Last Night

Tonight finds me in Greensburg, PA at a Ramada that could have been in Brigadoon for all the Garmin could determine. I guess it's a new place and my latest map update didn't cover "100 Ramada Drive." In almost 8,000 miles over 6 weeks, tonight's was the only failure for the Garmin.

I see by the menu that I can get "Scrod English style" here. First time I've ever heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive. (Old joke....)

I have just 280 miles to go on my trip. This hotel is on US Route 30, which also runs one block from home. I think I'll try to follow 30 tomorrow as a way to slowly withdraw from this adventure.

It's going to take a little adjusting to my "normal" life again. First order of business is to shed the excess avoirdupois I have accumulated over the last six weeks.

This morning I visited Dayton Aviation NHS, a beautifully-done little jewell of a park. I love the Wright Brothers story, always have. I know I'd break my neck, but I'd love to try gliding a la Wright sometime. Maybe after I regain my girlish figure.... But I doubt it. Our border collie, Molly, was related to the Wright brothers.

Ahia

Today I drove and drove and drove., top up all the way.

Tonight I am staying at a hotel in downtown Dayton. They neglected to inform me that they will be shutting down for renovations shortly and they have stopped all guest services, down to and including ice. The room is nice enough, but the neighborhood is devoid of life, of food of any kind, so I am living off my trip-blubber and the kindness of a Kind-bar.

Tomorrow it's a visit to Dayton Aviation and then continuing east. I doubt I'll make it home tomorrow, I'll probably stop somewhere along the way for one last night on the road.

September Song

And the days dwindle down to a precious few....

Yesterday's storm brought a definite change in the weather. This return trip started out at 109 degrees in southern California Tonight is forecast to be 39 degrees in Springfield, Illinois. Me, I'd rather have the cooler weather, but a little moderation would be nice.

We visited Lincoln Home this afternoon. It was rainy, so outside time was less leisurely than I would have liked. My tour group numbered about 8 souls. It was an interesting presentation technique, I felt as if I was a baton in a relay race, handed off from one ranger to the next as we worked our way through the house. All-told, I think we were passed off four times by five rangers. It seemed as though each ranger might be fluent in only one room of the house. I'm sure that was not the case, but impressions can be lasting.

Tonight's accommodations are about as different as can be from last night's simple-but-genuine Wagon Wheel Motel. Tonight, I am staying at the Route 66 Hotel and Conference Center. Pretty seedy, and not very real-feeling, but I suppose I've been spoiled on this trip.

Tomorrow I leave The Mother Road and head east to Dayton, Ohio to visit Dayton Aviation NHS, another site I've never visited. After that, probably one more night somewhere in western Pennsylvania and then home. The rainy weather really impedes my wakefulness. With the top down, I guess I get more oxygen and can stay awake much better than with the top up. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Cuba, Missouri

Today was little more than a dash from Point A (Claremore, OK) to Point B (Cuba, Missouri.) I wanted to get under cover before the inch-diameter hailstones began to fall. All day, the sky looked like dryer lint, but it didn't let loose until this evening when it did so with a vengeance. None of the predicted hail (yet) but the night is young. I found a car-porty thing to park Bergy under. Registration is pretty low here at the Wagon Wheel Motor Court, a lovely, refurbished survivor from the 1930s, so I took a chance that no one would mind if I coopted a covered space.

The storm will bring with it cooler air, as if fall starts tomorrow. Fitting, since tomorrow I will return to my "home" states, the ones I am most familiar with. The "adventure" states will be behind me tomorrow and soon the entire adventure will be but a memory. I would do it again, in a heartbeat.

I neglected to mention the dinner I had last night with Mark Booth and several members of the San Diego Miata Club. They were following the entire route of 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica. Dinner was at Molly's Landing, a restaurant right next to Route 66. "Progress" is replacing the original truss bridge with generic concrete. The owner of Molly's bought two of the spans and had them moved to their driveway as an entrance feature. Quite something!

