If you’re going to take a Road Trip….

You may as well start with the Mother Road (also known as Route 66)!

When I was growing up, my family drove to most of our vacations, so I was familiar with the good ‘ol fashion road trip. My husband was not. His mom was a flight attendant when he was growing up so when they traveled, they flew (not to mention his dad immigrated from Italy so when they traveled to visit family, road tripping clearly was not an option!).

It was June of 2020 and after being stuck at home for 3 months while the world shut down, I had to get out. But I didn’t want to pick one spot and be stuck there in case a lockdown happened. Big resorts were not really an option, and we wanted to be able to maintain our distance from others. My family had once taken a road trip through the South with our only reservations being in Disney World. My parents drove 3,000 miles in 2 weeks with their 4 kids (ages 11, 9, 5, and 4) in tow—we stayed in great hotels that they had called 20 minutes outside of the cities and we had SO much fun. Some of our best family memories were made on that trip—quotes and stories that we all still repeat today, over 20 years later.

While that is a trip I would love to take our boys on to see the history, Henry and Milo were only 4 and 2 at this point so we needed a route that had a little more to see with stops that were closer together and places that would interest two incredibly active little boys. After doing some research, Route 66 seemed to be a perfect fit. It had fun, kitschy stops that little boys would get a “kick” (ha, pun intended!) out of, we could start the drive in our hometown, and it would take us through new states and cities none of us had been to before.

All I had to do was convince Ande. After lots of reassurance that we could handle this, negotiating that we could have an extended stay in Santa Monica and that we could fly home, we picked our departure date, booked our one-way rental car, ordered a guidebook from Amazon, and started mapping out our route.

We broke the trip up into two separate legs. We left St. Louis on June 27 and arrived in Santa Monica, CA, after 11 days of driving, on July 7, 2020. We then finished the Route by driving from St. Louis to Chicago, IL over Labor Day Weekend, September 3-6, 2020 (more to come on that later!). In total, we were gone 19 days, drove over 3,000 miles, stayed in 16 hotels, visited 3 national parks (4 if you count our visit to St. Louis’ Gateway Arch National Park that summer), and drank endless amounts of coffee.

Driving to California from the middle of the country with two young kids and a husband who’d never been on a road trip may seem crazy (and maybe it was?), but we both said we would love to do it again (and we’ve since taken several more 2-week road trips!). Like the trip I took with my family growing up, we made lots of memories, our boys learned the names of every U.S. President, saw (among other things) some very large chairs, Cadillacs buried in the desert, burros wandering around, and 3 National Parks; not to mention, we saw so many parts of the United States we wouldn’t have otherwise. Ready to get your kicks?

Part 1: St. Louis, MO to Santa Monica, CA

Day 1: St. Louis, MO to Springfield, MO

When we set out we planned to drive to Springfield, MO, and stay the night. My grandma lives there and doesn’t get to see the boys very often so we wanted to make sure we could spend some time with her. We hardly saw any of the sights between St. Louis and our first stop in Cuba, MO. We reasoned that we wanted to save the time we would have spent seeing sights in our home state for later in the trip since we can always see these sights on a quick day trip from home. In Cuba, we ate lunch at the Cuba Bakery & Deli after walking around the town and taking in the murals.

Once we got to Springfield, we had dinner at Bass Pro Shop, wandered around the store to see the wildlife exhibits, and then went back to my Grandma’s for a little while to have dessert and visit. Once we got back to the Bass Pro Angler’s Lodge, where we stayed, we headed to the hotel pool so the boys could swim off some energy!

Day 2:  Springfield, MO to Tulsa, OK

The next morning we woke up and met my grandma for breakfast at The Village Inn. After breakfast, we bid my grandma farewell and got back on the road, ready to see some of the classic Route 66 sights. Our first stop was Red Oak II, which is just outside Carthage, MO. Red Oak II is what it sounds like—the second Red Oak. The buildings in this town were all transplanted from Red Oak, IL by a man who wanted to rebuild his hometown. No one (at least that we could see!) lives there so it was a very eerie, but unique stop.

Next up was Carthage, MO. We visited the Civil War Museum in town. Missouri as a border state had nominal neutrality, but in the southern part of the state, especially, that neutrality was tested with battles in cities such as Carthage. I’m a history nerd so learning a little more about the Civil War history of my home state was interesting.

Kansas makes a short 13-mile appearance on Route 66, but it has one of the stops our kids were the most into. If your kids are fans of the Disney’s Cars movies, stopping to see Cars on the Route—including “Tow Tater” —in Galena, KS is a worthwhile, quick stop! The garage and tow truck, and the town itself were apparently the inspiration for the movie.

