St. Louis or Bust: Road Trip Day 5 (last day!)

Day 5 (April 30) of this road trip!

Last day of driving!

We woke up in OKC in our fancy hotel. Aaaaaaah! So nice!

We decide to just bust it straight to St. Louis. I’m over this driving. We woke up, grabbed Starbucks (yes, finally a Starbucks around – not that it’s great coffee but it reminds me of civilization as I know it)

We made only one Roadside America suggested stop – Pop’s Soda Ranch. It’s like a quick stop filled with hundreds of unique  (and regular) sodas. There were flavors like bacon and buffalo chicken wings. 

And then….we drove. And drove. And drove.

Seven hours and some minutes later…..we are having dinner in St. Louis with my sister. At her house. At her table. With the family. We’ve made it.

Love, Danielle

St. Louis or Bust: Road Trip Day 4 (Are we there yet?, day 4 of 5)

Day 4 (April 29) of this road trip!

We headed out from Tucumcari toward Texas. Bye bye New Mexico!

We had our spray paint ready and stopped by Cadillac Ranch. There’s so many feet of spray paint that you can’t tell what anyone adds but the aspect of legally defacing property is worth the fun stop for some reason.

From there, we headed for lunch at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo. It was big and absurd and ridiculous and a total tourist trap. This is one of the places that is always on the food channel – if you eat the 75oz steak dinner or whatever in under an hour, you get it free. This place screams ‘Merica like it’s perceived on television. This place was full of laughs for us. The hostess had some physical characteristics that I, at first, thought were part of the “country girl” costume until I realized it was legit. Then the woman who came over to take our drink order was VERY much older than anyone I’ve ever seen working. I had to ask her to come back in a few minutes because I was giggling too much. It was all just. So. Much. The food was actually pretty good for a tourist trap.

Also on the way to OKC was one of the stops that I had found on Roadside America, the Groom Cross in Groom, Texas. I was not sure it was worth the stop so we drove by and I saw this huge cross from the side of the road. Immediately, I regretted not stopping so we turned around and headed back. I'm so glad we did. It was beautiful. There was the large cross (which is like 14 stories high or something). BUT there were also life-sized replicas depicting the stations of the cross. Here are a few of them:

The rest of the trip was dedicated to just getting to Oklahoma City. We had planned for dinner at a nice steakhouse until we realized that one of us did not bring proper attire…..so we opted to stop by a diner that was on Man vs. Food – Sid’s Diner in El Reno, OK. It was good, maybe not worth the stop, and it stuck with me for the rest of the night. Blech.

 Finally, a “fancy” hotel!!! Yes for fast wifi! Yes for a huge bed with crisp sheets! Yay for no “66” anywhere! Yay for modern clean showers! Yay for new anything! We stayed at the Aloft.

Can you tell I’m over Route 66 at this point?

We are soooooo close to St. Louis at this point!

Love, Danielle

St. Louis or Bust: Road Trip Day 3 (of 5)

Day 3 (April 28) of this road trip!

Sleeping in our wigwam was actually good! It was quiet at nice and made for a decent stay.

We headed out early and would be making our way to another state – New Mexico!

We stopped by the Petrified National Forest. We drove through windy roads, got out and took a look, and then we were over it. It was beautiful, but it all looked the same after a while.

We also made a stop at the Meteor Crater. It was a bit overpriced but at that time, I just needed to stretch my legs and use a clean restroom. If you are into this type of thing, it is a great stop. We went to a few lookout points and took photos. You don’t get the enormity of the crater until you look through the various telescopes with target sites on the lower deck. That made the experience much better than looking at a giant hole.

We also did a quickie stop to see the Continental Divide.

We made a quick lunch stop in Albuquerque and headed out to our final destination for the night, Tucumcari. We booked a night at the Blue Swallow Inn.

We made it to Tucumcari. Okay, this was getting old. This was not advertised as a ghost town but sure looked it. At this point, I’m growing weary of Route 66, 66, old cars, old trucks, old gas stations, worn down towns with boarded up windows and no signs of life, and diners. Anyway…….this motel is adorable! There are murals from the Cars movie painted in the garages. The hotel feels so old but still quaint. 

We had dinner at one of the few local choices, Del's Steak house. 

Then, we headed back for some quality TV and sleep. I wouldn’t say this was my best night of sleep. I went to bed later because I was working on the computer and uploading pictures and the wifi was as slow as molasses. When I went to bed, I was immediately uneasy. I barely slept. As much as I loved this gem, this find, this SO iconic motel, I would have packed my bag and headed out of there that night if I could have. Well, and also if New Mexico didn’t scare me so much. I was spooked and then I found out the next day hours into our drive that Luba felt the same way.

Overall, New Mexico felt dark and depressing. I was going to be very happy to drive out of that state. My apologies to New Mexico-ers, maybe I didn’t see the better parts

These posts are getting as short as my tolerance for Route 66 “stuff” was. We were also getting “over” unpacking a car every night and repacking it in the morning. Well, Luba was.

Love,

Danielle