Day 3 - The Kitsch of Days Gone By

Continuing on Route 66, we back tracked to the Round Barn.  It was… a round barn.  Didn’t get out of the car.  

Next leg was a hefty 3 hours crossing over into TEXAS.  One thing I will say about this road trip is that having a destination every 30-60 minutes makes the drive go by much faster – even if the thing we are stopping at is ridiculous!  Now, since we’ve already seen a bunch of gas stations, I didn’t think that our next stop – the Art-Deco Conoco service station and diner – was going to be all that exciting – but it was a wonderfully restored old timey gas station

and the best part was the 6-car Tesla charging station on the side of it!  I guess to stay alive you must change with the times.  Damon is been gunning for a Tesla...

This is just a cool picture of our car

Next stop – Phillips 66 Service Station.  Looked like a tiny gingerbread house – but well restored!  So many of these places have vintage cars and trucks in premises to give the 50's / 60's vibe.

Next stop – the Leaning Water Tower of Groom, TX.  It is… a water tower that leans.  I'm not sure why it is the Leaning Tower of Groom when it has Britten painted on the side, but it is what it is.  When I say we stopped at every oddball thing, I was not kidding.

Next stop (the Texas panhandle was a hot spot for the weird) was the Bug Ranch (not to be confused with the Cadillac Ranch, which is yet to come.)

The Bug Ranch is an area that has a few VW Beetles mounted nose first in the dirt and the kitschy part is that people bring spray paint and tag them. 

There are also a few abandoned buildings – a gas station and a hotel.  Both buildings were covered in spray paint and overgrown with weeds.  

The store still had a bunch of stuff in it – counters and displays – all knocked over, broken glass on the floor, chairs, etc.  It is an eerie feeling of fun with the spray paint, but also a little spooky and sad because these are just dilapidated husks of what was formerly there. 

We never could find the Triangle Motel, which I can only assume was a motel in the shape of a triangle.  I’ve noticed that some folks were not all that creative with naming conventions back in the day.  Next – the so much more popular Cadillac Ranch, which I’m guessing is what inspired the Bug Ranch.  The Cadillac Ranch had cars and RVs lined up on the frontage road in both directions with people streaming in - apparently much more popular than the bug ranch.  A short walk from the road  into an open field brought us to the line of Cadillacs planted face first in the dirt with a good crowd of people spray painting them. 

Given the number of discarded spray paint cans in the vicinity (literally hundreds) and the unmistakable odor of paint in the air, and the number of people spraying each car, I’m guessing that any individual tag is only visible for a day or two before it is covered up.  Even though we did not add the Card/Weinberg gang tag to a Cadillac, we did enjoy watching and it was cool to see the colors and creativity.

Us trying to be socially responsible...  

Next stop – the Midpoint Café.  Another head scratcher as to what this was!  Literally the midpoint on Route 66 if you went end to end.  Unfortunately, it was closed due to Covid.  Luckily, there was literally no one remotely close so we could take some fun pictures in the road, which by the way, was like 150-degree asphalt.

Our final Texas stop was the one that started our discussion on Route 66 in general.  More on that in a minute.  The Glenrio Ghost Town is a small stretch of road that crosses over the Texas/New Mexico border – it was strategically placed to take advantage of tax laws and drinking laws that were more advantageous in each state.  Once the interstate was built, literally a stone’s throw away, Glenrio was bypassed completely and it died.  There are a few buildings still standing and the area is preserved as a historic landmark.  But overall kind of creepy.

At the end of the main street in Glenrio, the turnaround point makes for nice target practice, apparently.

So the discussion on Route 66 in general (so far) – we both agree that the drive had to be done and we are so glad we are doing it; however, the towns that thrived when the Mother Road snaked through them are dying or dead and most are in such a state of neglect and disrepair that it is just sad.  We passed an unbelievable number of former gas stations, motels and restaurants that just closed up shop and are boarded up, overrun with weeds and falling apart.  It reminded us so much of being in Cuba where progress just stops but life goes on.  In the case of Cuba, it was the 50’s; in the case of Route 66 – time stands still for so many of these places in the 60’s – the colors, the style, the décor.  We haven’t quite put our finger on the right word that describes what it is like, but it is somewhere between sadly nostalgic and kind of sad in general.

Moving into NEW MEXICO,

we drove through the main street in Tucumcari which kind of put Glenrio to shame – primarily because it is still a “live” town.  Roughly half (if not more) of the buildings are the empty hotels and gas stations, but there is one unbelievable gem in the midst of all of this – the Blue Swallow Motel – which apparently had been run by the same woman for the past 40 years and was just purchased by the new owner (from Illinois!) about 10 days ago.  

Each guest room has its own attached garage and each garage has unique murals painted in them. 

There is a courtyard where all of the guests socialize, and all room and outdoor décor is original from the 50’s and 60’s.  While we couldn’t enter an empty room due to Covid, we could walk around and peek in the garages and visit (from 6’ away) with some of the guests who were socializing in the courtyard.  

Highly recommend this place as a stop and would totally stay there if we ever needed lodging in Tucumcari, NM.

The rest of the day was a bit of a bust.  We tried to visit the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa – a popular place for scuba diving because it is a naturally occurring water filled hole where the water is ridiculously clear because it is replenished every 6 hours (or 6 days) – it was 6 somethings.  Supposedly 100’ visibility.  Sadly, closed due to Covid and the no trespassing signs were too prevalent to consider sneaking in. 

On a higher note, we did find a fantastic hole in the wall Mexican restaurant a few blocks away – The Comet II -  and ordered take-out to the car in the parking lot and ate our dinner off the hood of the car.  Classy.

Last stop of the day (night) was the stop I was looking forward to maybe even more so than seeing Uranus (couldn’t resist).  It was the Musical Road in Tijeras.  The story goes – if you drive a stretch of road going eastbound at exactly 45 MPH, the specially placed rumble strips in the road will play America the Beautiful.  Who doesn’t want to do that?  Given that we spent way too much time doing other ridiculous stuff, by the time we got to the spot, it was totally dark out and minutes from a massive thunderstorm.  We drove that damn road like 3 times and got no music.  After googling the crap out of it, I realized that the NM DOT recently repaved the road and decided not to put the rumble strips back in.  This is (was) literally one of two musical highways in the US and one of seven in the world!  Why couldn’t they keep it???  If you want to experience what it should have sounded like, here is a YouTube video from when it worked – so freaking cool.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgizA_vDlzs 

Side note on New Mexico and Covid – they are serious in this state.  Cases are low, mask wearing is high and they make no qualms about how much they don’t want visitors sticking around (presumably bc they are surrounded by Arizona and Texas).  In any case, nearly every possible camping spot was closed (due to Covid) so we opted for a last-minute hotel.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am a Hyatt devotee, so we found a Hyatt, used my points and luxuriated in air conditioning, a soft bed, a shower, and well, what more does one need.

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!

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!