The day of free stuff

The morning broke bright and sunny in Cuba. We stopped at the World’s Tiniest Wal-Mart (our pronouncement, not theirs) to buy a cooler and load up on snacks, to avoid a starvation debacle like we had on Saturday.

We made a stop at the picturesque bridge at Devil’s Elbow and a few giants along the way before hitting Lebanon. We pulled into the Munger Moss hotel and took a few minutes to peruse their gift shop. They had cute little Munger Moss pens with the Route 66 crest on top that Jen and I decided to buy (trying to go for small souvenirs now!), but when we went to pay, we were told we could just take them. Score! Free stuff!




From there we went just down the street to the Bell Restaurant, where we enjoyed the largest meal we’ve eaten in ages for about $6 each. Sherrie and Jen had the roast beef special (it being Sunday and they being pastors’ kids) and Ann and I had the fried chicken special. The meals came with choice of potato, choice of vegetable, choice of bread, choice of side salad (salad, macaroni salad, potato salad, cole slaw, peaches, applesauce, cottage cheese and a few other things we’ve forgotten) and the requisite small town restaurant basket of crackers.



Somewhere along the road after Lebanon, we came across some windmills, so the Dutch girls took turns posing like Dutch figurines.




When we stopped to take our picture with the crap duster just outside Carthage, a local struck up a conversation with Sherrie and told her we absolutely had to go to Red Oak II. We can’t pass up a personal recommendation, so we backtracked a few miles to visit the site. We are so glad we did – well, three of us are, anyway!

One of the buildings on the site is a vintage gas station. I set the camera on a nearby stone wall, set the time and then ran over to join the picture. Unbeknownst to me, a duck saw me running and came tearing after me, flapping his wings. And unfortunately for Sherrie, she has a fowl phobia. So Sherrie started fleeing from the approaching duck, which caused it to turn its attention from me to her and start chasing her. Fortunately for us, that’s the moment the camera snapped.





Shortly after leaving Carthage, we hit Kansas for our brief 13-mile foray into that state. The Marsh Arch bridge was well worth the detour – it’s lovely and has a great setting for pictures.





Then suddenly we were in Oklahoma, hobnobbing with statues of Andy Payne and Will Rogers. And just as our mantra for the previous day had been “Cuba by midnight,” we had a theme for yesterday: Catoosa by dark. We absolutely had to get to the Catoosa whale before sundown. We arrived with ample time to spare and had a blast climbing up and down the whale and taking pictures. Because the t-shirt shop was closed, it’s one of our goals after the trip to find out where we can buy Catoosa whale t-shirts online.







For our late dinner, we stopped at the Metro diner in Tulsa. When our waiter discovered we were traveling the route, he brought us free postcards and free bumper stickers. More free stuff! It was at that point that we realized we hadn’t really spent money on anything during the day. We hadn’t gone to any attractions with admission. We hadn’t bought any souvenirs. Yay for us and self-control, and yay for nice people along the route giving us things.

Our waiter did inform us that the University of Tulsa owns the land the diner sits on and that they will be tearing it down in the next 6-9 months, forcing the diner to relocate.

From Tulsa we made our way to Chandler and the Lincoln Motel. It was a sweet vintage stopover, and we celebrated that fact that we made Chandler by 11 p.m. by opening up a bottle of sparkling shiraz Sherrie had brought along and having a toast.

Another long day, but we feel like we’re seeing so many incredible things along the way. Sure, we could have gotten to Chandler a little sooner if we hadn’t detoured to Red Oak, but when are we going to have that chance again? A little late-night driving is a small price to pay for the experience we’re having.