May 13 Route 66 trip

May 13, 2009
We left Joplin, MO at 9am. There is only 13 miles of Route 66 in Kansas. First we went to Galena, KS to the 4 Women on the Route location. That is where Tow-tater is, he is the inspiration for Tow-Mater from “Cars”.
You can read all about it at http://4womenontheroute.com/Home.html very interesting place.
Then we went to Baxter Springs, KS to lunch at the Café on the Route. Good food for little money.
It is very windy today, there are severe storm warning for tonight. It is very hot 82 degrees & humid.
All the rivers are flooding. See pics of high waters.
We stopped at Afton DX gas station. We were hoping to meet the owner Laurel there but she in only in on Tues & Thurs. We were sorry to miss her. We looked in the windows & took some pictures.
Then we headed off to Darrel Starbird’s Custom Car Museum in Bernice, OK. There were some great cars there.
We stopped at the totem pole museum in Foyil then off to find a hotel to ride out the storm.
It was 87 degrees at 5 pm with no sign of the storm yet. We landed in Sapulpa, OK for the night.
Checked in & went next door to Freddie’s steak house for a great dinner.
The lightening is starting pretty steady at 9:30. There was a tornado NE of us several miles. Watching the new it looks like we won’t get much. Although it is very windy & has just starting raining at 10:45.
Tomorrow we are going to Chandler to meet with Jerry McClanahan who wrote the book “EZ66 guide to Route 66” that we are following on our trip. That will be great.

The news is looking more ominous now. More tornados in the area.
I will post in the morning as to how we survived the night…. That is if we have power.
I think I will go lay in bed now & watch the light show going on outside.

We made it through the night without any damage here. The storm happened to go all around us. We still have thunder & lightening & lots of rain. Heading through the rest of OK today.