Today, we head for Kansas and Oklahoma. It is a less-confusing day because the Mother Road does not meander alongside the interstate highway as it did yesterday. It points straight to the west across sparsely-populated, gently-rolling terrain.
We have left the Ozark foothills behind. Our first stop is Paris Springs, where Gary Turner has retired to become the resident guru and sustainer of the local Route 66 tradition. He has restored a Sinclair station called the “Gay Parita”. Nearby is an old wooden garage stuffed with a half-restored tow-truck and dozens of antique service station tools and artifacts. His station has two pristine, restored gas pumps from yesteryear, each with the price set at 34 cents a gallon. Gary is a talker and fills our heads with visions of what we will see ahead.
We pass Carthage, Carterville, and Joplin with only a few stops for photos-of-opportunity. Suddenly, we find ourselves rolling across the border into Kansas. In a daze, we take a left turn onto the Main Street of Galena and drive right past the revived service station called “4 Women on the Route” without noticing it. We park further down Main Street and have lunch at a not-so-authentic, Gringo-style Mexican restaurant called Mi Torito. After lunch, we stroll back up the street to check out Grandma’s Quilts and Souvenirs. Not until we are on our way out of town does it dawn on us that there was something we were supposed to see without fail in Galena. Yep! It was “4 Women on the Route”. We drive back down Main Street to find the splendid, restored gas station. Sitting out front, sporting a set of goofy cardboard eyes, sits the rusty old tow truck that inspired the character “Tow Mater” in the Disney-Pixar animated movie Cars. Rita, one of the “4 women”, greets us and gives us a grand tour and history of the shop and restaurant. She tells us the story of how six white limousines rolled into Galena and disgorged Joe Ranft, John Lasseter, other members of the Pixar Studios creative staff, and their guide, Michael Wallis (King of the Mother Road). They were traveling the Mother Road doing research for the movie Cars. Rita has a photo of Joe Ranft, head of story development at Pixar, staring at the rusty old tow-truck, now called “Tow Tater”. They had to tiptoe around the Disney-copyrighted name “Tow Mater”.
Kansas only has 13 miles of Route 66. It takes only a few minutes for us to cross into Oklahoma. We glide slowly through Quapaw and into Commerce, the birthplace of New York Yankees slugger, Mickey Mantle. We stop for a custard cone at a 1925-vintage Marathon Oil service station, now converted to the Dairy King, a tiny little burger and ice cream shop run by a spry little old lady. Underway again, we pass through Miami, Afton and Vinita, dog-legging off the main road to see more of the sturdy old steel-truss bridges, most dating from the early 1920s. In Vinita, we stop to photograph the classic Clanton’s Café, which has a 10 ft.-tall sign out front that simply says: EAT. Fabulous! Leaving Vinita, the road is straight and relatively smooth, so we make good time from Chelsea to Catoosa, just outside Tulsa. Catoosa is the home of the big blue whale. For generations, the whale served as the centerpiece of a large swimming hole for hot, tired travelers along the Mother Road. Now, it is maintained as a park and no swimming is allowed. The whale has a fresh coat of blue paint and is as lovably bizarre as ever.
We have left the Ozark foothills behind. Our first stop is Paris Springs, where Gary Turner has retired to become the resident guru and sustainer of the local Route 66 tradition. He has restored a Sinclair station called the “Gay Parita”. Nearby is an old wooden garage stuffed with a half-restored tow-truck and dozens of antique service station tools and artifacts. His station has two pristine, restored gas pumps from yesteryear, each with the price set at 34 cents a gallon. Gary is a talker and fills our heads with visions of what we will see ahead.
We pass Carthage, Carterville, and Joplin with only a few stops for photos-of-opportunity. Suddenly, we find ourselves rolling across the border into Kansas. In a daze, we take a left turn onto the Main Street of Galena and drive right past the revived service station called “4 Women on the Route” without noticing it. We park further down Main Street and have lunch at a not-so-authentic, Gringo-style Mexican restaurant called Mi Torito. After lunch, we stroll back up the street to check out Grandma’s Quilts and Souvenirs. Not until we are on our way out of town does it dawn on us that there was something we were supposed to see without fail in Galena. Yep! It was “4 Women on the Route”. We drive back down Main Street to find the splendid, restored gas station. Sitting out front, sporting a set of goofy cardboard eyes, sits the rusty old tow truck that inspired the character “Tow Mater” in the Disney-Pixar animated movie Cars. Rita, one of the “4 women”, greets us and gives us a grand tour and history of the shop and restaurant. She tells us the story of how six white limousines rolled into Galena and disgorged Joe Ranft, John Lasseter, other members of the Pixar Studios creative staff, and their guide, Michael Wallis (King of the Mother Road). They were traveling the Mother Road doing research for the movie Cars. Rita has a photo of Joe Ranft, head of story development at Pixar, staring at the rusty old tow-truck, now called “Tow Tater”. They had to tiptoe around the Disney-copyrighted name “Tow Mater”.
Kansas only has 13 miles of Route 66. It takes only a few minutes for us to cross into Oklahoma. We glide slowly through Quapaw and into Commerce, the birthplace of New York Yankees slugger, Mickey Mantle. We stop for a custard cone at a 1925-vintage Marathon Oil service station, now converted to the Dairy King, a tiny little burger and ice cream shop run by a spry little old lady. Underway again, we pass through Miami, Afton and Vinita, dog-legging off the main road to see more of the sturdy old steel-truss bridges, most dating from the early 1920s. In Vinita, we stop to photograph the classic Clanton’s Café, which has a 10 ft.-tall sign out front that simply says: EAT. Fabulous! Leaving Vinita, the road is straight and relatively smooth, so we make good time from Chelsea to Catoosa, just outside Tulsa. Catoosa is the home of the big blue whale. For generations, the whale served as the centerpiece of a large swimming hole for hot, tired travelers along the Mother Road. Now, it is maintained as a park and no swimming is allowed. The whale has a fresh coat of blue paint and is as lovably bizarre as ever.
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