Day 6: Oklahoma City to Elk City, Oklahoma

15 September. Elk City, Oklahoma. Midnight.

I read out loud from the last couple of days of journal entries, putting Tom and Don to sleep, as announced by their snoring (that certainly runs in the family – they sounded just like Dad!). Hopefully this isn’t having the same effect on everyone else... If it is, you can just stick with the executive summary and ignore the rest; I won’t be insulted – a lot of this is intended just to help us remember where we’ve been, what we’ve done and seen, and who we’ve met. Because of the documentary nature of such a list, it’s tending to feel decidedly like a dry catalogue list at times.

Executive summary: 8:30 start, 5pm finish, 132 miles. Edmond, Warr Acres, Bethany, Weatherford, Clinton, Foss, and Elk City Oklahoma. Best day yet, bookmarked by time with friends on both ends, and bursting in between with learning about, and seeing more of, Route 66 in America’s heartland.

[Note: Again, no internet access, so we’re now 3 days behind posting to the blog... but eventually we’ll get back up-to-date. In the meantime, I hardly know where to begin describing this day – and words will not suffice.]

Dad was the first to come downstairs this morning, seeking out coffee early. The house stirred, and everyone else followed suit. Mark and I headed out the door for a short, easy run around the neighborhood, visiting about the many (significant) changes in both our lives since last we saw each other in April 2007 – some momentous milestones and turning points, both of us for the better.

The "adults" all relaxed over coffee and the news while Mark and I ran and showered. We said our goodbyes and hit the road around 8:30, heading south from Edmond and proceeding west through Warr Acres (proclaiming itself to be Oklahoma’s Almost-Capital City), noting the giant bowling pin at 66 Bowl and Ann’s Chicken Fry Steak House; then Bethany (Southern Nazarene University and Southern Christian University); pulling off to admire Lake Overholser, locally nicknamed for its "submarine races" as "Lake Holdercloser." Lake Overholser served as a seaplane base during WWII. In 1941, it was the first and only body of water in Oklahoma to be officially designated as a seaplane base. Pan American’s graceful Clippers were all the rage then, with transcontinental seaplane travel considered to be the next major development in air travel. But by the time WWII had ended, military and civilian engineers had built thousands of miles of long concrete runways almost everywhere. The seaplane era was over, even for small craft, and Lake Overholser’s hopes faded with the times.

Leaving the area via Yukon (Yukon’s Best Flour emblazoned on massive grain elevator, Chisholm Trail wall mural – we couldn’t find the WWII Flying Tiger fighter plane supposedly located 4 miles west of town), continuing through El Reno (WW II twin-engine bomber, tight turns through town, Fort Reno historic marker – but no more Deluxe Inn motel; the one-story green structure appearing in the movie Rain Man has been demolished, though its signpost remains, sticking out like a sore thumb in front of a nondescript storage building polebarn) before reaching a lengthy 1930's concrete section of Route 66 heading west toward Hydro.
The pristine curbed concrete headed arrow-straight for much of the way, interrupted by charming curves while crossing fields and woods, bridging deep gullies on long concrete-post spans. And of course I took a bunch of pictures of an unbelievably long 1933 pony bridge that utilizes 38 small "pony" trusses to cross the South Canadian River. Despite a variety of roadie explanations for the number of its spans (frequent washouts, the weight of tank convoys, a steel shortage, etc.), the truth is that each span is simply as large as the highway department’s early equipment could lift into place. This entire stretch of road was charming: pink, tree-shaded concrete with innocent-looking little half-curbs that once represented cutting-edge innovation – but wound up accomplishing more than intended by their engineers. Instead of promoting drainage, they apparently could turn a hill face into a solid sheet of water during a hard rain – which is the only kind of rain Oklahoma seems to have. Motorists who got between two such hills were likely to stay there until the weather cleared – and sometimes others would come slithering down to the bottom, too, creating an even bigger mess. The other thing the curbs were intended to do was to redirect errant autos back onto the roadway. They managed that – but many cars were tossed over onto their tops in the process. So it’s not surprising that we don’t see a lot of this kind of curbing anymore!

We opted not to follow any of today’s optional dirt road detours near Calumet, Geary, and Bridgeport, sticking to the pavement but enjoying the drive, which reminded Dad and his brothers of Highway 75 in northwestern Minnesota with its edging and rhythmic sounds (ka-THUNK-ka-thunk, ka-THUNK-ka-thunk, ka-THUNK-ka-thunk...) emanating from the concrete slab pavement.

