COWBOYS AND INDIANS

Hi Everyone

OMG it’s hot hot hot – temperature at 7.30 a.m. was 82 deg F and in the p.m. here it was 103F!  All I can say is thank goodness for air conditioning in the car.  But when you get out of the car the air just sucks the oxygen from your lungs.

We had a slight hiccup before we departed Tulsa this a.m. – the car yesterday showed the red light for the oil (which apparently was due to be serviced).  A phone call to the car rental company who were very good (took a bit for me to understand their accent LOL), but anyway, they arranged for us to swap the car over for another one from their depot at the Tulsa airport – and the staff there were so nice and helpful. 

We decided to head out of town via the freeway.  We’re finding it very difficult to find route 66 in the a.m. when we’ve been off the route at a motel or something.  We rejoined the route at Supulpa (can’t pronounce this at all)

So from Supulpa we went through small towns, more murals, not much of interest, though we did find some of the very original red brick route 66 – only about ½ a mile of it, most of it these days is a concrete road.

In Oklahoma we went to the cowboy and native Indian museum.  Lots of art, but also cavalry uniforms/American Indian clothing, beading etc.  Plus a huge marble statue of a horse and Indian. 

An Edsel parked up on the roadside and for sale

The only fully round barn in the USA

The neon (though not lit because daytime) outside  Pops - a soda pop shop

This store sells over 600 different soda pops from around the world, and Neil counted 28 different gingerbeers in one fridge

The glass external walls aligned with soda pop bottles

The immitation small town inside the Cowboy and Indian Museum in Oklahoma City

This is the marble statue inside the museum

A few of the 18 fridges of pop

We had intended to stop at Weatherford for the night but all the motels we checked out were too expensive, so we moved onto Clinton where we want to go to the Route 66 Museum tomorrow. However… I have always thought Ramada Inns had a good reputation which is why we came here – sorry – but what a dump.  The fridge in our room doesn’t work, we’ve complained and gotten it replaced, the paint work and paving outside is tatty.  Most places we’ve stayed have been ok,  with only one place where the plumbing etc was suspect, but this place, though clean in our room is sadly neglected on the outside.  Oh well, I suppose you get what  you pay for, but we are disappointed. 

We weren’t  sure where to get some food and couldn’t find a grocery store.  Over the last few days people have recommended we try toasted ravioli and the Imo’s thin crust pizza which are specialties of Missouri – however, we missed out trying them in Missouri, but found a Mazzio’s Italian restaurant and went there.  Yum.  Toasted (fried) ravioli, is absolutely yum and the thin crust pizza  pretty darn good too.

Some more observations.   Everywhere you go, even in the smallest of towns there are lots of eating places – mostly fast food of some kind – and since we hit Missouri and Oklahoma it’s like the churches are trying to catch up numbers-wise with the fast food places. 

One sad thing we noticed too was after we left Oklahoma today we saw a small amount of devastation from recent tornados.  Trees broken and tossed every which way, bits of roofing scattered across fields, and even several trailers from big trucks bent and buckled.  A few houses with no roves also.

Makes it all a bit too close.

So that was our day, a bit of everything.

Tomorrow we head into Texas