Day 7 - Route 66 Day 5 Thursday March 11, traveled 189.8 miles today - 265.4 day b4

The morning started off with a breakfast at The Little Brick Inn www.thelittlebrickinn.com that included cantaloupe, grapes, and pineapple. Then came the large glass of orange juice, in came the Inn keeper, Amy, with scrambled eggs, sausage and tow flavorful piece of French toast, what a nice way to start the day. I noticed she was the lady on the dvd and mentioned it to her. We started talking and we said we were from southern Minnesota, Mankato. She said she didn’t know where that was but she used to visit a couple, her Aunt Lucille and her Uncle Gene B., I do not use last names in the blog, who taught at a college but she didn’t know where. Again a small world.

Off west. The day is clear and no hint of bad weather. A couple of things that stood out today were: a run down an old route 66 road. We didn’t know what to expect, but all of a sudden running 55 MPH we hit the road. The picture says it all; called the sidewalk ribbon road, it was nine feet wide, with a concrete curb on each side of tarred center road. It was busted up tar, gravel and sand. We travelled the six miles without incident and back on the highway. We met no other car on this stretch but noticed a couple fenced in bulls lounging in the early morning day.

The next stop was an old DX station in Afton OK and sporting some Packard’s, one with 12 cylinders. As we talked with Laurel, we found out she cummutes 80 one way three days a week, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The other three days of the work week she has kidney dialysis. While we talked she mentioned Gary who we met yesterday at his gas station. She said that many people could hardly get away, I said we were lucky because it started raining. A nice stop to make, took poor picture of the DX station. Back in high school I worked in a DX station in New Ulm.

We took one of the dog legs over a 1926 iron bridge. Again a rundown section of road.

Into Claremont OK, the home place of Will Rogers. Little did I know about him, in his 55 years he accomplished many things, a cowboys, Ziegfeld follies, silent movies, then talkies, radio hour, wrote a syndicated newspaper article, stood next to Presidents and joke with and about them when present.

Now it is time for lunch the ladies at the museum suggested: Hammett House and try their pies www.hammetthouse.com . Shirleen had a small bowl of cheesy broccoli and a cherry pie with a scoop of ice cream with a hot brandy-butter sauce poured over it. It came out in a hot six inch cast iron pan – just sizzling. I had their specialty country fried steak with spicy browned rice, and a great lettuce, chopped tomatoes with a thousand island spicy dressing, just scrumptious. Just noticed they did not charge for her dessert.

We drove into Tulsa and again got mixed up in the directions. Again there are a couple ways to drive thru. We did find out the southwest side of town and headed thru the neat 66 bridge.

We arrived in Bristow, OK. Neat old Chrysler, Plymouth steel girded signage. Staying in the Carolyn Inn, an old Best Western but upgraded. We ate light, at a Mexican restaurant; Los Arcos. The complimentary chips were light and tasty, the salsa left something to be desired. The Budweiser’s, a light and a regular, were just fine. Shirleen had the beef taco salad, she really liked the light and crispy shell and picked around the rest. I had two tamales covered with a meat sauce filled with a shredded beef, rice and refried beans.

Writing the blog after a long day driving and stopping along the way makes for a short memory, the next day I think of things I should have done but to bad. Yesterday we travelled one of the only original stretches of concrete four lane highway. It was around Fort Lenord Wood Army base. It was put in because of them as there needed to move heavy equipment down the road.

Jerry