Route 66 - Day 4

I was scared to start our day today. This day has the most miles we needed to drive yet, approximately 200. We had a lot to see and IT'S MIA'S BIRTHDAY!! We're really going to need that luck from Lincoln's nose!

We started out our day again with swimming in the pool. We were only allowed to swim before hours if the kids promised to be quiet when they were swimming. I'm sure you can all imagine how difficult it was for a 7, 9, and 11-year-old kid have free reign of a pool, but must be quiet.

Mia was most excited about Jesse James on our trip. Two of our stops today had Jesse James ties, so it was perfectly timed for her birthday. Meramec Caverns was a hideout of Jesse James in which relics have been found from when he used it, and right outside of the Caverns is the Jesse James Wax Museum. She was ecstatic!

After swim time we headed to Meramec Caverns. We had an absolutely hilarious tour guide - Jeremiah. We all enjoyed our tour, except for Jade. I think she has inherited a touch of my mom's anxiety. She was nervous through the whole tour and when we got down as far down as we could go, the tour guide turned the lights out so we could experience the pure darkness. I picked up Jade before he turned out the lights, held her tight, and she still instantly screamed out "TURN THE LIGHTS BACK ON! LIGHTS! LIGHTS! LIGHTS!". Everyone laughed and find it quite funny. Riley was wearing a glow in the dark skeleton sweater, and when the lights went out it was quite spooky to have that be the only thing visible to you. Near the end of the tour, they do a light show against the cavern wall which was quite beautiful and dedicated to our Veterans.

 

 

From there we headed to the Jesse James Wax Museum. We were hoping to learn a lot more about this famous outlaw but were left with more questions than answers. We did get a few of our questions answered, but not many. Mia was still very excited and enjoyed the museum. Out of everything in the museum gift shop she asked for a Jesse James baseball hat for her birthday! Jade decided to spend some of her own money and buy, of all things, a whip. Look out!

 

We started our drive for the day after these stops and had a beautiful sky ahead of us! We purchased the first Little House audiobook to listen to during our drive and I bought them each their own copy before we left home so they could read along while we were driving. We learned today that Jade gets carsick when reading. We won't be buying her any more books for our trip! Yikes!

We stopped briefly in Cuba to see the murals and in Fanning to see the World's Largest Rocking Chair. Riley and Jade were asleep by then and couldn't be bothered to wake up so Mia took a picture with me.

We were excited to see John's Modern Cabin Ruins outside of Rolla. They were tricky to find, but find them we did. As soon as we parked and started to walk around, a lady strolled up to us and told us that they were now private property and we could not explore. Riley was super bummed. They were in all of our Route 66 books and we wanted to see them. After our quick glimpse and sudden hand slapping, we packed back into the car and drove off to our next destination.

Mia had the privilege of choosing our lunch today. She didn't want to picnic today. I had noted that there was a stop today where we could eat in a cave by an underground waterfall, I thought she would like. Alas, she said no and opted for ... you guessed it, the famous yellow arches. Off to McDonalds we went for the birthday girl where they gave her a free ice cream cone!

In Marshfield, the hometown of Edward Hubble, we stopped to see a 1/4 size scale model of the Hubble Telescope.

We got a kick out of the 2 front facades in Strafford. Route 66 used to be on one side of the buildings, so obviously, buildings were built with the front facing that side of the street. But as Route 66 has done over time, it changed and they ended up rerouting it to the back of the buildings. To still provide business for the stores, a new front facade was built on the back side of the buildings. When they were done both sides of the building were front entrances. It looks like over time they have started to break down the 2nd facade that Route 66 still goes by. Hopefully, with renewed interest in Route 66, they will over time re-do it to its original glory. I found it an interesting history. We also peeked around Yeakly Cemetery where both Union and Confederate soldiers are buried. We found some interesting stones marked with H all over the cemeteary in random places, but haven't been able to figure out what it means yet.

We found the spookiest/coolest house in the ghost town of Plano. The kids spent 20 minutes exploring the jungle that once was a house. They even face-timed my mom and took her through the jungle to explore with them. I didn't even get any pictures of this jungle-house because I was so nervous while they were in there. I turned into a mother hen. "Look out!" "Don't step there!" "Watch that hole!" "This is freaky, let's go!" Once they were all safe back into the car, we did get some photos of the other buildings left in this ghost town.

By then it was dark and we rushed the last 30 minutes to our iconic Boots Court Motel. The manager and owners were sitting outside and applauded and hooted as I drove up. We were the last patrons of the night to arrive and they were waiting for us. The manager was amazingly kind and was a joy to talk to. Unfortunately, during our conversation, Riley locked his sisters out of the car, and they were knocking on windows to the office, putting their faces squished up to the office window, coming in and complaining, and creating pure chaos. It was time to end the night. The motel was a perfect Route 66 motel. The neon was half destroyed 2 weeks before we arrived in a hail storm, but we were still able to see some. The motel had beautifully restored wooden floors and awesome authentic 1940's radio playing 40's music when we entered the room. I really enjoyed our stay and recommend this hotel to anyone who travels Route 66! One note though - don't leave your door open when you move your bags in! We did, not thinking anything of it and ended up inviting half of the bugs in the state into our room. We spent 20 minutes killing bugs on our bed, the walls, the ceiling. Anywhere they could be, they were. Riley was so freaked out he stuffed toilet paper around the neck of his shirt so they wouldn't crawl down his shirt in the night. Put Mia's hat on to sleep, and covered his face with a towel. He was quite the sight! On the doorframe of our room, the largest Cicada I've ever seen was perched. We had to google it and found it was called a Silver Bellied Cicada.

All in all, I think we did very well with the time/miles combination today! Mia had a number of phone calls come in throughout the day. Her daddy sent her photos of the cards that came in the mail for her, and she enjoyed her Jesse James stops today. She had a great birthday, hopefully, one she will remember forever, and we weren't on the road until 11!

Here are a few other photos from our day! We stopped to read about the Modern Cabins of Graystone Heights, visit an old gas station, and enjoy this scenic bridge, and best of all, a quick top at the Uranus Zoological Park. Ha!

Tip for today - Don't book hotels ahead of time or make a day to day schedule. Make your list of what you want to see in the different towns and take your time. It's not worth it to stress about getting to your hotel too late or needing to rush because you're losing daylight, or not getting to see things because they're closed already. This trip deserves more than that. Not one hotel we've been to has been close to being booked. In most cases, there were only 2-3 other patrons. In fact, most vintage Route 66 hotels I booked with wouldn't let me pay ahead of time because people call them all the time to change their reservations the day of because they needed more or less time to see what they wanted to see. Route 66 has a way of making you lose track of time. I can't count the number of times I've looked at the clock and been astonished at how much time we've already spent doing things and how much more I wanted to see that day. Let Route 66 take you back in time to it's heyday. Go with the flow and get all the kicks you can!