Having decided to eat in Weatherford, we were sorely disappointed. We had looked forward to the Out to Lunch Café, anticipating "nice folks, good food, and pretty, down-home waitresses who aren’t required to babble their names and push the daily special. Here, they’ll just smile that wonderful Oklahoma Hi-y’all smile and let you make up your own mind. Next best thing to sharing the front-porch swing and a lemonade with your sweetie." Its location was described by the recommending book as being "at Midtown," but we could locate no such place. Between the Downtown Diner and Lucille’s, we opted for the latter, which probably was a mistake. It looked vintage, and its history sounded fascinating: famed home of Lucille Hamons, dubbed the "Mother of the Mother Road," which had closed when she passed away in 2000 but had been restored... but inside we found a restaurant with about the character of a Chili’s and poor service from a disinterested waitress. Ah, well; you can’t win ‘em all.

Our first planned stop today was the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum in Clinton (straight across the street from the Trade Winds Motel where Elvis stayed), a well-done exhibit featuring Oklahoma 66 but with a national slant, following the history of 66 decade-by-decade from dirt road days through the 1960s, incorporating tableaus of antique vehicles, photos, memorabilia, and a drive-in theatre, as well as the restored Route 66 Valentine diner, and an image of the Illinois Department of Transportation workers who took down (and, for awhile, kept for themselves) the signs for the decommissioned Route 66. The exhibits were thorough without being overwhelming, with plenty of authentic items on display and interesting personal accounts, as well as interesting little factoids like the fact that when cars were first sold mainstream, they were taxed based on their horsepower (so many cents per horsepower, initially ranging from something like 20 to 50 cents per horse). One I liked was a narrative remembering the author’s boyhood when the road went through; his father was offered $1 a day to labor on it, plus $1 a day for use of his team of horses; the author remarked, "he said he hadn’t had any idea that the government had that kind of money!" The family had been excited, he recalled, knowing that they would eat well from then on, and his mother knew she would even be able to buy shoes for the kids for school that year. One day he had taken water to his father on the job; his father had passed around the gallon jug to share with the other workers; and the company boss called the boy over, gave him a dime, and told him that if he would bring two gallons of water to the crew every day, he could be their water boy, for which he would receive a dime every day. He remembered how ecstatic he had been at holding that shiny dime and how thrilled at the prospect of making sixty more, ruefully remarking that he wished he had paid more attention in math the year before, ‘cuz then he "woulda knowed how much money sixty dimes was..." but he knew for sure that it was a lot of money, enough to buy a pair of shoes and maybe even a shirt.

We also learned how Phillips 66 got its name: not (directly) from Route 66, but by chance, when two executives en route to a meeting at which to discuss a name for the company, brainstorming for a catchy title that would instill excitement about the power of their fuel, realized they were driving over 60; one remarked to the other, "60 nothing; we’re doing 66!" just as they passed a Route 66 road sign... and the company name was born.

West of Clinton we followed more pristine sections of original concrete around Foss, detouring through Canute to see the remains of several old businesses there including the former Cotton Boll and Washita Motels, now both apparently private residences. Next was a T-33 jet guarding the Elk City airport entrance, a 179-foot-tall oil derrick, and then the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City.

Each state along Route 66 has its own designated state Route 66 museum; the national one happens to be in Elk City, where one of my favorite clients ever lives and practices. He knows, and probably is known by, everyone in town after living here for years, a native Oklahoman from the panhandle who settled here with his wife from OKC to raise their two daughters.

Although I had been unsure of our scheduling, I had hoped to connect with Steve and his wife when we came through, and we were in luck: we touched base by telephone and decided to meet up after his workday ended, to go out to dinner, and he invited us to bring our rig out to his place to camp overnight; excellent! That meant we wouldn’t have to rush off to check in and set up someplace else. Although there was a KOA Kampground right in Elk City, I much preferred to spend the evening visiting, meeting his wife in person for the first time, and getting to know them both better.

Steve had personally taken me on a quick tour of the city when I had visited for a few hours in April 2007, so I knew roughly where things were, and we drove directly to the National Museum (next to an adorable city park, complete with sports fields, gorgeous swan ponds, and a restored carousel – also easy to spot anyway, with its enormous Route 66 sign and 2 giant Kachina dolls from an old trading post run by Wanda Queenan, who founded the museum herself – and she was in today, so we got to meet her in person) to spend the rest of the afternoon. The museum was well done, with sections about not only Route 66, but a general overview of America during the time period of the highway’s heyday. We strolled through the interestingly-narrated museum exhibit section, then wandered around several other buildings on the grounds of its Old Town Museum, where at least a dozen vintage buildings have been restored and moved to form a small city from the past, complete with a train and depot, a series of signs in the Burma Shave style, and a Farm & Ranch Museum full of old farm implements and surrounded by larger implements and an array of windmills. It was great!

