Chasing the Spirit of Route 66 - Missouri to Oklahoma

Written 1/11/24

This is the 2nd entry of a 3-part series about my dream to drive Route 66. It presents the day-by-day summarization of the first half of our travels from St. Louis, Missouri to Las Vegas, Nevada, loosely following Route 66 and driving through the states of: Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada.

We used a share-a-ride service to LaGuardia airport in New York. At the time, they had a great airport rate of $75 for two passengers. We lucked out, we were the last pick up before the airport. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare.

SNAFU ahead!

We arrived approximately 2-1/2 hours early for our flight at LaGuardia airport in New York, and remarkably able to scoot through security quickly. We even had time to “grab and go” breakfast in the terminal. After we ate, we walked towards our gate and checked the arrivals board to make sure there were no changes with terminal and gate. We planted ourselves in seats near the window of our gate, and relaxed. It was easily 90 minutes before the plane would start loading passengers. Eventually a boarding agent came to tag our bags, that’s when we learned that the flight he was tagging for was NOT St. Louis! Truly we don’t remember any announcements or notifications or anything. After the disbelief and frustration passed, we spoke to an agent who was able to get us onto the next flight to St. Louis. It was at a different terminal but at least it was still boarding.

St. Louis, MO to Kansas City, MO

Friday, September 30, 2016

Three hours later than planned, we arrived in St. Louis. Luckily, our arrival in St. Louis and car pick up went flawlessly. While at the Hertz service window, the associate seemed genuinely curious about our plans and asked a few questions about why we were taking our road trip to Las Vegas, specifically why we’d want to spend so much time in the car. I remember thinking to myself, why wouldn’t someone drive to other cities from St. Louis, it still blows my mind that driving approximately 4 hours in any direction, there is a well-known city, sometimes in another state.  We were now only 2 hours behind schedule, but our only real plans left for the day were to eat St. Louis ribs in St. Louis (we missed out on this during our first trip to St. Louis) and drive to Kansas City, Missouri.

It didn’t take long for me to acclimate to the Nissan Rogue, but I was glad we were staying local while I did. Our next stop, lunch at Bogart’s Smokehouse in the historic district of Soulard, St. Louis. It’s a small corner store restaurant. We parked on the street. Like many barbecue places, they will close early if they run out of food. It was still early in the afternoon when we arrived, we were seated without delay. The food was plentiful and delish! So happy that we weren’t so delayed that we missed out on eating here. I would have been very sad.

Upon finishing our lunch, we headed west on I-70 and aimed to stop at Ozarkland approximately midway between St. Louis and Kansas City. Ozarkland is a large souvenir shop in Kingdom City, MO and near to I-70. This seemed like a good place to walk around and stretch our legs. We arrived just about 6:30PM and 30 minutes later we were back on the road with a bunch of chocolate fudge, some other snacks and drinks for the road. Our chosen hotel for the next two nights was the Adams Mark Hotel and Convention Center in Kansas City. (PERMANENTLY CLOSED – possibly a casualty of COVID in 2020). Having no plan other than getting to the hotel, we ate a small dinner at the hotel restaurant shortly after we dropped our luggage off in the room.

Full week road trip plotted A through I. The drive for September 30, 2016 is shown A - B.

Photo 1: view while driving along I-70 (Dwight D Eisenhower Hwy)

Photo 2: Ozarkland in Kingdom City, Missouri

Photo 3: windshield view of sunset along I-70

Kansas City, MO to Kansas City, KS

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Since the baseball game was in Missouri, and I thought it was in Kansas (see part 1), we didn’t have any plans for the state of Kansas (something to go back for!). The baseball game was late afternoon, so we took the opportunity to drive over to Kansas City, Kansas for lunch. It wasn’t far, about a 30-minute drive each way. We ate lunch at Granite City Food and Brewery which is near the Legends Outlets. This was our first time at Granite City, it seemed quiet, maybe it was busier in the evenings. After lunch, we sat on a bench near the fountain at the outlets. We also picked up souvenirs (magnets and T-shirts). Of note, the shoppers dressed differently than in NYC, more t-shirts and jeans and less black clothing in general. Also, we saw tornado shelter signs, that showed you where to go in case of a tornado. That’s not something you’d think about in New York, so it struck me as significant. By this time, we were wishing we had more time in both parts of Kansas City, but we only allotted one full day, expecting that we’d return for a longer vacation one day. The next day, Sunday was planned to be a travel day since we weren’t sure what might be open on a Sunday in Kansas and Oklahoma. It was also planned to be the longest driving day (5 and a half hours).

Photo 1: View from Adams Mark Hotel of the football & baseball stadiums (in the distance)

Photo 2: Fountain at Legends Outlets in Kansas City, KS (brightened by photoshop)

Photo 3: Fountain inside Kauffman Stadium (I've used this photo elsewhere too!)