We then drove a few miles and grabbed lunch at Nelson’s Old Riverton Store (now known as the Eisler Bros. Old Riverton Store). This is a classic 1925 grocery store where you can grab freshly made sandwiches from the deli counter and browse the Route 66 memorabilia they sell. We sat outside on their patio and ate our lunches as we watched the other cars drive by on Route 66.

After lunch, we continued on and were in Oklahoma before we knew it! Our third state of the day! Our first sight was the Dairy King (yes, King) and then we drove by Hall of Fame Baseball Player Mickey Mantle’s childhood home in Commerce, OK. You can still see the dents on the side of the barn from his batting practice! Our next stop was the Blue Whale in Catoosa. It is a giant whale laying on the shore of a small pond with its backend extending into the water. It used to be a recreation site for locals—you can still see where the slide went in. While you can’t swim with the whale anymore, you can still walk through it. Again, it was another great, kitschy stop that our little boys loved!

After that, we headed to Tulsa. We stopped and had dinner at the Smoke Woodfire Grill on our way into town before checking into The Mayo.

Day 3: Tulsa, OK to Oklahoma City, OK

We had gotten to bed late the night before, so we slept in a little bit and made coffee in the room. Breakfast was quick to grab items that we already had on hand, which we were glad for when we got to our lunch spot, the Rock Cafe in Stroud, OK. The Rock Cafe of Triple D’s fame (Diners, Drive-in, and Dives) did not disappoint. Among other things, we tried the Fried Pickles, the Spaetzle, and the Buffalo Burger. All were delicious. After lunch, we headed to Arcadia and visited the Round Barn. The barn was built in 1898 and at that time was, and honestly probably still is, a marvel built entirely of lumber. It is 60 feet in diameter and 43 feet tall! Henry loved running around upstairs in the loft!

Our next stop was Pops, a store dedicated to all things soda, or pop, as people from some parts of the country refer to it. We all made our own sampler pack and think this is where our sons’ low-key obsessions with orange soda started.

Next stop was Oklahoma City! We checked into the aloft Oklahoma City and headed straight to the pool. A hotel swimming pool is almost a necessity when road-tripping with two active little boys! They very much needed to burn off some energy! We had read that Oklahoma City has some very authentic Vietnamese food due to an influx of immigrants from Vietnam in the 1970s so we headed to dinner at Lido Restaurant, a Vietnamese, Chinese, and French restaurant. On our way there we drove by what may be the smallest grocery store I’ve ever seen—the Milk Bottle Grocery. It is no longer operating, but the milk bottle on top is still there for a fun drive-by attraction.

Day 4: Oklahoma City, OK to Amarillo, TX

The next morning we woke up and headed to Brown’s Bakery (@BrownsBakeryokc) for donuts & coffee. If you’re looking for a classic bakery and donut shop this is your spot—it has been around since 1946 and is still family owned and operated.

We then headed to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. The museum itself is very well done and had several very interesting exhibits and unique ways of memorializing the terrible event of the Oklahoma City bombing. Our boys were young at the time of our visit, and though they were respectful, they were also curious as to why and what happened to the “bad guy”. Trying to keep as close to the truth, at least from what we knew and learned at the museum, we did our best to explain it without scaring them. There were some exhibits I remember we shied away from, but I think it’s important not to completely shelter your children. The outside part of the museum is beautiful and very moving. I highly recommend a visit if you’re in Oklahoma City.

Following our morning at the museum, we got back in the car and continued down the road. Our next stop was for lunch at Sid’s Diner in El Reno, OK. We had their famous fried onion burgers, which became popular during the depression when the onions were added as a substitute for some of the meat due to cost. Nowadays, they probably continue to make them that way because they are delicious! There was a wait to eat there but it was worth it; the staff was friendly, and it was everything you think of when it comes to a roadside diner!

The boys took a quick nap after lunch while we drove about an hour to our next stop—McLain Rogers Park in Clinton, OK. We had read there was a great playground. Just like the swimming pool in Oklahoma City, we knew the boys needed to burn off some energy, so we stopped there and they played for a half hour or so before we got on the road again. Next up were Texola, OK and Shamrock, TX. Texola, on the Texas/Oklahoma border, was very much a ghost town—literally. Shamrock’s Tower Station and U-Drop in Cafe has to be one of the prettiest gas stations (although, it’s no longer a gas station) I’ve ever seen.

Our final destination of the day was Amarillo, TX, which is about the halfway point of the Texas portion of Route 66. We had dinner at the Big Texan Steakhouse because, when in Rome. It had arcade games for the boys, the kids’ dinners came in cute cowboy hats, and we had a great waitress.

We then checked into the Courtyard by Marriott Amarillo Downtown. We could see the Santa Fe Building from our room, which was a great way to check off another Route 66 attraction!

In Part II, I will cover the next portion of our trip—driving the Mother Road through New Mexico and Arizona!