Category Archives: Photography

Gateway to the West

Posted on by
Reply

St. Louis is the second largest city in the state of Missouri. It is located on the northeastern border of the state, on the bank of the Mississippi River. The city was founded by French explorers (thus the name), and it was also the city where Lewis and Clark started their expedition to explore the western part of America. In 1904, St. Louis was the site of the World Fair and the first Summer Olympic Games held outside Europe. The city reached its peak in population size in the 1960s but sinmce had been in decline. Today it is still one of the largest inland ports in the US and is the home of several Fortune 500 companies, though its influence was not as prominent as it was in its heyday.

Our visit to St. Louis during the coast-to-coast road trip was very brief. After lunch at Smoki-O’s in the North Riverfront area of the city, we drove downtown to briefly visit the Gateway Arch. The downtown area seemed to be a nice place to visit, and you can actually take the elevator up the Gateway Arch. There was also a neighborhood that seemed to be a happening place with stores and restaurants. We didn’t have time however, so we just found spots at the nearby park to take photos of the Arch, and then left before the rush hour started.

The city reminded me to Pittsburgh, where I lived for a couple of years when I went to graduate school. Both cities thrived in the 19th century and in the early part of 20th century due to manufacturing industry, but went on decline in the last few decades. But now both cities enjoyed a little bit of renaissance with the biotechnology and medicine industry related to the local research universities (Washington University in St. Louis and University of Pittsburgh). Both cities have nice downtown areas that are nice to visit, but driving through the suburbs you could feel the ‘blue collar’ nature of the cities.

The photo below was taken at the park near the Gateway Arch. This was the closest we could get where we could still get the whole Arch within the frame.

Gateway Arch

Snoots at Smoki-O’s

Posted on by
Reply

As we continued our coast-to-coast road trip on Route 66 into Missouri, we decided to drive through the state and selected St. Louis as the one place in the state where we would stop and get photos to represent Missouri in our Route 66 journey. We only had time to stop in one city as we passed Missouri that day, and St. Louis has the unmistakable landmark to photograph, the Gateway Arch, so that settled the plan pretty quickly. Since we would be reaching St. Louis in early afternoon, we thought it would be a good place to stop for lunch as well. The only question then was what to eat and where we would go for lunch.

When I thought of St. Louis in terms of food, one thing that came to mind was barbecue. St. Louis is not as famous for its barbecue as the city at the other end of the state, Kansas City. However, it has its own style of barbecue, and there is a delicacy that is associated to this city and the surrounding area, the barbecued snoots (grilled pig’s nose). It may sound weird, but apparently not to the locals there.

My brother and I tried out snoots once a couple of years before our trip when there was a barbecue festival in New York City where my brother lived. They had barbecue joints from all over the country coming in to represent their regional style of barbecue, and we saw one vendor from St. Louis serving snoots. We did try it there, but we thought it would be interesting to try the St. Louis-style barbecue again when we passed St. Louis. The only question was where we would go and try this out. Just like in many cities known for a regional cuisine, the locals have their favorite places, so you have to pick one in the end among many potentially good places to go.

While my brother was driving towards the city, I did Google search on my smart phone to look for options and people’s reviews on them. We finally settled on one place called Smoki-O’s that seemed to be located pretty close to downtown St. Louis (so we don’t have to go to far out of the way from the Gateway Arch where we wanted to stop and take photos). The place was also characterized as a ‘hole in the wall’ that is a favorite of many locals — which means it’s a ‘real deal’ and unpretentious.

We followed the Google Map direction to Smoki-O’s, and we ended up in a warehouse area north of downtown St. Louis. The descriptions we read about the place were true; the place was really a ‘hole in a wall’; we were even a bit unsure about the surroundings thinking about leaving our car parked on the street with our belongings in it. But we thought we’ve already made it that far, and we shouldn’t ‘judge the book by its cover.’

