that the show would probably be her signature “tacky but genuinely Dolly production…she delivered.

For two full hours, she fed hundreds of us with an organized frenzy all the while she entertained us.  The meal was a bowl of soup, country biscuit, a whole rotisserie Cornish game hen, baked potato, pork loin, corn on the cob and an apple turnover.  Whew!  All were served timely, tasty and warm with an efficiency any Disney organization should strive for.

The entertainment included performing horses, a group of bison, a small herd of long horn steer, country dancers, dramatic drummers, competitive agility dogs, racing chickens and pigs.  Pretty hokey, but truly an impressive performance.  

Photography was allowed but lighting was a challenge with all the bursts of fire and special effects.  A few pics to capture the arena…

DESTINATION: LEBANON, MO

Lewis Café in St. Clair, MO

    This was a return trip for us, having met the three laughing widows here in 2009 (Carl has a great story).  Instead of widows this time, we had four good looking Missouri State Highway Patrolmen who obviously were loyal customers.   We remembered that the place was famous for their homemade pies so we made sure we dropped in around noon for our pie lunch.  It did not disappoint! They told us as we were paying that before we come the next time to call ahead and request what kind of pie we would like to eat. Wow!  That’s pretty good customer service!

Water Towers

    Good humor is always appreciated by us so we couldn’t just pass up these gems.  Of course, one tower in Bourbon was not quite enough so they added another.

Osage Trail Legacy Park

    The next stop was a total surprise to us for it was not here during our last Route 66 trip and not mentioned in our Route Bibles because it has just been completed.  It was near Cuba, MO at a commuter parking area and had a wonderful little visitor center with a very enthusiastic docent who shared a wealth of information with us.  We watched a video of the Osage Indians who were very large in stature - many were at least six and a half feet tall, and others even seven feet tall, according to contemporary historians.  Today’s I-44 was the original Trail of the Osage.  In the early 1800’s they traveled from this area into St. Louis, trading furs and lead ore for food, clothing and supplies.  When the first Europeans began exploring the Ozark region, the Osage dominated the area which included areas that became Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas.  Wanting to learn more about this interesting people, who are now limited to a small reservation in Oklahoma, I bought the book “Killers of the Flower Moon”, by David Grann which is currently being made into a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, directed by Martin Scorsese.

Mural City - Cuba, MO

   Driving on into Cuba we wanted to find a couple of the murals for which this little town is known.  It’s not hard to bump into one of the 14 murals that are located throughout the town.  Here are a few we like.

    

Lebanon, MO

 Driving out of Cuba we came upon a giant rocking chair.  We pulled over to take a picture of it.  The chair is designed to do just that, make us pull over to take a picture, and then, since we stopped, to go into the outpost/store right beside it.  We recognized that ploy and promised one another that we would take the picture but not go into the store.  Later on, in the store, while we were making our purchases we learned that the extremely personable cashier was actually a new generation “gig” worker.  She is a face painter, balloon sculptor, fitness trainer, rollerskating instructor, and best of all, a roller derby queen.  All of those professions require close personal contact with others, thus COVID was killing her gigs.  This said she was a blast to talk with and she earned her keep by selling us some overpriced sodas and gourmet popcorn.

                                    Sometimes you just can’t stay on the original “Route 66”.

In Lebanon, the Munger Moss Motel is another “National Historic Route 66 Federation” Gold Star Location.  It all began when Widow Munger married Mr. Moss and started a barbecue place.  Two owners later they have operated as a motel in this spot since 1946.  This motel is definitely a throwback to an earlier time with different expectations for traveling accommodations.  We enjoyed talking to Ramona, now the sole owner of the Motel, since her husband died two years ago.  She explained the motel used to have just regular travelers getting from point A to point B.  But, once regular Route 66 was decommissioned, a sudden interest was found in people who wanted to find the old route, travel two lane highways and stay at the old motels that once lined the road all along the way.  The business boomed and continued to do so right up until COVID.  This is the perfect place to officially start our road trip to the Santa Monica Pier

Across the street from the Munger Moss is the Starlight Lanes (bowling).  Big spender that I am I took Sandy to their snack bar for dinner.  While there we bowled a couple lines.  It surprised me to find out that neither of us are very good bowlers.  I thought we would be.

St. Louis, MO

 Our first stop in St. Loius was Ted Drewes Frozen Custard!  This is a “Route 66 Gold Star Location”.  Ted Drewes Sr. opened this custard stand on Route 66 in 1931.  He, then later his son, has been selling frozen custard here ever since.  This place is best known for their Concretes, so thick that they pass them out the window upside down.  There are not many Ice Cream shops that I pass up.  Ted Drewes is one I never will.  I think we both enjoyed our concretes.

Having lived in St. Louis for three years we were planning on meeting up with, and going out to dinner with our old next door neighbors, Russ and Carol.  Russ is a reasonably healthy man but he has been plagued with medical mishaps ever since we have known him. These mishaps include agent orange induced diabetes, Guilliain-Barré syndrome, a compound broken arm as the result of a fall in China and upon returning from a cruise in March 2020, he checked into the hospital with COVID symptoms.  Tuesday we received a text from Carol.  Dinner would have to be cancelled, Russ had fell and broke his leg above the knee.  Russ and Carol’s son is an emergency room M.D.   In this case the tuition money was well spent.     

Route 66 planning: Posted by Carl

Start of the Roadtrip

In 2008 and 2009 Sandy and I traveled the old Historical Route 66 from Chicago to Lebanon, Missouri.  (Lebanon marked by the arrow on the map to the left)  So, it is from here that we will begin this year’s road-trip on September 30. 

So to begin this trip we needed to get to Lebanon.  We chose to fly to St. Louis, rent an automobile, and then drive on to Lebanon.  Not wanting to park our own auto at the airport for one and a half months, we corralled our grandson Colin, now living here in Ohio, to drive us to the airport. This worked out for everyone except Sandy.  I drove my old beat up truck to Colin’s apartment complex and parked there, avoiding the ridiculously high airport parking fee.  Colin gets the use of the truck for seven weeks (he already has plans to pick up some new furniture with it).  The only loser was Sandy; she hates my truck; she hates the way it looks, the way it sounds, the way it smells…. she just really hates that truck.  And, she had to ride in it for one and a quarter hours to go to Colin’s place.  The truck had not stopped rolling before she had hopped out of it.  In her book, this first leg of the trip was not going to be a high point.

In payment for the ride to the airport we took Colin to “Son of Thurman”, in Galena Ohio.  Good bar food.