Road Trip Day 3: St Louis – Oklahoma City, Getting Our Kicks

We left the KOA in Granite City, IL and went back across the Mississippi River/Missouri State Line to see St Louis in the daylight.  We walked around the outside of Busch Stadium and their large memorial to Steve Musial (I didn’t know who he was either until I saw it).  We also passed a familiar looking chain with a different name.  Apparently the restaurant chain known as Panera Bread started in Missouri as the Saint Louis Bread Co, and kept their name in this area.  Overall I really liked St Louis – it’s small (I’d say about Worcester-size but cleaner) and easy to drive in. 

World's Largest Rocking Chair

 We spent the day driving along Route 66, seeing what attractions it had to offer. We got to see the world’s largest functioning rocking chair, in Fanning MI.  Built in 2008, this masterpiece stands 42’ 1” tall and 20’ 3” wide. Unfortunately, they apparently only let people sit and rock on it one day a year in August. Still, we got our first classic Route 66 experience.  Jeff bought a Route 66 tour book with many different attractions to visit, though none nearly as exciting as this rocking chair.

We got off the turnpike and followed the original Route 66 through the Southeastern corner of Kansas, to check another state off our list.  The tour book told us we would pass the Field of Dreams.  Come to find out, this baseball field shares nothing with the movie beyond a name.  The tour book also brought us past the largest McDonalds in the world, which is a large glass structure that spans over the Will Rogers Turnpike in Oklahoma.  This too was a bit of a disappointment, since it was undergoing a complete renovation. We did at least get to see the world’s largest totem pole in Foyil, Oklahoma.

Finally we reached Oklahoma City, though to be honest, I’m not sure it deserves the name “city”.  I couldn’t see any skyline worth taking a picture of.  The people we interacted with at toll plazas (which didn’t accept EZPass anymore unfortunately) and at dinner were very friendly though.  With not much to do in town at night, we found our KOA and closed another day of driving.