When we went in the restaurant, we were greeted by a lady that we found out later was the daughter-in-law of the lady who opened up the barbecue joint years before. She was very nice and hospitable, and explained what they had on their menu. We clearly looked out-of-place compared to other folks there who mostly ordered the food to go. The lady asked where we were from, and we told her that we were in the middle of a road trip from California to New York. After we ordered, she told us to have a seat at their small eating area while our order was prepared.

Few minutes lates, a gentleman came out of the kitchen area with a styrofoam container full of meat — the sampler that we ordered. He introduced himself to us as the pitmaster there. He was told by the lady at the counter about our cross-country trip, so he wanted to stop by and chatted with us a little bit. He mentioned that he’s done a road trip to New York City himself a couple of years back, since they were selected to represent St. Louis in a barbecue festival. When we heard that, we asked him if it was the same festival that we went to, and it turned out that it was. So we actually had snoots from Smoki-O’s already in New York City; we just didn’t remember it.

The photo below was the barbecue platter that we had for lunch at Smoki-O’s. It was plenty to share between the two of us. The food was good, but I think the encounter with the store owner and the pitmaster that left a lasting memory. I posted this photo on my Flickr album, and a couple of years later, this photo was included in an online slideshow on Big-Cities Barbecue on Grubstreet, the online foodies site for the New York magazine.

Barbecue platter at Smoki-O's

Finding Mater

Posted on by
Reply

The Kansas portion of Route 66 is the shortest compared to other states, only 13 miles. I wanted to stop and take a photo of something unique that represented each of the state on the route, so this posed a challenge to find something to check out in Kansas within than short segment.

I couldn’t find any place that was particularly interesting for us to stop, until I read through an article about the inspirations behind Cars that mentioned about a 1951 tow truck in Galena, KS, that became the inspiration for the lovable character Mater in the movie. According to the article, the truck could be found outside a renovated Kan-o-tex gas station that is now becoming a gift store called 4 Women on the Route.

So we set off to find this place. The Kansas portion of Route 66 is completely bypassed by Interstate 44 that unless you intentionally get off the Interstate highway and take the country highway, you wouldn’t even know that it’s there.

The drive through the Kansas Route 66 was like driving through countryside in the midwestern America. Nothing special on the surface, but I’m sure if one takes time to learn about the local communities in the towns we passed, we would find interesting stories about life on Route 66.

When we reached Galena, we had to turn into a side street from the main drag of the town to find the old Kan-o-tex gas station. The store was closed when we got there, but we found what we’re looking for… the old tow truck parked outside the gas station.

I learned that the real truck was named Tater as to avoid copyright infringement from using the Mater name. As how you get Tater, think of the origin of Mater’s name as he mentioned in the movie (‘Hi, my name is mater.. like tuh-mater. but without the tuh.’). So instead of tow-mater (rhymes with tomato), this one is tow-tater (rhymes with potato). Pretty creative.

After taking a couple of photos with Tater, we continued our trip. Several miles from Galena we entered Missouri, and we passed the downtown area of the city of Joplin before we entered Interstate 44 again. The city of Joplin was included in the famous song Route 66. The downtown area had some old buildings that might be considered as historical. We only passed the town and not thought much of it. A couple of years later, a devastating tornado passed Joplin and destroyed a significant portion of that downtown area we passed. It was one of those surreal thinking that we once drove passed the area of devastation we saw on the news.

Tow-Tater

Blue Whale

Posted on by
Reply

For the coast-to-coast road trip through the old Route 66, I set a goal to visit a place and have something to remember from in each of the states that we passed along the route. In the state of Oklahoma, we thought that place would be The Rock Cafe in Stroud, but unfortunately we ended up not visiting the place.

Still determined to find a landmark that can represent our journey through Route 66 in Oklahoma, I went through my Route 66 guidebooks to find ideas for any place we can visit that wouldn’t be too much out of the way since we had a tight schedule for the day trying to reach Chicago area by that night. I found one quirky landmark that I fit that criteria and seemed to be a good representation of Route 66 in Oklahoma, a place with literally a Blue Whale structure in Catoosa.

