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Ray 16 years, 8 months ago.
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September 28 Cuba, MO to Springfield, MO
Wow, Gasoline at $3.06 per gallon. We took a couple of side trips here that added miles, but not along the route. One took us through the Mark Twain National forest on logging roads. Logging roads here are just like those in Northern Wisconsin, but the trees are hardwood, mainly oak, not pine as in our north woods. The second side trip was to explore Handley, MO. There isn’t much to see, no city limits, no commercial buildings, no real settlement. Just a few scattered farms in varying states of disrepair.
It was interesting to stand in the middle of Hooker Cut and see no traffic. I wouldn’t have tried this 45 years ago when I first saw this area. Some area attractions are still drawing in tourists, others have failed long ago. The Munger-Moss Motel is wonderfully maintained. The ma & pa restaurants seem to be failing.
The Ozark Mountains are an attraction on their own. They are very reminiscent of the Appalachians. The geocaches along the route here are numerous, but with several gaps between clusters of them. The Hubble Replica in Marshfield, MO and the Stonehenge replica in Rolla, MO are inspiring.
Hey Beast. If you wouldn’t mind bringing back about 50 gallons of petrol for me, I’ll give you $3.16/gal for it.
It sounds like a good time so far.
@furfool wrote:
Hey Beast. If you wouldn’t mind bringing back about 50 gallons of petrol for me, I’ll give you $3.16/gal for it.
It sounds like a good time so far.
Let’s see… at a profit of $0.10/ gallon x 50 gallons…. sounds like I’ll have to bring back a lot more than 50 gallons.
Since we crossed the Mississippi, we have gas prices range from 3.06 to 3.35 per gallon. What DOES Wisconsin do with the gas taxes we have been paying?
September 29: Springfield, MO to Miami, OK.
This stretch of roadway offer a lot of Micro caches. The only non-micro we found was an urban cache in a well manicured park. it was an ammo box sitting chest high in the crotch of a tree, less than 100 feet from the parking lot . No cammo, no concealment.
Roadway along this stretch varied from 2-lane to 4-lane, most of it is speed limits were mostly at 55 mph. Joplin has grow up, while the population is 40K, the city now hosts a surprising number of multi-story buildings. Weather has been wonderful so far.
We saw a number of the well published ruins along the way, but very few tourist attractions on this part of the road. Route 66 does not seem to be as well marked along this stretch. The traveler needs to know what the present designation are (Missouri 96, 71, Kansas and Oklahoma 10, 69).
I have not been getting a lot of bandwidth when I can get wi-fi, so uploading photos has been a slow process, but they will come. We are looking forward to Tulsa and Oklahoma City today (Tuesday) possibly getting into Texas by nightfall.
September 30… Miami, OK to Oklahoma City
We awoke to find a half dozen mocking birds eating bread crumbs somebody had left for them in the Motel parking lot. We haven’t seen them since our last trip south. We also spotted mistletoe in an old oak at roadside.
This stretch of road was a curious mix of rewarding and boring. Many miles of the original 2-lane roadbed have been replaced by more modern 4-lane highway. The old road can be seen in many places, but it is now undrivable, fallen in disrepair and discontinuous. The new roadway (Oklahoma 66) takes one past these pieces of the past at 65 mph. Relics of the old glory have nearly vanished. There are some old and occasional new attractions that provide a rewarding experience for the traveler. The Arcadia, OK area offers a Historic Round Barn, Pops sports a 66 foot soda bottle, and we also spotted a derelict gas station circa 1920. The gas station has a windowbox with living flowers, well tended that belies it’s steamy history. This relic was once the scene of an unsolved murder and at an earlier time the place of a counterfeiting operation that was the reason for it’s closure.
While visiting the Round Barn in Arcadia, we met a couple from London, that was part of a Jaguar owners group traveling Route 66 as well.
October 1st. Oklahoma City to Amarillo.
We found ourselves sharing the road with the Jaguars again. It gave us the opportunity to visit with couples from Scotland, Wales and England. We found ourselves being a little truer to the older alignments of Route 66 than they were, but they we still following the route. The photos will show roadbed the Chevy took and the Jaguars did not.
We are finding that the vast majority of geocaches along this route are microcaches at roadside. Ammo boxes are rare and we have seen no tupperware.
We have been keeping to our schedule, averaging about 200 miles per day we will pass the mid point during our 6th day (tomorrow). This is actually too fast a pace for all that there is to see along the route. one could easily spend a day or two exploring each of the larger cities along the route. I wonder if anyone has tried Geocaching this route on a bicycle?
Highlights of this segment were the Bug Ranch (5 volkswagens buried nose-first at roadside); Groom, TX with it’s leaning watertower and the largest cross in the western hemisphere; and the I-40 rest stop overlooking the Johnson Ranch. Photos will be found on the Photo Album.
October 2 – Amarillo, TX to Moriarty, NM
Geocaches are rather scarce over this stretch of the road, so is civilization. Much of the Mother Road is immediately beside the Interstate, in some areas, the Interstate was laid right on top of the old highway. There is a dramatic change in scenery here. We are starting into a very arid region. Temperatures today were in the high 80’s but very comfortable due to the low humidity. Vegetation along appears stunted and deformed by the desert winds. The tallest plants are the Yucca trees. There once were many small settlements along Rt66, but the Interstate seems to have sucked the life out of those leaving a chain of ghost towns and ruins. The desert wind and vandals have nearly destroyed the structures along the old road.
