Leaving Friends, Traveling On

Wednesday, 14 April 2021

On the morning of Wednesday, 14 April 2021, we left the home of our friends Herm and Willo Shields. We had a great time with them, and they were very gracious hosts. Herm did all the driving while we were there, and we saw some sights in the area, some had to do with Route 66, others were just St. Louis points of interest. We found enough things we didn't do that we agreed we'd come back and see them sometime!

We drove from St. Louis to the Missouri capitol city, Jefferson City. Randy likes to visit state capitals and she has a "passport" book in which she gets stamps for each one we visit. We will never complete the book because we visited a number of state capitals before she got the book, and it is unlikely we'll return to them. Although we have both been to Alaska, we were not in the part of the state that has Juneau, and we will most likely not return there, either. But the capital building was open for business and was accepting visitors!

The capital building, besides all of the offices of executive and legislative branches, also had an extensive museum, and we spent too much time looking through that. We also toured three of the four floors of the building and observed murals, architecture, and statuary.

  

Something we thought was very unique among the 20+ state capital buildings we have visited was a number of bronze busts of famous people who had some connection to Missouri. Off the top of my head, there were at least 50 of them, and we took pictures of many. Below are a few.

  

The ones I chose here are Stan (the Man) Musial, Emmet Kelley, and Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain). (Randy had no idea who Stan Musial was.)

From "Jeff City" we headed back south to Rolla, in order to pick up Route 66 again. Jeff City was a side trip. We passed an intersection that we recognized from a previous trip we took through that area, where 66 crosses I-44. We had taken a "side trip" that time to ride a few miles of Route 66. As we got south of Rolla, we stopped in at one of those iconic places on Historic Route 66, the Totem Pole Trading Post.

We didn't take any pictures inside, but it was pretty much a junk store with some Route 66 memorabilia and souvenirs. We should have taken a picture of the guy who was behind the counter, quite a character.

We moved on -- one of the tour books made a big deal about the scenic view in an area called "Devil's Elbow" and the bridge there. We were not particularly impressed, because we couldn't figure out exactly where the elbow was, and after we left, we decided we missed the point, since the bridge was probably supposed to be scenic. We really only got the bridge in a picture by shadow. The carving in the opening picture above was at this place.

 

  

   

(The picture of the branch in the water is for our grandsons, who enjoy seeing turtles sunning themselves like this. Unfortunately, as Randy cast a shadow from above as she took the picture, some of the turtles headed into the water.)

We had to stop for fuel, so we stopped here -- appropriate?

I checked on the Internet, so it must be true. I asked Google if there was a connection between Phillips 66 and Route 66. Here was the answer:  "The specific gravity of the gasoline was close to 66; the car testing the fuel did 66 miles per hour; and, the test took place on US Route 66. So, the naming committee unanimously voted for “Phillips 66.”

As we were driving along, a place called Uranus caught our eye, so we stopped and took some pictures.

 

A couple pictures from the road:

      

The first picture was a vehicle on a flatbed tow truck. Sticking out of the top of the car was a chicken -- a poultry version of the Oscar Meyer mobile? (Excuse the reflection -- taken through the closed window.) The other picture is a boulder sticking out of a hill, painted to look like a giant frog. We liked that one.

A well-known motel from back in the day -- and a road sign with mileages. Lebanon, MO.

         

We stopped for dinner, also in Lebanon, MO:

 

Randy had the fried catfish, which was good not great, and I had pulled pork, pretty good.

We landed at a Best Western, Historic Rail Haven hotel. Established in 1937, remodeled a number of times. Typical of that era, outside entrance, rooms in rows. Nicely kept up, good staff.