Just before 5pm, I called to check in with Steve and his secretary Rosemary, who welcomed us warmly and took time to give us a tour of the quaint red brick house in which Steve’s office is set up, beautifully decorated by his wife and featuring lots of interesting airplane memorabilia, including several enormous wooden propellers and quite a collection of miniature model planes, many from the Texaco and John Deere series. I loved finally getting to see her in person, after all these years! From there we returned to the museum to meet up with Steve and his wife, Cynthia. I had never met Cindy, but she proved to be vivacious, charming, and full of spirit, life, and a great sense of humor – I liked her immediately; she’s the kind of person with whom I could (and would want to!) be friends for life! They have two daughters in their 20s, both of whom live in Oklahoma City, and they’re about to become grandparents in October.

They had decided on a nearby place for us all to go to dinner. Leaving the camping rig at their place, Mom, Dad, and I piled into their mini-van, followed by the uncles in the Skyliner, and headed northwest into countryside that was lush green from recent rains. They had chosen the Flying W Ranch and its restaurant called Sassy’s, which proved an excellent choice: another huge, delicious meal with great service and atmosphere. A client of Steve’s was our waitress; when we learned that today was her birthday, we sang to her, for which she thanked us profusely, confiding that nobody had done that before – making us doubly glad we could help celebrate her birthday in some small way!

A local man named Don started the place years ago; he apparently is a friend and/or fan of Steve’s, because he came out to greet him personally, and after Steve introduced the rest of us, he spent probably 2 hours with us, first visiting about the nearby buffalo kill site, an archeologically significant place where Native Americans used to chase buffalo over a cliff to their deaths so that they could butcher them and feed their tribes. He brought out a black buffalo horn so that we could see for ourselves how hard and solid they are despite being made of hard-packed hair; then he invited us to see the General Store, which topped any museum we could imagine seeing anywhere along Route 66. He has assembled there an unbelievably extensive collection of late-19th-and-early-20th-century artifacts, preserving them just as they would have been in a general store at the period-appropriate time: sewing machines, irons, buttonhole measuring implements, thread, flour, a wooden butter churn, a dress pattern imprinter, hats and other clothing, dry goods, tins, rope, cigar-making molds, tobacco leaves, food tins (some still containing food), an old-fashioned candy county (with some candy still there), a real-honest-to-goodness original-model Edison phonograph, rare tools like a sugar barrel bore, various types of kerosene lanterns, leather razor-sharpening straps, shaving razors, old-fashioned hair-cutting scissors, and more diverse items than I could begin to recount in several hours. The array included various pictures, posters, and shaped items portraying grinning African American cartoon characters that never would fly today; he explained that back then, it was considered socially undesirable to participate in advertising, so white folks didn’t want their likenesses reproduced in ads. He also riddled us about why Bull Durham products were more popular with the men who bought them than any other brand; when he stumped us, he explained that it was because of the "hoochie-cootchie" pictures: they came with risque images showing women baring their... wrists, forearms, ankles, and once even a knee!

Don was immensely knowledgeable and endlessly enthusiastic about every single item there, taking time and care to explain many of them in interesting detail and freely answering every question we asked him. We could have stayed 10 hours and not seen everything, nor gotten our fill. The man, and his collection, were a gem in the rough – what a wonderful, serendipitous chance, for Steve and Cindy to take us there, for him to be there, and for him to be kind and generous enough to share so freely of his time and his memories. We were all enthralled and could happily have stayed all night.

One of the museum films today had a line I liked, in which the narrator likened Route 66 as inviting, "World, come and look at us! You won’t regret, nor soon forget, that you drove Route 66." Likewise, there’s no way we’ll ever forget this evening.

Steve delighted in riding with Tom in the Skyliner on the way back to his & Cindy’s place, where the guys set up the camper (they invited us to stay in their two empty guest bedrooms, but we hated the thought of making a mess just to sleep, when we had the camper with us already – the guest rooms were beautifully made up; we would have felt bad leaving them disheveled), Cindy gave us a tour of the house, and we all sat around together relaxing and drinking coffee and tea (and Mom got to write some postcards, which she’s been wanting to do), petting and playing with their adorable butterscotch-colored dog Maggie, and generally enjoying a nice visit. Besides being a favorite client, I simply like Steve as a person – and now Cindy, too; I would love to be able to spend more time together, and I sincerely hope they’ll come visit Colorado so that I can return their hospitality!

Too soon, the hour grew late and we decided to say goodnight so that we could let Steve get some sleep, since he actually has to get up and go to work all day tomorrow while the rest of us continue our vacation.

Tomorrow we’ll continue west toward the Texas panhandle and Amarillo.