Route 66 Road Trip

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Really enjoying following your trip, great job and thanks for sharing.
 
Afton to Catoosa

Eastern Trails Museum in Vinita is a small local history museum. Admission is free. RVs will fit in the lot on the opposite side of the street. 

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The settlement of most of the small towns along Route 66 was tied to the railroad. The establishment of Route 66 kept the towns alive and thriving. Some like Vinita are located close enough to the interstate and other roads that the decommissioning of Route 66 didn’t have an effect on them. Others like Chelsea lost most of their businesses. 

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The Chelsea Motel (with showers!) opened in 1939. The rooms are used for storage now. 

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Side trip – well worth the 3.5 mile detour off of the route. The largest creation in Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park is a 90’ tall totem pole constructed using 100 tons of sand and rock, 28 tons of cement and 6 tons of steel. Galloway also built a house, a workshop, several more totems and two sets of picnic tables.

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When he wasn’t building with concrete he made furniture and carved violins. He built an eleven-sided building to house approximately 300 violins, all carved from different woods. Some are on display in the building which is now a visitor center and gift shop. The parking lot is large enough for RVs. There’s no admission charge.

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The story behind this statue is inspiring. Andy Payne was a 20 year old Cherokee farm boy when he entered the Great American Footrace in 1928. The race started in California and ended in New York, a distance of 3,422 miles. Of the 275 who started the race only 55 finished. Andy Payne came in first, winning the prize of $25,000 which was an enormous amount of money in 1928 as the average yearly salary was only $1,500. 

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Claremont is the home of the J.M. Davis Arms & Historical Museum which has over 13,000 firearms. Most of them were part of the personal collection of J.M. Davis’s who owned a downtown hotel. We’re not gun enthusiasts but it’s hard to pass up up a free museum. :-D Besides a crazy number of guns the museum also has collections of clocks, musical instruments, campaign buttons, beer steins, mounted animal heads and other stuff. Their collection of WWI posters is the best and most comprehensive that I’ve seen.

The parking lot is large enough for RVs.

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One of Oklahoma’s most famous citizen is Will Rogers. We knew next to nothing about Rogers but since he lived during Route 66’s glory days we decided that we had to visit the Will Rogers Memorial Museum. Will Rogers was an interesting guy. Both of his parents were part Cherokee and born in Oklahoma (Indian Territory at that time) after their parents were forced to leave the southeast. Rodgers grew up helping on the family ranch and practicing rope tricks. In his early twenties he went to South Africa to work on a cattle ranch and met Texas Jack who had a traveling Wild West show. That meeting changed everything for Rogers.

After working with Texas Jack for a short time Rogers moved onto larger traveling acts, then onto vaudeville which led to a movie career. He also had a weekly radio show and a weekly newspaper column, wrote books and gave lectures. Through it all he remained a down-to-earth guy who assisted flood victims along the Mississippi River Valley in 1927, earthquake victims in Nicaragua in 1931 and raised money for drought stricken farmers during the depression. He died in 1935 when the small plane he was riding in crashed in Alaska.

 The parking lot is large enough for RVs.

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You can’t help but smile back at this big blue whale. :) The whale is a recent addition, built over two years in the early 1970s by Hugh Davis who liked to keep busy after he retired. The property is still owned by the Davis family (we had a nice time chatting with his son Blaine) and is free to visit.
The lot is large enough for any RV.

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Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on the outskirts of Tulsa is a good place to stay overnight. Oversized parking is in lot I. The lot has a slope so leveling is necessary. There’s a free dump station and fresh water fill on the edge of the lot. 

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Wow, great entry TandK, so much good stuff!! The violin place and Will Rogers museum would be must sees for me.
 
Yay, you guys are in my state! :D Can't wait to see you guys. :)
 
tonyandkaren said:
See you in a few weeks Theadyn! That is if we don't get too distracted by all the stuff along the way! :p

Okay, that made me LOL, you're in her state but it will take a few weeks to get to her.  You need to write a book about slow travel!   :D
 
Tulsa

This is our first visit to Tulsa. We came with no expectations and were completely charmed by the city. Tulsa is considered the cultural and arts center of Oklahoma. It’s a relatively new city built on the 1905 discovery of the large Glenn Pool oil field south of the city. By 1920 two thirds of the nations oil was produced in Tulsa. The newly wealthy citizens including J. Paul Getty, Harry Sinclair, William Skelly, and L.E. Phillips built lavish mansions and office buildings in the art deco style. Tulsa is no longer the oil capital of the world but the philanthropic efforts of some of the early oil men can still be seen in the beautiful museums and parks.

