Day 1 - Getting our Kicks

After a short hiatus (stupid Covid), Adventures of Monkeyhouse, is back on the road.  Side note:  Adventures of Monkeyhouse is a travel blog I started about 11 years ago to capture the details of some of our adventures for friends and family. Even though my sister hates the name and thinks it is stupid, it has stuck.  Enjoy!

With our options for more exciting travel being basically non-existent, we hit the road like everyone else and headed West.  Not to be deterred by the fact that Arizona and Utah are basically Covid petri dishes, our plan is to stay off the grid with our 4Runner, a rooftop tent, and a desire to visit the amazing natural landscapes and monuments that typically get overlooked in favor of the bigger named parks, but are stunning nonetheless.  With less than 2 weeks of planning we were off. 

The smart way to get 2000+ miles West is obviously to fly (not happening), or to power through a day or two of interstate driving to get to the interesting stuff.  Of course, that is just not how we roll.  Damon has had a lifelong dream to drive Route 66 and relive the romanticism of travel from days gone by.  In planning our Route 66 journey, I looked up EVERY nostalgic, historic, weird and absurd thing we could possibly stop at.  And we stopped at darned near every one.  

But before I get to that, I have to comment on the prep work required to get me to agree to spend 9 days camping in state parks with no promise of toilet or shower facilities.  Starting with the rooftop tent – it sits on top of the car, unfolds to a large queen size bed, has a 3” memory foam mattress, and multiple skylights for star-gazing.  We also are roughing it with two king size pillows and god’s gift to comfort – the CostCo king size Sherpa blanket.  We also have a 5-gallon solar shower, a battery-operated fan for inside the tent, Christmas lights strung inside the tent for ambiance, and enough food to sustain us for the foreseeable future.  Now if only there was a solution to the toilet, or lack thereof, that does not involve climbing off the top of the car down a metal ladder in the middle of the night in pitch black darkness.  More on the tent later...

Back to Route 66 state by state starting with ILLINOIS:  Our first stop was the Gemini Giant statue.  Back in the 1960’s, a bunch of really tall fiberglass “Muffler Men” were created as advertising icons.  The Muffler Men are scattered all over the country with some still remaining on Route 66.  I tried to get Damon to stand under his crotch for scale but he was not into that idea.  Sadly, the old fashion-y ice cream shoppe was closed due to Covid.  The first of many casualties as we were to find out.

Second stop, Ambler’s Texaco Gas Station – one of several historic gas stations famed for being the longest operating gas station along Route 66 dispensing fuel for 66 continuous years until 1999, now a visitor center but also closed due to Covid.

Our third stop started our foray into the “World’s Largest” category with the first entrant being the Railsplitter Covered Wagon, aka the largest covered wagon in the world (yes world, per Guinness) with a giant Abe Lincoln reading a law book.  Because what else would he be doing in the largest covered wagon in the world.  Very impressive indeed.

We skipped over Lincoln’s tomb due to time constraints, but since that is more historical and less weird, we figured it was an acceptable sacrifice, bringing us to our second Muffler Man – the “Lauterbach Muffler Man”.  Apparently, he used to hold a tire but was recently upgraded to be more patriotic and is now sporting a US flag.  ‘Merica.  Another bit of trivia – poor guy’s head was blown off during a tornado in 2006, but he seems to have his head on straight now.  Ba dum dum.

Our next two stops were slight disappointments – the Soulsby Service Station – an itty bitty Shell station.  Closed.  Not gonna lie – I didn’t get out of the car for that one.  

While driving from the gas station to our next stop, we were on the old historic Route 66 which was actually cool – you could imagine how it wound through the rural towns – these roads were designated Route 66 from either 1926-1940 or 1930-1940 depending on where we were. 

The other disappointment was Henry’s Rabbit Ranch – some weird showcase of live bunnies plus the “world’s largest” collection of VW Rabbits.  Who doesn’t want to play with bunnies during a pit stop?!?  Sadly, the Rabbit Ranch was also closed for 4-5 weeks for “medical reasons”, although we did look around at a bunch of rusted out VW Rabbits, a bunch of old rusted trucks, and a rickety old building.  In an interesting twist, we did see one live bunny hopping around – Damon chased it but it out-hopped him.

To finish off the day, we visited the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle, which is actually a water tower in the shape of a catsup bottle.  If you are wondering what the difference is between Catsup and Ketchup, because we were, they are basically the same thing; the Ketchup spelling became prevalent in the 1880’s, and now it is more of a regional/country difference in what you call it.

We ended the day in St Louis, stayed with a friend, ordered in dinner, drank way too much wine and enjoyed what could possibly have been our last comfy bed & shower.  

Thanks, LaDawn – five stars!