Roadside eateries offer a selection of Mexican food with a limited variety of other cuisines. Townspeople and the road people are very friendly. The former will talk forever if you give them a chance. It. Has been a week since we started this adventure and we haven’t met any other geocachers.
Friday, we will be moving on into Arizona. Stay tuned folks, there is more to come.
I will make sure the grandkids check out the pics…
Hope ya’all are having a good time. We scraped frost off of the windshield today. Just thought you might want to know…
How hot is it there????
October 3 – Moriarty, NM to Holbrook, AZ.
The roadside along this stretch shows varying degrees of neglect. Some of the iconoclastic establishments has made an excellent attempt to keep their properties up, while many others have fallen to ruins. we see many old buildings boarded-up, many properties for sale. small towns along the old roadway are no longer serviced by the interstate. These towns have starved for the lack of the travelers dollars.
There is no hiding our motivation for making this trek came from the movie Cars. We are finding that the portrayal of the plight of business along the Mother Road is quite accurate.
We took a break from our geocaching long enough to visit The Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. .. Simply awesome sights. This is something to add to the list of places to take the kids. It’s right up there with Disney World.
I haven’t had an opportunity to upload the days photos yet, can’t take time just now; we have a full day of geocaching and a visit to the Grand Canyon ahead of us today.
Stay tuned, there is lots more to come.
October 4th Holbrook to Williams, AZ. 448 miles to go.
We did pass through Flagstaff about noon. We understand why Marc54140 loves this beautiful and thriving city. Nestled in the pine laden foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the city is alive while its neighbors are failing to thrive.
We started the day with the Meteor Crater and The Grand Canyon as the objects of our tourism for the day. Shortly after leaving the crater, our spirits were dampened by a rather rare (for this area) rain storm. We arrived in Williams shortly after noon and the rain was showing no hint of letting up soon. So we went and made reservations for a trip into the canyon aboard the Grand Canyon Railway. This will be a highlight of the trip. We will spend the night tonight and Sunday Night and hit the road to California Monday morning. Sunday will be spent visiting one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Many of the Rt66 still remain, but most have vanished or are rapidly vanishing. Two Guns and Twin Arrows each remains as no more than a half-dozen abandoned and seriously decaying relics of the days when Rt66 was America’s Main Street.
It is fitting that we make part of our journey by train since The Santa Fe Railroad was the forbearer of the Mother Road.
the narration and pictures are excellent!! I think many are enjoying reading your posts.
@-cheeto- wrote:
the narration and pictures are excellent!! I think many are enjoying reading your posts.
Thankyou. We hope that our journey might tempt out friends to prepare similar journals when they embark on such adventures.
October 5, Williams, AZ
On our final cache of the day October 4, we were interrupted by a young muggle couple curious about our activity. We explained geocaching and since we were about to score a dnf, we gave full details of what it was all about. Later we went back and gave the cache another try and found it. This morning, when we boarded the train, we found ourselves sitting in the seat behind Chris & Christy N. of San Diego, CA. Chris explained that he was a member of the San Diego FD. Ironic, I explained that my cousin Jon H. was a member of the San Diego FD. Chris replied that Chief Handley is the man that hired him… It made the 2 hour train ride pass very rapidly.
We spent the next three hours walking the south rim of the Grand Canyon marveling at the raw beauty of a big hole in the ground and of the forest this National Park exists in. The forest looks much like those in northern Wisconsin. With the exception that our forests have a mix of hardwoods and this forest has a mix of desert species intermixed with the evergreens. We were stopping at almost every available park bench to regain our breath as the 7k foot altitude sapped the limited strength these sexagenarians could muster. There were park visitors renting pack horses to enter the canyon and others descending into th canyon on foot for the hiking adventure of a lifetime. Trudy & I were not able to draw enough courage to venture any closer than the edge of the paved trail. There is no way we would ever descend into the depths of that man killer. We took photos, but they pale in comparison to the published photographs available from so many sources.
Chris & Christy were spending the night in the park, so we met a new set of travel partners for the train ride back to Williams. This time we found ourselves in the last seats in the observation car, seated behind a couple from Grafton, WI. This made the return time fly. The Sun was setting as we got back to the Hotel, and we were exhausted. We did not get any geocaching in, but we can geocache for another seven days; we won’t get another chance to visit the Grand Canyon for quite a while.
December 6, 2008 Williams, AZ to Barstow, CA only 90 miles to Santa Monica.
Today was our day to tackle the Mojave Desert. We started the day with a hard overnight frost that left our car in need of some serious window scraping before we could move. This is a good time to make this part of the trip since the desert temperatures drop below 100 degrees in October. In the Kingman to Oatman part of our journey the temperature peaked at only 97 degrees. We visited only 8 geocaches today, and concentrated on getting as close to our goal as we could. The sun was starting to set when we got to Barstow. We were fortunate to get here before we ran out of gas. The rare Desert gas station charges a premium for their product ($3.99 – 4.59). While here in Barstow it is a more moderate $3.59.
Tomorrow we will complete the final leg of the journey and then start our return trip. Stay tuned folks, we aint there yet.
Hi Beast,
Since your writing to us from the future, who won the World Series? I see an opportunity here.
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