Oklahoma

This Sunday begins with bright Sunshine, not a cloud in the clear blue sky above Tulsa. We breakfast at the hotel and are on the road by mid morning and head out of town. We stop almost immediately at the Restored Frisco Steam Train, and the 154' tall Oil Derrick marking the location on the fringe of the city and take a quick look before continuing on our way on 66. It is our intention of spending most of the day on Route 66 until later in the afternoon.
About 10 miles out of the city in the town of Sapulpa we spy the Rock Creek Bridge on an old pretty much unused loop of 66, this bridge is a Steel Truss design with a red brick deck built in 1921. There are weight limit warnings and steel girders hanging over the road to

create a height limit as well, our car easily met both restrictions and we drove over it. We continued down this little used loop for about 2 miles before it began to become too rough to go any further, so we jumped on the current 66. A short while later, another old loop through a mostly abandoned town called Depew. Then on to Stroud, the home of a Route 66 landmark, the Rock Café built totally of native stone of the area. In the movie Cars there is a scene at Flo's Diner and the sign is blinking, the sign was filmed blinking at the Rock Café and used it in the movie. Dawn the owner of the Café was the inspiration for Sally Carrera in the 2006 movie. All of the Car's characters are based on real people from Route 66.
We then made stops at Seaba's Station Motorcycle Museum in Warwick and saw a nice collection of Vintage Motorcycles. On to Acadia where we saw a Round barn constructed in 1898, and abandoned Stone Gas Station and a new Landmark, POPs 66' tall

lighted Pop Bottle. We also saw a Hitchhiker! Don't see many of them anymore.
As we approached Oklahoma City we decided to take time out and visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial to the people killed when the Federal Building was destroyed by a bombing in 1995. A beautiful memorial for the 168 who lost their lives including 19 children.
After making up some time on the interstate we again went back to 66 for the Town of Clinton for the route 66 Museum, a fun look at the history of route 66.
We pushed on down the road and stopped at a town called Erick, we made a couple of stops in town. Our first stop was Bonebrake Hardware Store, we couldn't go in, you see on a day sometime in the 1960's the Bonebrake family walked out of the door, locked it, and never returned. The store sits there to this day locked, full of stock, books opened on the counter, paint from the tin ceiling flaking to the floor, hats and hardware on the shelves and full of dust. No visible

sign of entry for decades! Just people like us stopping and peering through the front windows, a strange story indeed.
Our next stop was right down the street, now this is Sunday at around 6pm so we were not expecting to find Sandhill's Curiosity Shop open, but sure enough the open sign was lit so we walked in and met Harley. I am not sure how to explain our visit other than to say it was a memorable one. His collection was full of Route 66 memorabilia of all types, and he sang to us, I am not sure if I can post a video on here but I will try.
Our last stop in Oklahoma was Texola a mostly abandoned town with 38 residents according to the last Census. We continue over the Texas border to Shamrock where we spend the night. A long and fun day.

Throughout this gorgeous Sunday we shared the road with many Motorcycles, groups from 2 or 3 ,to groups of 15 or so complete with

chase vehicles to carry luggage and other supplies. The temp today also continued to rise and at the peak was pushing 91 or so.