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We spent four days in Tulsa which was really not enough time to see everything. I’m dividing this into two parts because otherwise it would be too long. This post is mostly pictures of interesting architecture, old motels and old signs.

A few classic motels

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 Daylight Donuts was founded in Tulsa in 1954
 This is not their tradition sign. Whoever owns this one made good use of an old motel sign.

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Moody’s since 1944 and Jim’s Coney Island since the 1950s.

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Rancho Grande since 1953. Tulsans loved this Meadow Gold sign so much that everyone got together to restore it and find it a new home when the building where it had resided for 80 years was torn down.

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Another much loved icon – the 76 foot tall Golden Driller at the main gate of the Tulsa State Fairgrounds

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Because Tulsa is such a young city many of the buildings were constructed during the height of the Art Deco craze and fortunately many of them survived the urban renewal of the 1960s and 70s that destroyed historical sections of other cities. This was the Tulsa Union Depot built in 1931. It's now the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame and has free jam sessions every Tuesday.

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We're not too far behind you, now!
 
Route 66-Tulsa Museums

 Tulsa has a lot of museums and, although none of them have free admission, all are under $10.00, less if you qualify as a senior.

The Philbrook Museum of Art is three in one – art collection, magnificent house and beautiful gardens. The museum is the former mansion home of Waite and Genevieve Phillips which they donated to the city in 1938 to be used as an art museum. The art collection has a little bit of everything – American, Asian. European, African, Native American, antiquities and contemporary.

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The main parking lot is the top level of a garage which can not support the weight of large vehicles. A sign requests that RVs and buses be parked along the street. All streets around the museum are marked “No Parking” so we assumed that the sign indicated that we should park along the street that led to the bottom level of the parking garage even though it meant parking across several spaces. It must have been okay because no one said anything about it.

The Gilcrease Museum, like the Philbrook was built with oil money, however, Thomas Gilcrease put most of his money and energy into collecting western American art. His house is modest and is not opened to tour. The art collection is impressive. The museum rambles a bit so use the map to make sure that you don’t miss anything. RV parking in the lower lot.

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The permanent exhibits in the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art are historical exhibits rather than art exhibits. The Holocaust exhibit examines prejudice, racism and the build up of events in Nazi Germany that culminated in concentration camps and the death of 11 million Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, disabled people, and Roma. The exhibits on the second floor cover early Jewish history, the Jewish community in Tulsa, Jewish practices, ceremonies, holidays, and overall heritage. Large parking lot.

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Woody Guthrie was born in Oklahoma and spent a good portion of his life traveling along Route 66, singing songs about the people and places, hard times and the fights for justice. Through photographs and audio programs the Woody Guthrie Center covers Woody’s life, music and artwork. Woody’s influence on other musicians and songwriters is also covered.  Parking along the street.

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The Tulsa Historical Society and Museum has exhibits about specific events and aspects of Tulsa but doesn’t give an in-depth account of the city’s history.  Large parking lots but a tight turn on the entrance road.

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Don’t miss the Tulsa Garden Center located next door to the museum. Free!

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  Tulsa has two small parks memorializing sad chapters of city’s history.

  The sculpture in Creek Council Oak Park represents the ceremonial fire that the Creek Indians kindled in 1836 when they arrived at their new home after surviving the Trail of Tears, a forced march from their homeland in Alabama and Georgia. During the Civil War some Creeks sided with the Confederacy. At the end of the war new treaties were written which resulted in the lost of large portions of land that had been tribal land. Then Curtis Act of 1898 abolished tribal governments, split Indian land into allotments and opened 90 million acres of land pervious owned by Indians to white settlement. Somewhere along the way the council oak land was lost. In 1960 it was slated to become a parking lot but was saved by the Creek Nation and several individuals who donated it to the city. 

  Parking is available along the side streets.

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The John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park was built as a memorial to the people who survived a terrible and hidden part of Tulsa’s history. Tulsa was oil rich in the early 1900s. Everyone benefited from the jobs and money, even the segregated black neighborhood of Greenwood in the northeast section of the city.Ten thousand people and numerous businesses including grocery stores, clothing stores, restaurants, medical and law offices, and two newspapers filled the 35 block area.

This was also a time of growing racism, a re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan and lynchings. On May 31, 1921 a Tulsa newspaper printed a sensationalized account of an incident from the day before when a young black man was accused of assaulting a young white woman. Tensions in the city escalated. Men from Greenwood armed themselves to prevent a lynching. Men from Tulsa marched to Greenwood. Shots were fired and a riot broke out. By the time it was over 100s of people had been killed and the entire black business district and many private homes were destroyed by fire.