Kansas City, MO to Wichita, KS to Oklahoma City, OK

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Although I expected us to check out and get on the road early, it probably worked out better that we didn’t. Instead, we spent time exploring Kansas City, Missouri.  We ate breakfast at a nearby Denny’s then took a guided trolley tour of Kansas City from Union Station. I really like visiting the different Union Stations. The tour was about 90 minutes, and we left Union Station between 2-3PM and on the road heading south on I-35 to Oklahoma City, OK. If we drove nonstop, we’d arrive between 7-8PM.  Since it was Sunday, and we were in an unfamiliar area, we planned to eat dinner between 4-5PM, in case no restaurants were open In Oklahoma City when we arrived. After about 2 hours, I stopped at Bazaar Cattle Pens on I-35 to take some photos and stretch. We were back in the car, pretty quickly and drove one more hour to Wichita, Kansas where we planned to stop for dinner. It was just about dusk when we pulled into Wichita. Wichita was uncomfortably quiet, almost desolate. I drove through the city streets for about 10 minutes, but neither of us saw any restaurants that were bustling with business. A little deflated, I drove back to I-40. Later along the way, we stopped for gas and picked up snacks to eat in the car. I was surprised to see slot machines in the lobby of the convenience store area.

The drive was peaceful and scenic. I wish I could take photos while I was driving. Watching the sunset without buildings blocking the view was incredible. The land is so flat you can see so far into the distance in every direction. The open road really does appeal to me.

We rolled into our hotel parking lot around 9:30PM, a lot later than planned. Good thing we didn’t wait to eat dinner in Oklahoma City. Our hotel for the night was Hyatt Place Oklahoma City Airport (PERMANENTLY CLOSED) approximately 3 miles outside the center of Oklahoma City, OK. We settled into our room a little after 10:00PM.

Full week road trip plotted A through I. The drive for September 30, 2016 is shown B - D.

Photo 1: Union Station Kansas City, Missouri

Photo 2: Missouri River and Heart of America Bridge on the left (we saw this on the tour)

Photo 3: Bazaar Cattle Pens on I-35 in Kansas

Oklahoma City, OK to Amarillo, TX

Monday, October 3, 2016

Since we arrived late in the evening, we didn’t get to see any sights or attractions as we drove into the area. I did have notes that I wanted to eat at a historic restaurant, so at least we had a loose plan. Our day started later than I’d hoped, but it seemed to be a developing trend for the week. We took a tour of Bricktown, a section of Oklahoma, and ate lunch in a historical restaurant called, Cattlemen’s steakhouse. The restaurant was in a different part of Oklahoma City called Stockyards City.  We left the area around 3PM and hopped on I-40 to our next destination, Amarillo, TX.

Amarillo, Texas was less than 4 hours away, that should put us in the area around 7:00PM, giving us an opportunity to grab dinner in the city. At this point in the trip I-40 is also Route 66 in parts. About an hour into the drive, I saw Oklahoma Route 66 Museum. I wanted to stop; it was 4PM – they closed at 5PM. There wasn’t enough time to go through all the rooms at a comfortable pace. We ran through the museum rooms, and I took tons of photos to look at later. My guess is you’d need maybe 2-3 hours, and we had the one. We also seemed to be the only people in the museum, likely because it was 4PM on a Monday in October. Not exactly prime visiting hours but no one seemed to mind that we were there until closing.

Now a little less than 3 hours away, our arrival time would be close to 8PM. I tried to make up some time by making a non-stop drive to our next hotel, Courtyard Amarillo Downtown. Routes 66 and I-40 seem to separate at this point, running somewhat parallel to each other. For time’s sake, we stayed on I-40 most of the way.  The main difference is that I-40 passes by most of the towns whereas Route 66 is more local. Frequently, an exit from I-40 to a nearby town used the original Route 66 path. We arrived at the hotel around 8PM, checked in, dropped our luggage off and after driving around the area looking for somewhere to eat, we opted to return to the hotel and eat in the lounge.

Full week road trip plotted A through I. The drive for September 30, 2016 is shown D - E.

Photo 1: A highlighted path of Route 66 on a map of the United States

Photo 2: Road Closed sign - representing the decline of Route 66

Photo 3: Inside a theater area of the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma

Closing Thoughts

In ways, we accomplished a lot in the first four days of our trip, but it still feels like we didn’t see enough in any of the cities we visited. During those days I drove 900 or so miles, and we sat in the car probably close to fifteen. Up next will be the final four days of our drive west from St. Louis to Las Vegas.

Things I learned from experiencing this trip: Setbacks will happen. Try to make the best out of them. I love driving on roads where you can see for miles in any direction, where you can see where the sky meets the horizon. I want to take more photos!

Things I keep in mind when organizing a trip for myself: Go back for more. This trip was only planned to be a glimpse of each city/state. I hope to go back to each state and city, and experience more!  I want to take photos of each of the cities at night. I think that would be a wonderful collection of photos to be able to share.

 Some information, such as baseball game information and directions were sought by using ChatGPT and Perplexity.

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