Day #2

We started out slow, enjoying the morning in our nice room. We finally loaded up and headed out…but not very far! Our first stop was 1 minute down the road at Wrink’s Market. We thought it would be closed. Mr. Wrinkle died in 2005, and it had been closed since. But NO! His SON opened it nary one week ago! We ended up spending so much time there visiting with Terry Wrinkle and his customers (plus buying a few things) that we were REALLY late on our start to the day when we finally got going! No worries. We are on the Mother Road where they say it’s not the destination, it’s the journey..

Before we headed out of Lebanon, though, we did stop at the local Library to see their special tribute to Route 66. They had a sample motel and soda shop set up, plus the blueprints to building the road, and other collectible items. These little museums are so neat.

So, we tripped along seeing various open and closed shops and motels, taking pictures and generally gawking out both sides of the window. We did make a major stop at the Exotic Animal Paradise in Marshfield, MO. We thought we had made a horrible mistake at first when we saw their petting zoo, but once we did the ‘drive through safari’ we realized it was worth the money. The kids had a BLAST feeding the animals from the car. We had a few very forward Emus and Donkeys come right INTO the car window! Peter squealed with delight…Mom squealed in absolute fear!

We also stopped suddenly beside a replica of an old Sinclair gas station and met Gary, the nicest man! He told us all about his shop and his friends, and he gave us all signed copies of the Route 66 Pulse newspaper which had the opening of Cars and an interview with Michael Wallis on it. He was so incredibly friendly and loved having people stop in!

After that, we were headed to Kansas. We skipped downtown Joplin due to the time, and headed straight for Galena. As we wandered toward Kansas, Pete decided he’d had too much fun and it was time to nap. We entered Kansas, went about 2 miles, turned the corner at Galena and saw before our very eyes the REAL TOW-MATER!! (from the movie Cars). And, as if on cue, Pete woke up and said “It’s Mater!” Well, that was good for about 45 minutes buying T-shirts, taking pictures, and getting the whole story about the Pixar team and the truck. It was really fun. We also made sure we saw the Arch Rainbow Bridge and Eisler Brother’s store (they were given a special ‘thanks’ at the end of the Cars movie). Kansas only has 13 miles of the Mother Road, but they contain some pretty good stuff!

We made it into Oklahoma and past a few interesting towns. Vinita isn’t all I wanted it to be, though. The only place in which I was interested in eating was closed, and the drive-in restaurant in the nearby town didn’t sound so appealing in the hot sticky night. So, we ended up taking the kids to the World’s Largest McDonalds which is located in a highway oasis over Hwy. 44. I know, I said no fast food on this trip, but I decided that because it was the World’s Largest, it would somehow, in a weird way, be an okay exception to my rule. We were able to park on a side road and not have to get onto the Toll Road to enter the restaurant. Now I know how the employees do it!

So, we are now at our roadside retreat for the night. We are all exhausted and looking forward to an early tomorrow. We have about 50 more miles to go tomorrow, and we had trouble getting in all the miles we had to today! We could take two months to do this trip and still not have enough time!