From Missouri into Kansas on Route 66
Springfield Missouri to Baxter Springs Kansas on Route 66
Today was a pretty short drive day, under 90 miles from Springfield Missouri to Baxter Springs Kansas.
Tony wanted to take the interstate route, so I hopped in the truck with Kate and Bailey, and we took the Bill Would route.
A “Bill Would” kind of day
If you missed my explanation before here is what I mean: our friend Bill, who toured the western portion of Route 66 with us in February, and with whom we have gone on several fantastic road trips, likes to go all the way with an idea. For instance, for Route 66 Bill’s goal was to drive every inch of drivable “old route” that he was able. To that end, sometimes on our work days in February, Bill would backtrack with his truck (and no trailer) and pick up miles of route that we had to skip with three travel trailers. When Bill finished the route from Albuquerque to Chicago (in phases), he covered as much original road as possible.
So on this trip, often we are trying to decide whether to get on the interstate and make good time, or stay on the original route and see every giant rocking chair, every neon sign, or every old service station… Sometimes, as the navigator, I leave it up to the driver by stating “Bill Would” - meaning Bill would take the old route - and the driver can choose the route. Today Tony chose the interstate and Kate and I chose the Bill Would route from Springfield to Baxter Springs.
Between the Roadside 66 app, Bill’s original spreadsheet of attractions to see, and our collection of guidebooks, Kate and I are pretty interested in getting as many “rubber stamps” in our souvenir books as we can collect, and checking off the Goofy USA destinations available on the Mother Road.
As I said, it was only 80-something miles so we had absolutely no reason to rush. Kate and I decided to check off as many places as possible.
Stickers
I found a few places on this trip to put a sticker. I only put stickers where there are already a whole bunch of them, and if anyone is in charge, I get permission. I think the first opportunity we had on this trip was at the new Giants gift shop in Atlanta, Illinois. A short time ago we had new stickers printed, so now we need to track where they are so we can go back and find out if they stand up to the weather better than the first batch did.
Small Towns, Window photos
We passed several small towns. Many of them had a photo opportunity, which was worth rolling down the window (and suffering the cold wind of the day) and snapping a photo. Most weren’t worth looking for a parking spot.
An old Service Station worth the stop
There was one notable exception. What we thought would just be another in a long line of abandoned service stations, Gary’s Gay Parita station in Ash Grove Missouri was a really interesting place to visit. We thought we would snap a photo out the window, but we got out and ended up spending about half an hour looking around. There are a bunch of old cars, lots of license plates and vintage signs, a couple sticker walls, a few buildings filled with memorabilia, and a nice proprietor.
According to the Roadside 66 app, Gay Parita was named for the original owner, Gay (by her husband), and is among the few stations to be named after a woman. I’m not going to research that. I’ll just take it for what it says. Parita is apparently Italian for “equal,” not Gay’s last name.
They have a new window sticker, too.
Kate has many monitors on her dash, she said it feels like a cockpit
Solo driver tip from Kate
I was riding with Kate, so we could talk about where to stop and what we were seeing. I learned that Kate has a way of staffing locations that she wants to review on her dash cam footage. Using Siri, she asks her phone to add a time and a short note to a list in her Reminders app. At the end of the day, she can check her list of time stamps and find the corresponding video. Sometimes this helps identify something that she passes to fast to see, other times it’s a reminder of a place she wants to save for future trips.
Carthage Missouri
I snapped photos out the window as we drove through Carthage. Tony and I have stayed there in the past, and took the side-route to Red Oak II, a town build by an artist by moving a bunch of Missouri buildings to his property and building a town to recreate the hometown of his youth. It’s worth a side trip some time, if you aren’t towing a travel trailer.
We did drive over the Whee Bridge!
Joplin Missouri
We met back up with Tony in Joplin. After all, he could’t skip Joplin, it’s right there in the song lyrics. We found a big parking lot, ate leftovers from the fridge, then Tony headed to the campground to stake out a couple of sites in cast it got crowded since it’s first-come-first-served. Spoiler: it did not get crowded. Haha
Kate and I visited the Joplin History and Mineral Museum. From the Roadside 66 app, we knew this was the location of the cookie cutter museum. But it’s so much more.
Yellow Brick Road meets Route 66 at the Kansas Missouri border.jpg
Welcome to Kansas
We crossed into Kansas and found where the Yellow Brick Road meets Route 66. Here is a photo. I also made a silly video. Tony made a reel. Have you seen it?
Luigi’s Pit Stop
The app told us we were approaching Luigi’s Pit Stop. It did not tell us how surprised we would be to see the spectacle of arriving at the Pit Stop. The big gorilla on the overpass was quite the surprise!
A big nod to the Cars movie, Luigi’s has cutouts, models of the start cars, the sheriff car on a stick, a sticker pole (with a new sticker!), and a pretty Route 66 shield that cars can drive through. We didn’t, because of the trailer, but we met up with Larry and Percy von Motorßtrasse, who we had met in Springfield and Tony interviewed about Larry’s Route 66 adventure, and I got a photo of Percy in the shield.
Just around the corner, we stopped at the gift shop where the story is that Mater was conceived. It was a fun little shop and I added another sticker to their window.
Galena, Kansas
We just drove through taking out-the-window photos.
No wait, that’s not right at all!
We definitely had to stop when we found a Muffler Man! According to Roadside 66, he is Big A, the Texaco Giant. He is waving and holding a wrench, and he sports a white mustache and cool long goatee.
Doc Hudson is also parked here, and the old filling station is a gift shop, naturally. I picked up a Big A pin for Tony, put a sticker on the window, and we took a bunch of photos and happily carried on.
Rainbow Arch Bridge
We took a wrong turn and skipped this, but went back after we got to camp and dropped off the trailer.
Built in 1923, this is reportedly the only Marsh Arch Bridge. A quick search tells me that Iowa bridge designer James Barney Marsh patented the reinforced concrete-and-steel through-arch design in 1912.
Kate dropped me at the west end, then drove to the east end so I could video her driving over the bridge. It was still chilly and windy, so y’all should be happy about my dedication. Hahaha. Then we drove it again so I could film the experience.
Baxter Springs, Kansas
A cute little town, we unfortunately didn’t arrive in time to go inside the Visitor Center. We checked some boxes on the app, and headed to camp.
We spent the night in the Baxter Springs City Park campground. They do offer full hookup sites, but we opted for power and water only, as it was just one night and our next stop is FHU.
Fall Fell
Today was cold and windy. Compared to the oppressive humidity and heat of Springfield, it was welcome and surprising. I had my sweatshirt ready to take to Kate’s truck in the morning, but forgot it in the trailer. I survived, but a couple times I wished I had more warmth!
Overnight in Baxter Springs, the temperature got into the 30s. I’ve not yet looked at the forecast for our trip, it’s a balance between heading south and west-ward and getting deeper into October. I think it was a fairly short-lived cold snap, because the Baxter Springs forecast jumps back up by 20 degrees or so in the next couple days.