In other news, I've had to replace both low beam bulbs on this trip, the only automotive things that have failed on the trip. Every mile makesme happier with Bergy.

Oklahoma, Day 2

Pleasant day yesterday. Spent a large part of the day on Route 66. It is so much more relaxing on the slower road. More varied, more time to look around.

Bridges were in evidence, stone ones and steel ones, as well as original concrete-with-curbs roadway.

Today is forecast to be more exciting. It looks like we'll be following a severe line of storms, including 1-inch hailstones. Bergy isn't very happy about that. We shall see.

Clinton Ooooook-lahoma!

Yet another evening with a wretched connection. (Thanks to Rachelle D. for reminding me what a woonderful word "wretched" is.)

I managed to escape Texas. It seems that Fox News is the default TV show to play in public places such as breakfast areas in hotels. I guess they think they'll offend fewer of their patrons with Fox. I tried hard not to laugh at some of the segments.

Two nights in Oklahoma. Here in Clinton and another tomorrow in Claremore, where I will be dining with four Miata-loads of people who are doing Route 66 westbound after leaving Miatas at MRLS and wending their way through a bunch of national parks before taking off on The Mother Road from Chicago.

I managed to visit two Route 66 museums today, One in Elk City, OK, (The National Route 66 Museum) and one in Clinton (The Oklahoma Route 66 Museum.) The latter was head and shoulders better than the former. Much better exhibitry and focus. The former was one of those "attic-dumps" that local museums are so often prone to. It does concern me that places seem to be able to use "national" in their names with impunity. Anyway, these are a couple of the exhibits.

Outside the "national" museum, there was a beautiful c. 1960 Corvette parked. I thought it was part of the exhibit. But there was an empty space next to it, so I parked Bergy alongside. Just as I was about to take a picture of the two, a couple, looking very unfriendly, came out of the museum, looked down their noses at Bergy, got into their shiny Corvette and left with a snooty roar. I guess they were afraid I'd get Japanese cooties on their car.

Hello from Amarillo!

I'm still trying to adjust to, what do we call it? Miata Lag? Two time zones in two days has kept me a little behind the 8-ball. I am hoping that tomorrow I can get with the program.

Dinner and comfy bed last night with Ron and Laura Harvey in Las Vegas, NM, a fascinating little town. Pretty much passed over by "progress" and, as a result, remains relatively intact from a century ago. It seems that the cuisine has not suffered in Las Vegas, however. Dinner last night included bacon and gorgonzola fondue (as an appetizer, no less!) followed by chicken and pasta in even more gorgonzola. Redundant, yes, but ever-so-nummy. So yummy in fact, that this morning's breakfast choice was oatmeal. Trying to be nice to Tommy's Tummy tonight.

Adding to my list of Twisties Not to be Missed, I took Route 104 southeast out of Las Vegas to Tucumcari. Wonderful vistas, and, not to beat a dead horse, but lonely-wise, it was right up there. This is a view from the road. Whatever that is down in the valley (the valley so low) that looks like the road, isn't.

I paid the obligatory visit to the Cadillac Ranch just west of Amarillo. I was hoping to get a picture of Bergy next to what's left of the Cadillacs, but they are planted maybe 100 yards from the road. I'm pretty sure that Bergy is glad he's not planted nose down in a Texas prairie.

Everything is graffitied. Everything, even the dirt. And in Texas, it is likely that Maria will last a long time.

Route 66 is famous for its outsized, um, everything: dinosaurs, cowboys, et ceteras. We stopped to consider what is purported to be the largest cross in the western hemisphere. It was big, but is it more powerful than a small cross held in the hand of a true believer? So why do people build these things?

Or the big cowboy just down the road at the Cadillac Ranch RV park and gift shop and, I assume, anything else that can turn a buck from tourists who come to see what's left of the real thing.  Turns out that he was a "Second Amendment Cowboy," whatever that is. Maybe all this bigness is a form of shouting, or typing in all caps. Whatever it is, there's a lot of it.