I was closer to the Oklahoma border than I realized. After I left Shamrock I had to make a quick stop at the drive-thru liquor store to grab my friend a six-pack of Lone Star. I’ve never done a drive-thru liquor before. When I got to the window, I saw a menu saying flavors of slushies. I thought, wait, is this a coffee stand? The woman at the window asked what she could get me, so I asked, “Uh, I can buy beer here, right or do I need to come inside?” She looks confused and goes Yeah? I say Ok, “Sorry I’m from out of state, and order then order my beer. We will see how well this travels back to Washington.
Anyways. I hit the road to Oklahoma, approaching quickly as I saw an Oklahoma sign up the road. One thing I notice immediately is a 66 shield painted on the road again. Other than a couple, I haven’t seen regular markers on the road since California. In Oklahoma, it looks like every town has a marker as you enter the town, with the shield having the name of the town you’re entering. I love these little small things, so I decided to take a photo of each that I saw; marking my way as I progress across the state.
My first stop in Erick, OK after I drop off a postcard was to a little spot called Sam’s Town. It is marked as a rest area, with what appears to be camping somewhere on the back of the property. The place had a lot of interesting works, offered coffee and water to the travelers, places to take photos, and souvenirs were available on the honor system of paying what you take. There is a “mailbox” that has a notebook inside for us to leave a note for others. I read some of the notes and left one of my own.
Oklahoma + Texas are a lot flatter than the Southwest I’ve left behind. Oklahoma seems to really celebrate the route, staying on the proper route most of the way towards Oklahoma City. Towns seem to do less of the gimmick of just putting 66 in your business title. I came across the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City, I spent the majority of my afternoon here. They had a lot to see, with an old-looking town square you can walk around.
You enter a building to pay your entry, here in this building, you watch a short video on Route 66, before you head to the site’s car museum. Then, as you cross into the next building across a wooden bridge, there is a building with more cars and more artifacts of Route 66 and its vast history. After you exit the Route 66 building, you enter the museum’s town center, a courtyard with a brick path to the various buildings you can explore.
I stopped into the drugstore where I could stop in for an ice-cold glass bottle of Dr Pepper and cool off from the heat outside. There is a general store just down the path; it is set up with mannequins. There was a shop owner, a butcher, and people playing checkers. I spent a couple of hours just hanging around. The far buildings had even more to see; they included exhibits on the history of Elk City and the Rodeo culture of the town.
The next town over, I believe, is Witherspoon? [Weatherford – was close, I guess]. The town has dedications and murals to the astronaut, from the small town who was on the first International Space Station crew. [Thomas P. Stafford is from Weatherford, he was one of the original astronauts on the Apollo missions to the moon. He worked on the original iterations of the International Space Station and has an air and space museum in his name in Weatherford] . The town had space-themed murals of astronauts throughout the city. I saw a space-themed waterpark, the overpass leaving town has a large concrete display of stars, and aircraft decorated across the span of the Interstate.
I love seeing towns taking pride in their local heroes like this. In Erick, there were murals for the singer of Purple People Eater, and they had an annual Purple Water Music Festival. It’s nice to see these people celebrating the people who made it out of town. The town is taking pride in the accomplishment as if it was their own.
My last town for the night is El Reno, I stop into a packed diner named “Sid’s” for a world-famous Onion Burger. The inside of the small building is packed with people, so I place an order to go and sit outside, waiting for my number to be called. Taking some photos of the buildings around me. The burger was pretty good as I sat in their annex building next door. It was stacked with onions on top of a juicy burger, crispy bacon, pickles, mayo, and mustard falling out of the bun.
El Reno is where I am calling it a night. It’s another hour to Oklahoma city an the sun was setting. I got an ice cream cone, watched a sunset, and booked my hotel for the night. The sunset was amazing, with sunbeams bursting out from the horizon in an orange sky. It was a unique view I don’t usually see in the Northwest. The sunsetting across flat farmlands is just different than those against the mountains or the ocean. All different, but beautiful in their own way. Tomorrow I continue across Oklahoma, on to OKC and Tulsa. Kansas and Missouri should come on Thursday. Getting closer to Chicago, tomorrow will also mark my car hitting 50,000 miles; I’ve just crossed the 4,000-mile mark on this trip so far.
