| Up early in the morning, I drove over
to see Pittsburg State University, home of the Gorillas. They won
four football national championships, two at the NAIA level and two NCAA
Division II. |
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| The stadium gate was open so I decided
to take a peek inside. |
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| Just a short dip into Missouri to start
my trip on Route 66 for the day. |
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| Just like the song says, it goes
through Joplin, Missouri. |
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| Fortunately the route is usually well
marked with these Historic Byway signs. |
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| Here it just kind of looks like a
regular road with homes along the way. |
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| Back into the Sunflower State. |
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| So "muffler men" are a thing on Route
66. They are big statues of men holding something. usually mufflers.
This one in Galena, named Frecs, is holding a pick axe. |
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| Still in Galena, more ghost signs. We
have J.B. Smith Lumber Yard, Palace Drug Store and Henry George
something or other. It's hard to read that one because there is one
over another. |
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| Another common sight on Route 66 are
old filling stations. This was once a Kan-O-Tex station. |
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| You can trust your car to the man who
wears the star. |
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| And then there are the bridges. This is
the Rainbow Curve Bridge, constructed in 1923 over Brush Creek. |
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| It is the only remaining marsh arch
bridge remaining on Route 66. |
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| In Baxter Springs, they changed an old
station into a Route 66 Visitors Center. |
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| It doesn't seem to be a bank anymore,
but I found an older photo online of the sign that indicates that it
must have been recently restored. |
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| Route 66 only goes through a small part
of southeast Kansas, so it is back to the Sooner State. |
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| First Oklahoma stop on Route 66 was
Commerce, home of Mickey Mantle. This was his boyhood home where he
lived from 1934 to 1944 and where he learned how to switch hit by
his grandfather. |
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| The Dairy King used to be a Marathon
Gas service station. |
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| When I got to Miami, I stopped off at a
local Walmart for a pee. I also saw this sweatshirt in the women's
section. If you look at it quickly, you would swear it says "best
lay ever". That's not the kind of thing you would want your mom
wearing, no matter how cool. |
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| The historic Coleman Theatre in Miami.
The Spanish Revival style building is still in use as a commercial
and entertainment center. |
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| Another old Marathon station. |
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| I still had one and a half chicken
tenders from my dinner the previous evening, so I did not need
lunch. I did want to get something from the old Waylan's Ku-Ku
Burger. It was just as well anyway because the dining room was
closed, so I got a vanilla shake from the drive-through. |
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| There is a stretch of Route 66 between
Miami and Afton that is very old and actually predates the creation
of the highway. As the original Route 66 was pieced together from
existing state highways, there was a variety of surfaces, paving and
widths. |
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| This Ribbon Road section is very
narrow, only nine feet wide. |
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| Afton, Oklahoma has seen better days. |
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| I believe this was the old Rest Haven
Motel. |
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| Doesn't look like the McKisick Jewelers
In Vinita is located here anymore. |
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| The former Western Hotel in Vinita,
built in 1894. |
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| Welcome to Chelsea and the Prior Creek
Bridge, which carried Route 66 travelers from 1926 to 1932 when
Route 66 was realigned. |
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| The old and closed Chelsea Motel. |
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