We didn’t see the whole park because it was cold and raining.
Parking is available in a small lot or along the street.

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Tulsa isn’t very RV friendly. Many of the streets are very narrow so try to stay on the main streets or interstates. Most of the Walmarts are neighborhood markets and not suitable for overnight parking. We stayed at the River Spirit Casino which is a little far away from the city but a easy drive along Riverside Drive. The lot farthest south is the best one for large vehicles but due to construction work it wasn’t opened when we visited. We parked in the lot just north of this lot which has a turn that is very narrow and tight. After entering the entrance driveway continue to the end and curve around the island to avoid the narrow turn. The parking lot is flat and it’s fairly quiet. The River Parks Trail, with a paved bike trail and a separate paved walking trail that runs along the river for ten miles, can be accessed from the casino lot.

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 Do not stay at the Osage Casino north of Tulsa. We parked in a little used lot far away from the casino entrance and got the dreaded 1:30AM knock. This is such a rare occurrence. It's happened only a handful of times in all of our years of fulltiming but it's never fun. The good thing is that no one in Tulsa is awake at 1:30 in the morning. Absolutely no traffic, in fact twilight zone eerie. :-D
http://www.osagecasinos.com/
 

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Tulsa to Davenport

The Cyrus Avery Memorial Plaza on the western edge of Tulsa honors Cyrus Avery and depicts a symbolic meeting of the west and east and the old and new. Avery, an Oklahoma oilman and farmer who served on the Joint Board of Interstate Highways, was responsible for pushing for a route through Oklahoma. Route 66!

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Route 66 Village is still in the developmental stages. A restored steam engine with train cars and a oil derrick are the main exhibits with plans to add many other artifacts.

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Frankoma Pottery operated in Sapulpa from 1933 until 2010. It’s still in business but on a very limited basis. This sculpture is on the eastern edge of town.

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Happy Burger is a newcomer that started as Tastee Freez franchise in 1957 and got this cool sign when it became Happy Burger in the 1970s.

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Stroud Municipal Lake County Park Campground has both electric and primitive sites plus a dump station. The campground is very poorly planned with no way to get to most of the primitive sites and no parking along the road near them. Most of the electric sites have short paved parking pads with steep gravel roads. 

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The Rock Café in Stroud has been in business since 1939.

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Buildings along Route 66 in Stroud.

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Great vintage sign at the Skyliner.

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A 1933 Texaco gas station in Davenport is now the home of the Early Bird Café.

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Take a short detour of off Route 66 to drive down Broadway Ave. in Davenport and view the postcard murals.

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I'm at Amboy Crater on route 66 between Barstow and Needles, but not spending much time on 66 this trip.
 
tonyandkaren said:
The campground is very poorly planned with no way to get to most of the primitive sites and no parking along the road near them.
Primitive sites tend to be for tents, not vehicles. Often referred to as "walk-in sites".
 
blars said:
I'm at Amboy Crater on route 66 between Barstow and Needles, but not spending much time on 66 this trip.

  You'll probably be long gone by the time we get to Arizona but we'll see you at the RTR!
 
Davenport to Oklahoma City

The Chandler Armory, constructed in 1936-37, was one of many buildings completed during the depression by men working for the Works Projects Administration. It was used by the Oklahoma National Guard until 1971 and became the Route 66 Interpretive Center in 2007. The center provides period seating and plastic covered beds so that visitors can relax as they watch the audio visual displays. RV parking is located behind the building.

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This little 1930 Phillips 66 Filling Station is located along Route 66 in downtown Chandler.

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The Seaba Station is a restored 1921 DX gas station that now houses a free museum filled with motorcycles and service station memorabilia. RVs will fit in the lot.

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Don’t miss the stone restroom out back. 

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If the gate is opened drive on in, stop and talk awhile with John Hargrove. OK County 66 is his version of the highway. He has built small scale replicas of many of the famous icons. Visitors with RVs should drive to the top of the hill to park.

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He’s also building this truck, piece by piece.

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The Arcadia Round Barn was built in 1898 and restored in 1992. A gift shop and exhibits about the barn and the history of the area are located on the bottom floor. RVs will fit in the lot.

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Not all Route 66 icons are old! Pops, opened in 2007, is a gas station, convenience store and restaurant with over 600 flavors of soda pop. The giant soda bottle is 66’ tall and has a LEDs light show at night. The parking lot is large enough for RVs.

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