Since Oklahoma is the largest section of Route 66 we decided that Oklahoma City would be our halfway point. Along the way to OKC, we found several popular spots and many cool signs and towns.
Our first stop was Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park just outside of Foyil. There stands the world’s largest totem pole at 90 feet tall. Alongside that were some smaller totem poles and a picnic area. The main totem was made in 1948.
After Totem Pole Park, we visited the famous blue Catoosa whale in Catoosa, OK. The whale was constructed in the early 70’s by Mr. Hugh Davis and took 2,920 hours of labor to complete. It’s a nice place for a picnic and a dip on a hot summer day.
Heading into Tulsa there were plenty of old signs and sights to see. We didn’t have time to visit Tulsa’s many museums so we decided to stay on the road and take in the sights. If we saw something of interest we made sure to stop and take lots of pictures.
Once we made it through Tulsa, we entered Sapulpa, a small town where they have recreated old-time advertisements and painted them on the buildings. They were pretty cool and looked great. There was an older Route 66 alignment that we were going to take leading us over the Rock Creek brick iron truss bridge but as we approached, we could see a lot of debris in front. We did get to see the bridge from the new alignment.
From Sapulpa, we passed through several more small towns and came upon the Rock Café. The Rock Café was built in Stroud, OK from stones that were unearthed during the construction of Route 66. In 2008, the café burned down but with a lot of effort they were reopened a year later and have even added a small gift shop next door. Also, the owner of the café, Dawn Welch, was the inspiration for Sally the Porsche in the movie Cars! We decided to stay for a few and have some sweet tea and root beer to wash down our fried pickles :o)
Heading closer to Oklahoma City is a town called Arcadia. There we passed by the Round Barn and just up the road from that is POPS. POPS is a relatively new 66 attraction built in 2007 and features just about every kind of soda you can imagine (except Ruby Red Squirt L) from Jolt to Peanut Butter As you enjoy your pop, you can admire the 66-foot tall neon lighted bottle in the front. Of course, we stopped in here and picked up a couple bottles for the road.
When we arrived in Oklahoma City, we decided to find a place to stay for the night and came upon a 24 hour Walmart that already had a couple RVs parked in the outer lot. We saw a security officer driving around and I jumped out to make sure we could park. We got the green light so we parked Lady T next to the convoy.
We plan to explore Oklahoma City in the morning and will hopefully be in Texas by the end of today. Lonestar State here we come!
We are very grateful for the sports shot mode on my new Nikon camera that allows us to take a lot of pictures while driving the two lane roads at 65MPH. We took almost 700 pictures but after reviewing and editing we will probably end up with 100 good ones.
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~J&J
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