With a goal of getting out of the house by 8am, I was able
to kick everyone into action and be on the road by 8:30am. Not too bad!
We didn’t even find ourselves circling back because someone forgot
something.
As we were pulling out of the driveway, I said to
Steve…so…which way? Google Maps said
I-80 was more direct, but the southern route which follows the old Route 66 may
be more fun. After a brief moment of
contemplation, we both decided Route 66 would be more fun. So, we ended up heading down alongside the
old Route, with me reading from my old vacation blog and all of us recalling
fun stories from that amazing trip.
We hit Springfield, IL at around noon, so I suggested lunch
be at an old Route 66 institution: the
Cozy Dog Inn, home of the original Corn Dog.
Not too far off of our path, we soon found ourselves in the midst of
Route 66 memorabilia enjoying corn dogs, hamburgers and really yummy fries!
It was decided that dinner be in Joplin, MO not only because
we would be there around dinnertime, but because we would be supporting their
economy after they were devastated by a huge tornado nary a year ago. Dinner was at the Red Hot & Blue, which
is located just south of the devastated area.
My kids thought that it didn’t look too bad, but I reminded them that it
has been a year, and where you see empty lots…those are probably buildings that
fell victim to the tornado.
Back on the road again, we watched the sun set, and the kids
settled in for a nighttime of sleep…well, except Andy. He had slept all day! He did take one of the late shifts, but it
was through a lot of construction, so I kept waking up as I would hear him go
onto the shoulder.
Sadly, a lot of my favorite places along Route 66 were
passed in the night including Cadillac Ranch, Mid-Point Café (I’m still waiting
to get an ugly crust pie from there some day) and Tucumcari, NM.
The sunrise was equally beautiful, and I was able to get a
few photos at dawn once into New Mexico.
A quick stop at McDonalds for breakfast and a ‘pit stop’ and we were
back on our way. When we got to Holbrook,
AZ, we needed gas, so we took the opportunity to drive through it and show Pete
Joe and Aggie’s Café and the Wigwam Motel where we had stayed in a Tee Pee on
our Route 66 trip! Sadly, Pete remembers
none of it as he was only three.
Lunchtime found us in one of our favorite stops along the
route, Williams, AZ, just south of the Grand Canyon. I recalled that we had enjoyed pie at the
Pine Country Restaurant on our Route 66 trip (there’s a theme here!), so we
stopped there again, had lunch, and finished with the largest piece of
blueberry cream pie you’ve ever seen!
One fun game that we played in the car was Mad Libs. If you’ve never played it, you ask people for
nouns, verbs and adjectives, and then plug them into a prewritten story. Some pretty funny things can come out of the
story like “Disco Squatting” and ‘The planet closest to the sun is called
Kathy.”
As the afternoon pressed on, we were nearing the 32 hour
mark of having been in the car when we decided that 36 hours may have been a
bit too much. Those last few hours were
TOUGH! We were both done driving, but we
were in California traffic and didn’t feel confident turning the reigns over to
Andy or Emily. So, we pressed on,
arriving at our hotel around 7:30pm local time (9:30pm home time…so just a
little over 36 hours) We freshened up,
headed out and found ourselves at a California Pizza Kitchen. So it’s a chain…it’s got California in the
title! After a very yummy dinner, we
headed back and that was the last thing I heard for a long, long time. I haven’t been that tired in a long
time. Tomorrow…VidCon/Disneyland!
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