Route 66, aka: the Mother Road, travels from Chicago, IL to Los Angeles, CA. During its heyday the road took vacationers and job seekers across the Midwest and plains to points west. All along the way there were motels, service stations, cafes, and family oriented picnic areas. Progress brought the era of the interstate and with the slow death of the businesses and, ultimately, the small towns along the Mother Road.
Today, the route is becoming more popular as a vacation route for those seeking a bit of Americana nostalgia, including a popular route for motorcyclists. States and towns are beginning to preserve and renovate many of the landmarks that made Route 66 popular 50 years ago but much of it has long been abandoned.
The weather was beautifully sunny but cold here in Sand Springs, so Dustin and I decided to take a nice little road trip. We considered our options and opted to drive Old Route 66 from Sapulpa, OK to Edmond, OK. It's about 90 miles each way so it is perfect for an afternoon.
Sapulpa, Kellyville, Bristow
Sapulpa borders Sand Springs and is the closest town to us in which Route 66 goes through so it was our natural starting spot. It's home to Francoma Pottery which I visited right before Christmas.
Kellyville follows Sapulpa heading west. Since Route 66 doesn't actually go through downtown so, we really didn't see much.
Bristow comes up next. Visually, the downtown is very typical of the towns you see along Route 66 and what immediately comes to mind when you think of western towns. Lots of brick buildings lined up next to each other known as Prairie Commercial style. Bristow is holding its own and the town is still very active despite losing the road traffic.
Depew
We had to take a left off of Route 66 to get on Old Route 66 to see the downtown of this very small town. Depew is a perfect example of what happened to hundreds of towns along the route. The main downtown district has one grocery store and one other business. The rest of the buildings are empty. It was very much like a ghost town. Fortunately, they working to paint murals on the buildings and clean up the downtown area that will hopefully bring businesses back.
Stroud
Stroud is a really cute, thriving town also in the Prairie Commercial style, with lots of small gift shops, restaurants, and antique shops.
The Rock Cafe is located in Stroud. This cafe was made famous by the movie Cars as the inspiration for Sally Carrera in the movie was the owner of The Rock Cafe, Dawn Welch. Unfortunately the cafe burnt to the ground in May 2008 but they are busy renovating and hopefully it'll be opened by the fall.
Our real reason for visiting Stroud was the Stable Ridge Winery. Our visit to Stable Ridge was EXCEPTIONAL! The winery is owned by Annetta and Don Neal, both of whom were there today when we visited. They took an old Catholic church originally built in 1898 and made it into a beautiful tasting room. The winery has been up and running for 5 years now and not only was the wine wonderful (HIGHLY recommend trying the Wild Thang red) but Annetta and Don were two of the most personable, funny, unpretentious vineyard owners I have ever met. It was such an absolute joy to spend time there and I can not wait to go back in the spring & summer to sit on the deck and enjoy the wine there again :)
http://www.stableridgevineyards.com
Davenport
Davenport is much like Depew. When Route 66 was still a dirt road this was a thriving small town. The road was eventually turned into brick but, since the realignment of the road, this small town has been long forgotten. The post office is the only business remaining on the short stretch of the original road.
Chandler
The Route 66 Interpretative Center is located in Chandler, OK. Chandler is a very busy town with lots of restaurants, shopping centers, and assorted shops. We stopped at the Interpretive Center and were the only people there! The center doesn't have any artifacts from the trail but what they do have is a great multimedia center in which you sit on old car seats and replicas of motel beds and watch videos about various points on the route. It was a really great place to visit and had amazing photographs of sights along the route.
Warwick, Wellston, and Luther
To be honest, we didn't really see much of anything while passing through these towns.
Arcadia
Sweet sweet Arcadia. Home to two of our stops along the route.
First up was the The Round Barn. It was originally built in 1898 and was restored in 1991. No one really knows why it was built round. Supposedly it was to be more tornado proof. The gift shop is downstairs and there is a loft upstairs. I'm gonna be honest, and forgive me if anyone in Arcadia reads this but, the gentleman running the gift shop scared the living daylights out of me! Seriously. He said something when we came and I still have no idea what it was except that I think it was some sort of greeting. The walls are covered with photos and different artifact with hand written explanations. At least I think that's what they were because the spelling was so bad it took me several moments to figure out what it actually said before I just gave up. I wanted to take pictures of it but I was afraid. I'm sure he was a very nice individual, he just made me a little nervous and since I am not fluent in Okie I didn't want to get caught in a conversation. Anyway....the loft is an expansive, awesome empty room that you can use for different events.
http://www.arcadiaroundbarn.org
Our final stop was POPS! Pops is a service station/restaurant that features more than 400 different kinds of pop (that's soda for you yankees). It also has a 66 foot pop bottle that is illuminated. Unfortunately we were there during the day time so, we'll have to road trip back to see it at night. We had a late lunch/early dinner where I had my first bite of chicken fried steak. To me, it tastes like KFC covered steak which I guess is the point. Once we had stuffed ourselves silly, we got a six pack of pops to go and headed out.
http://pops66.com/
Edmond
Well....I'm gonna be honest.....we didn't quite head into Edmond, we got distracted by a sign that said Guthrie so we sort of skipped Edmond. We'll hit when we head out to Oklahoma City in April.
As I just mentioned, we took a slight detour towards Guthrie, OK. We had both heard how fabulous this town is so, we had to check it out.
Guthrie
Everything we had read about Guthrie was true. It is an adorable little city and we can't wait to get back and explore it. There's lots of shops, restaurants, bed & breakfast, and it was once the state capital of Oklahoma.
I apologize for the length of this entry. I wanted to really give you a good feel for this section of Route 66. We're planning on heading out to Oklahoma City in April and hope to do a few of the town west of there so, there will an equally long entry to come!
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