Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Route 66 Leg 1 (2011)

Since I have given you a series over the past couple weeks about our recent road trip on Route 66, I decided to take you back in time to before I had this blog on our first Route 66 adventure in 2011.
  
It was just a month or so after Tyler and I were "official" and about 3 months after we initially started dating, we decided to take a roadtrip one January afternoon to see some sites on Route 66.  I'd never seen any of them although I've always lived in Oklahoma, so we started making plans.  Tyler's roommate at the time came along with us, and the two of them planned our trip to visit the sites from Oklahoma City westward.
We took 66 through parts of the city, near the State Capitol, and suburbs in Bethany and Yukon.
A blurry picture of the Oklahoma State Capitol.  In my defense, I took this picture a long time ago.

Flour mill in Yukon from Route 66.
While the boys were mapping out the course of travel, they found a place called "Smith and Turner Mortuary."  It was funny, because Tyler's last name is Smith, and my last name was Turner.  I had no clue where we were stopping until we pulled up in front of the sign and got out to take a picture.  Clever and funny, those two silly boys were.
After that stop, we headed west on different broken sections of Route 66.  Since that highway has been replaced by newer highways, you can't always drive the whole stretch without having to jump onto the new highway and get off again onto the old 66.  


We went through El Reno, and stopped at Tyler's all time favorite onion burger joint in the state of Oklahoma, Robert's Grill.




I will now speak for Tyler, and tell you that you have to eat at Robert's Grill.  Because he always tells everyone that when the subject comes up.  A nice plus to this place is that their burgers are a really good bargain, but if you're into yummy, greasy, onion burgers then the quality is great.  I'm pretty sure Tyler is a walking advertisement for this place.


There really aren't a lot of stops for Route 66 in western Oklahoma.  The first major thing you'll see once you're west of El Reno are giant windmills from the highway.






 One of the other few 66 sites along the way.



We drove west to Clinton, Oklahoma and visited the Route 66 Museum, which was very interesting.
It was filled with a lot of antiques and Route 66 memorabilia.





Tyler in the telephone booth!  I'm not sure why he is squatting though.





Don't you wish gas pumps still looked this pretty instead of the smelly ugly boxes that they are now?
I'm sure these were still smelly, but atleast they looked nice.







Did you know the first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City, and designed by professors at Oklahoma State?



After the Route 66 Museum, we headed back toward our little college town in Norman.  


But first, to stop by a tank on the side of the road.


Now both of the boys with the tank.


Just the beginning of a pretty sunset.






And really, when has Oklahoma not ended the day with a beautiful sunset?



I do believe this is about half of the Devon tower while it was under construction.  Hard to tell with the awful picture quality.



Have you ever driven any parts of historic Route 66?  What is your favorite Route 66 site?  

For those who aren't from the US, do you have any famous historic highways or roads in your country?

post signature

10 comments:

  1. imagine what the people thought back then about the gas pumps.
    good thing you're taking advantage of living so close to it and going around exploring!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I want to go back through all your route 66 posts because I've always wanted to do something like that!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ha, the mortuary photo is good... I'm sure passers by would wonder why you two would want a photo there! Also, your sunset photos get me every time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. First, just stumbled upon your blog and I love it! Second, I have an aunt named Saxon!!! (It's not everyday you meet someone named Saxon, huh??)

    ReplyDelete
  5. My husband and I did the stretch between Carthage, MO and OKC a few years ago. It was a lot of fun. There were several sections of original highway that we drove down too. Now we live in North OKC and I drive part of it everyday. I tend to forget that 23rd street is part of Route 66.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wild! I've never met anyone else named Saxon...and I think your aunt is the first other female I've even heard of with the name!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Heh, they might have seemed more ordinary back then. Part of me wonders how the glass withstood Oklahoma's wind and hail....and debris in the Springtime.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You guys should! A lot of good attractions around the Tulsa area - and if you haven't been to some of the museums in Tulsa (Philbrook and some others) you should visit those too!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Haha we must have looked quite odd! Yep, gotta love sunsets in the plains. :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Until I went back through the photos from this trip, I had also forgotten about the sections that run through town as well. I wasn't very familiar with the metro area back in college, so makes sense I would forget. haha Would love to visit some other sections of 66, we wanted to go to some places in Miami, but we didn't think there would be time for all the sites in one day.

    ReplyDelete

Copyright 2012-2014 Saxon Smith (Let's Drink Coffee, Darling). All rights reserved.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
UA-49062203-1