Fall 2025 Road Trip; Continuing Along Route 66

The Golden Driller, Tulsa, Oklahoma
(click to enlarge)

This is the third in a series of posts highlighting my 2025 fall road trip from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast and back—more or less a giant loop around the northern half of the Unted States is what is planned.  You can read the first two posts here and here.  Since this is the third time I’ve driven Route 66, you can search previous posts for many more detailed posts about the ‘Mother Road.’

I think I’m going to document this road trip a little differently than I have for past road trips.  In the past, I have written a detailed travelogue with each post illustrated with some of the images I made.  Instead of providing a lot of detail about the trip, I am going to write about the highlights of my adventure and provide some images to show some of the things of interest I saw.  At the end of this series of posts, I’ll post a few more stories about some of the ‘unusual’ things we experienced along the way.  Did I mention ‘unusual?’  Stand by for those.  Okay.  Back to the road trip.

In the last post I left off in Springfield, Missouri.  From there we followed Route 66 through the corner of Kansas and into Oklahoma. 

Have you heard of Uranus?  No, not the planet but the weird Missouri novelty venue along Route 66 (in Pulaski County) that is themed Uranus—and most of the references by employees and sights are geared to human anatomy, not astronomy.  We had visited on our last road trip and decided to make another short stop.  We heard the many double entendres by employees, read the facetious signs, laughed a bit, then moved on.  Thad said, there are quite of few photographic opportunities to be had if you stop and visit.

For those of you older readers, we passed through Mickey Mantle’s hometown and statue in Oklahoma.  One of my childhood heroes.  

For those of you who may want to see the famous “Blue Whale” in Catoosa, OK, well, you can see it from the road but it seems they have torn down the bathrooms, removed the picnic tables and fenced off the property.  Lots of construction.  They may be getting ready for next years big 100th anniversary of Route 66 and the expected plethora of visitors.  The best you can do is see it from the side of the road.

When we reached Tulsa, we decided to spend two nights.  Occasionally spending two nights in a city that has as much Route 66 stuff as Tulsa, allows us to see more as well as gives us a break from unpacking in the hotel room, packing up in the morning and then driving all day.

One of the most famous Americana icons in Tulsa is the “Golden Driller.”  (Above)  This is a 76 ft. tall statue which also appears on their state flag.  Somehow, the last two times I drove Route 66, I missed it.  

We also visited Cyrus Avery Square and Bridge.  Cyrus Avery was a businessperson, oilman, and highway commissioner. He created U.S. Route 66 while being a member of the federal board appointed to create the Federal Highway System, then pushed for the establishment of the U.S. Highway 66 Association to pave and promote the highway. As such, he is known as the "Father of Route 66".  Here is more information at Wikipedia if you are interested.  There is a terrific bigger than life size bronze sculpture at the site.  The detail is amazing!

We also visited a very unique property called "The Cave House."  Really weird.  I'll write about that visit in an upcoming post.

From Tulsa, we drove across the Texas Panhandle and into New Mexico.  I saw my first Tarantula in the wild at the visitor's center along I-70 after entering New Mexico.  It looked pretty fierce to me.  I chose to avoid it.  In Texas we spent the night in Shamrock.  If you like photograph neon signs and Americana at dusk, Shamrock has a really nice old Conoco service station that lights up at night.  I will do a separate post on that in the near future.

Next, we drove into Tucumcari, then Albuquerque.  In Albuquerque we ate at a small Route 66 themed diner near the university.  Very cool.  But we also had an unusual surprise while eating.  I'll write about that in the next post.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  Dennis A. Mook  

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