Day 4 - "Three States"

I left my friends in Mt. Vernon and found that I was only 5 miles south of returning back to Route 66. Clouds were approaching, but I needed to press on. By Noon, I had encountered 3 separate storms of varying intensities. Putting raingear on, taking it off, putting it on and finally deciding to drive in a t-shirt and jeans. Headed into Joplin which is the last Missouri city before going into Kansas. Factoid: It was in 1935 that Lester Dill, owner of Merramac Caverns along Route 66 in Missouri, invented the bumper sticker to promote his attraction. And the rest is history.

Before entering Kansas, I stopped at the Stateline Bar & Grill. They offer a Route 66 burger which has 66 ozs. of meat, bun and fries for $16.66. If you eat it all, its free! Unfortunately, it was not on the menu when stopped by.

Kansas has the smallest number of miles in the entire Route 66 system with 13.2 and they are the only state, of the original 8, that did not get any interstate mileage to replace the loss of 66. Southeast Kansas was a mining community where they mined lead and zinc. Later they extracted a mineral called cadmium which is now very important in "Nickel-Cadmium" batteries which is currently powering this netbook.

In Galena I encountered 4 Women on the Route who have restored the Kan-O-Tex gas station and have the inspiration for "Tow-Mater" froms the movie CARS. They can talk your ear off! The best Kansas site is the Rainbow Arch Bridge which was built in 1926.

From Kansas, I headed south into Oklahoma. Through Quapaw and then to Commerce. I stopped for a root beer float in Commerce and the lady waiting on me shared quite a bit of history. For you baseball fans, did you know that Commerce is the boyhood home of Mickey Mantle and he played high school baseball for the Commerce Tigers? In Miami (My-am-ah) I stopped to see the restoration of the 1400 seat Coleman theatre. It is gorgeous as they are restoring it to its 1930's beauty.

From there, I am veering off the Route for 3 days to meet up with other Indian Motorcycle riders in Grove, OK. We had tacos and fry bread for dinner plus watermelon. To top off the evening, we created a small outdoor theatre and viewed "The World's Fastest Indian" on the side of a tractor-trailer. More group rides planned for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.