What was a whale doing in Oklahoma, you might ask. I had the same question, and not until I read about the history of this place. The structure was built by a gentleman named Hugh Davis. Mr. Davis was a retired zoologist who used to work at the Tulsa Zoo. He and his wife loved animals and kids. So in their property was on Route 66 he built a facility to educate people about nature. First he built an ark with cut-out wooden animals where kids could celebrate birthdays. Then he opened up an alligator ranch and a small zoo with live alligators, snake pit, and prairie dog village.

In the late 1960s Mr. Davis started working on an idea of having a ‘fish’ at the pond. This evolved to a whale. It took him two years to build the whale, and in 1972 he completed it and presented it as an anniversary gift to his wife Zelta.

The Blue Whale then became a popular attraction on Route 66. People could picnic near the pond, swam in the pond, and use the smiling whale as jumping board or slide to the pond. In 1988, the Blue Whale was closed because Mr. Davis’ had arthritis and was not able to maintain the place anymore. He died two years later, and his wife died in 2001. The place is now owned by their daughter and her husband. The Davis’ son and grandsons keep the grounds maintained and the gates open so people can continue to enjoy the Blue Whale.

In the last 15 years, the community around Catoosa has also been working on restoring the landmark. When we stopped by, there were no one there, but we could see that the whale and the benches around the pond had vibrant colors from fresh coat of paint, and it didn’t feel like it was an abandoned landmark.

Our visit was brief, and it might not happen had we not decided to skip The Rock Cafe. But looking back I’m glad we did visit the place that not only is a distinct landmark along the route but also had a wonderful story behind it.

Blue Whale

Cars Inspiration

Posted on by
Reply

When I was planning for the coast-to-coast trip tracing through the old Route 66, I learned that the animated movie Cars was inspired by the Mother Road and the people who lived along the route. I had watched the movie before on the big screen, but not until I watched it again in DVD format that I came to appreciate the difference between this movie than others Pixar had made. In the extra footage on the making of the movie, I learned that the Pixar team did a road trip on Route 66 to visit the places and meet the people who lived along the route, and they based the characters in the movie on real-life characters they met during the research trip. One such character was Sally Carrera, the blue Porsche sports car that ran the Cozy Cone Motel in the movie. The inspiration behind this character was Dawn Welch, a lady who owns a restaurant along Route 66 in Stroud, OK, called The Rock Cafe.

In the movie, Sally Carrera told the story how she ended up at Radiator Springs. She was a lawyer in Los Angeles living a fast-paced life, but was unhappy with life and decided to get away from the city. She had a flat tire near Radiator Springs, and the folks in town helped her getting fixed up, and took her in as their own. She ended up staying there and being part of the tight community.

In real life, Dawn Welch was originally from Oklahoma, but she worked in the cruise ship industry which took her to many places outside the US. She was planning on opening a restaurant in Costa Rica, and came to Stroud to look for an old grill to purchase for her restaurant. She learned about The Rock Cafe that had been a landmark on the historic Route 66 since 1939. Charmed by the historic building and the people she met, she ended up staying and running the restaurant ever since. She is actively involved in the local community, and the Rock Cafe in a way becomes an integral part of life in the small town of Stroud. She has also been involved in promoting the preservation of the historic Route 66. In 2001, the Pixar team stopped by at the restaurant during their research road trip. John Lasseter and his team learned about her life story and decided to make that as part of the story for Cars and based the Sally Porsche character on Dawn.

When I read up more articles about Dawn and the Rock Cafe, I also learned that in 2008 tragedy hit and the restaurant was destroyed in a fire. But Dawn with the help of her family and the community persevered and restored the historic building in the next year, and just few months before our trip, it had reopened again. That story increased my interest in checking out the place and experience that community feel first hand.

The night when we reached Oklahoma, we stayed in another town not far from Stroud with the intention to stop at the Rock Cafe for a breakfast before we continued our trip. We did find the restaurant, but unfortunately it might have been too early that it was not open yet for the day. Since we had quite a long journey planned for the day, we decided to continue on. But I did get a shot of the Rock Cafe’s neon sign before we left.

Rock Cafe