Day 2 - Let's talk about Uranus

Our second day started with a socially distant outdoor coffee meet up with another friend at Panera, no, we are in St. Louis – it was St. Louis Bread Company!  Visit was way too short.  Miss you Noony!

Route 66 MISSOURI 

First stop today was the Jesse James Museum.  Primary reason for stopping here was to re-create a picture taken at the same spot 27 years ago when my sister a friend and I drove Route 66 in 1993.  At least I think it was the same place…  I guess some stuff changes in 27 years.  Once again, the insides were all closed and it was raining, so we took a few pictures and moved on.

Our first World’s Largest today was a bit of a misnomer, as we were only able to find the SECOND largest rocking chair (certified by Guinness) since it was demoted when Illinois built the now largest rocking chair in 2015.  The second largest rocking chair is, however, the first largest rocking chair on Route 66.  Keep up.  To qualify, the chair had to actually rock, which it did for a while, but apparently was so terrifying in motion that it is now permanently welded to its base.  It was raining but we still had some good “for scale” shots.

Moving on, the one stop I was looking forward to more than any other.  My 12-year old sense of humor was massively entertained by our stop in, yes this is a real place, Uranus, Missouri.  Home to the Uranus Fudge Factory.  

To say the puns were never ending is an understatement and I’ll not repeat them here because I am a mature adult and not everyone likes a good joke about Uranus.  Originally, we planned to blow through Uranus (oops), but decided that a quick look at the fudge in Uranus was probably worth it (oops again).  When we entered Uranus (I did it again), we were greeted with a hearty “Welcome to Uranus” and shopped the merchandise – I came close to buying a shirt expressing my love for Uranus,

but we decided to just stick with our main goal – getting fudge from Uranus.  Which we did.  Oh, we did also see the world’s largest belt buckle in Uranus.  Forgot to take a for scale picture, but it was taller than me.

After having some fun in Uranus, we departed Uranus to continue our journey, sadly, we didn’t have time to cheer on the local sports team, the Uranus Pirates.  

Okay, I think it is all out of my system.  Damon is relieved.

Our next two stops were more photo ops than anything else starting with the Historic Rock Fountain Court Motel.  In the 1920’s, these 9 cabins were popular because they faced the road – not much else to say about them.  I didn’t get out of the car.  

Then we hit the Route 66 Drive In – still operating after 90 years!  Love the choice of movies playing – still a few decades behind the times with Grease and Dirty Dancing.

We left Missouri for a very brief 13-mile foray into KANSAS

where we headed for the town of Galena with their famed “Murder Bordello” and the supposed inspiration for the movie Cars (the town, not the bordello).  The bordello supposedly had some murders go down and is now haunted.  I think they painted it gray to seem more haunty.  It was closed so we can’t prove or disprove the haunted theory.  

The town was like 2 blocks long and the only other people we saw was a family of tourists visiting the Cars cars.  Damon kept asking where tomato was and I had to correct him that we were looking for Towmater, not a tomato.  And he is the one with kids.

We entered OKLAHOMA 

for the first sun of the day late afternoon, which made stopping at the historic Hole in the Wall gas station/Dairy King a must do.  Damon always feels guilty if we take pictures when something is open without buying stuff, so he had an ice cream cone.  

Given how late in the day it was and how far we wanted to get before setting camp, we skipped Totem Park without seeing the World’s Largest Totem Pole (sad, not sad) because the Catoosa Blue Whale just seemed like a better use of or time.  Imagine pulling off the road to take a dip in a swimming hole with a ginormous fiberglass whale with a 2-foot slide into the water.  We were too late to go swimming so we perused the whale innards and moved on.

For our final stop of the day, we made a run for POPS of Arcadia – home to roughly 600 flavors of pop (or soda for you non-Chicagoans).  They closed at 9 and we were trying very hard to get there by 8:30 so we could grab a late dinner and some fun flavored pop.  We may or may not have been delayed after getting pulled over by an Oklahoma sheriff for speeding and we may or may not have been released with a warning.  Regardless of whether that did or did not happen, we did make it to POPs at 8:30 for a late dinner.  I opted for a diet butterscotch root beer and Damon went for a honey cream soda.  Didn’t have time to shop for souvenirs, but there was a ridiculous array of flavors to choose from.

Our preferred campground was only 5 minutes up the road and luckily, they had a few spots left.  We set up camp quickly and were asleep by 10:30. I think we were on a lake, but we never really saw much in the light.  First night in the rooftop tent was not too bad – although for a city girl, the cicadas were insanely loud.  I tossed and turned and got a mediocre night sleep.  Damon slept like a log as per usual.  And... a picture of THE TENT!