Tag Archives: route 66

Finding Mater

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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

World Largest McDonald’s

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We left early in the morning on our third day of the trip with the goal to cover more than 800 miles and reach Chicago area before midnight. As such, we tried to to be efficient as we also wanted to stop at several places along the way. Since we decided not skip The Rock Cafe for breakfast, we looked for an alternative place to get a bite to eat without spending much time. As I looked for options along the way, one caught my eye as the ‘perfect’ place to stop given the situation. It was right on Interstate 44 that we would pass, very likely would be a fast service, and yet it sounded interesting… the McDonald’s in Vinita, OK.

What’s so special about going to McDonald’s, you might ask. Well, according to the Route 66 guide books that I had in hand, this particular McDonald’s at one point claimed to be the largest McDonald’s in the world. Formerly a restaurant called The Glass House and built in 1959, it occupied about 30,000 square feet. I learned that in 1990 there was a bigger McDonald’s opened in Russia that supposedly contended for the ‘largest’ title, and more recently another McDonald’s in Orlando, FL, actually beat both locations hands down as the largest restaurant. Oh well.. it’s a (former) largest restaurant — still some history to be proud of there I guess.

When we reached Vinita, we saw the familiar McDonald’s golden arches from a distance, and the restaurant actually sat like a bridge across the Interstate highway. It was pretty much like some of the rest area / travel plaza that you find in some Interstate Highways; except that typically it would be a shared space with many stores, restrooms, and a visitor center. I thought for a moment, the arch of the bridge was painted McDonald’s yellow, so I suppose if the whole bridge was one big McDonald’s then it would make sense that it’s the largest one you could find.

It turned out that when you get inside the building, the space inside the large structure was shared with several other stores, and the actual McDonald’s restaurant portion was about the same size as an average McDonald’s store you could find anywhere else. There seemed to be a lot of unused spaces as well. A little disappointing for those like me who were expecting something different given the ‘hype’ but I suppose business sense prevailed that you should only scale the restaurant to be as big as the demand, and it had probably gone passed its glory days.

We had our standard McDonald’s breakfast, served in efficient manner as a reminder to the modern ‘on-the-go’ culture. On the way out, at the parking lot we did see a group of colorful hot rod cars. They looked like the real life version of the Hot Wheels toys, and reminded me to the characters that Lightning McQueen encountered on the highway just before he veered off and ended up at Radiator Springs. So there was something interesting found at this stop after all.

Former largest McDonald's

Blue Whale

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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

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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

Free 72 oz. Steak!

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Texas is known as a place for good steak. One of the places to get good deal on really good steak is the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. You can get a free Texas-sized portion of steak, 72 oz. there, with one condition: you have to finish it up with the side dishes in one hour. If you try it but you fail to finish it, it would cost you $72. More than 50,000 people had tried this challenge with about a fifth of them able to complete the feat.

We heard of this place on Travel Channel and Food Network programs. Even though my brother and I used to live in Texas for a couple of years, we never had any reason to drive through Amarillo, until our coast-to-coast trip. The Big Texan is located right on the side of Interstate 40, and they have a very big sign in front of the bright yellow building, so you can’t miss it.

We had been traveling quite a distance, starting in Holbrook, AZ, bright early in the morning. We decided to skip lunch after our visit to Santa Fe, NM, in order to make time to get to Amarillo to see the Cadillac Ranch before sunset. We did make it to Amarillo before it got dark, and after spending some time at the Cadillac Ranch, we’re ready to continue on and by then we’re pretty hungry as well. Great timing to go to a place known for its gigantic portion of meat.

The place was quite interesting. You’re welcomed by a giant cowboy boot outside on one side of the restaurant, and a big bull on the other side. As you get inside, the atmosphere was quite festive. There was a gift shop selling Texas and Route 66 memorabilias, nicely decorated hallways, and a big dining hall where the meals were served. In the middle of the dining hall there was a stage with a table and a digital timer. Looks like that’s where the challenger would eat in front of everyone. You can also see the open kitchen on one side of the restaurant with the grill cooking the steaks.

We were hungry, but we didn’t think we could do the 72 oz. challenge. But we did have the steaks; each of us ordered a 16 oz. prime rib. They were cooked nicely, medium rare to our order, and both of us thought it was delicious and worth skipping lunch for. We were seated pretty close to the open kitchen, so while eating we could also see the cooking staff grilling the steaks there.

Below is a photo taken outside the restaurant of the big bull advertising the free 72 oz. steak. You can see a Ford Excursion, the largest SUV you could get at that time in the US, parked next to it as a comparison of size. They say everything is big in Texas, and this place surely confirmed that.

Big Texan