Was up at 07h00 this morning to watch the Liverpool vs. Man United match and then made my way to the Will Rogers memorial. It’s a museum dedicated to Claremore’s most famous son – he was an actor, radio broadcaster and all round media guy from the early 20th century.
Following a brief drive back downtown, I checked out JM Davies’ gun museum – it houses over 50,000 guns – the largest personal collection of guns in the world. I saw some great examples of pro-war posters there also – how the US government (Uncle Sam) tried to get men to inscribe to the army – how they tried to increase productivity locally to make sure that weapons where being made quickly for solders. Also they had some artifacts from Desert Storm and other battles in the Middle East – very interesting stuff!
Another short drive on, I found the giant blue whale at in Catoosa. It used to be part of a great area where families could swim and picnic – not any more though. It just remains as a symbol of its past now.
Oklahoma is the only state where a lot of the old Route 66 still remains intact, so a lot of the early part of today’s driving was on road with other cars!! I did however find a small detour of dirt road across a 1933 iron bridge (thanks mainly to spotting two people on a bike taking some pictures). Following this dirt road and through some really nice bendy countryside road, I found the ghost town of Depew.
It continues to amaze me that towns like this still exist and remain untouched. I was there for 5 minutes and did not see a single person. A lot of the shops were now closed down and empty. It had a real Wild West feeling to it. I got my pictures and drove on out of there.
Food was calling. I read that the Rock Café in Stroud burned down and was potentially going to be rebuilt – well it has been and I stumbled on it by chance. As I sat there alone planning my way to Oklahoma City a very friendly lady invited me to join her and her husband at their table. It turned out that it was the same couple that I had seen on the bridge earlier. We had lunch together, spoke about all kinds of stuff and they let me try some of Oklahoma’s specialties (all fried of-course). So, did you know that fried okra is a must around these parts? I also tasted fried tomato and chicken steak – which I always thought would be made of chicken but is made of the cheapest part of cows, grinded and then cooked to make it a little less tough. It tasted…hmm, okay…I tried it at least! They were both so friendly though and paid for my lunch – I look forward to returning the favor when they come to Europe in a few years.
My next stop was Arcadia where I stopped to see the Round Barn built back in 1898 and Pops. Pops houses some 500 different types of soda – truly amazing and a kids’ heaven. As I had drunk two root beers at lunch I decided to pass on more sugar juice. I did pick up a couple of t-shirts for the young Taylor boys though – and one for myself of course.
Final stop for the night was at the Taylor’s in Oklahoma City (Mid West City). I met Jennifer first in 1999 when I was studying in Trier, Germany. Eleven years later I am knocking on her front door asking for a room. It was great to also meet Trent and the young boys Tristan and Logan. I wished at that moment that my boys were also close by. In the evening we went to a German restaurant for dinner and then had some wine on the deck in the garden later on.
All in all it was a really fun day. It was one of the shortest driving days (only about 170 miles) so I was able to stop at places a little longer and take my time. Thus far I have met some great people and today was no different. It’s safe to say that I am about 970 miles into my Route 66 adventure and loving every minute of it.
Tomorrow will be a fairly long 250 mile drive to Amarillo, TX. Click here to see my route so far.
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