Springfield Missouri

Aug 19 Rt 66

We left Richmond Indiana for Henry’s Rabbit Ranch (our official start to Rt 66). Illinois and Indiana were pretty flat which was great for gas mileage. On our way to the Rabbit Ranch, we inadvertently hit a place that had a spaceship outside an antique mall and also a giant tricycle and a giant man (should have been a clue we were close to Route 66). We saw an old fashioned Ice cream stand and even found sugar free ice cream…wooo hooo. Well here it WAS right by Rt 66 so it was officially our first stop. We found out that the Ice Cream stand was brought there from PENNSYLVANIA. We hit Henry’s Rabbit Ranch and it was closed (Sunday’s) but we still got some great pictures. The photos will explain. From Henry’s Rabbit Ranch we headed for Chain of Rocks Bridge near St. Louis Missouri. We first stopped at the Visitor Center. The guy was SOOO helpful (15-20 min’s talking to Kelly) that Ray had to rescue her. He informed us that if we go there that we must have everything inside the vehicle and locked and even then someone might smash and grab so there was no way we could do that or wanted to take a chance so we moved onward to the St. Louis Arch. Saw the mighty Mississippi River and that would be a great place to stop and visit sometime. So much going on there but alas, our trip is the HIGHLIGHTS tour. From St. Louis we traveled toward Springfield MO on the highway and through HOTELS.com found a great hotel deal on a place called GreenStay Hotel. Focusing on the “Green” aspect. Ecofriendly. Very nice room. This is definitely not the usual for our budget. We detoured off the highway which travels very closely with Rt 66. So we stayed then on Rt 66. We stopped at “Jack in the Box” for dinner and ate outside with Baxter and Sophie. The weather has been fantastic. We’ve ridden a lot with the windows down. We got to see some interesting places like the World’s Largest Rocking chair and others (see pix’s). Interestingly enough, we discovered the TIME change so we actually got to the hotel much later than we want to in our normal travel days so we are really pooped out. These were two steady and heavy travel days. We plan to really start seeing more things and less travel miles now upcoming. Dogs are wiped out too!
Night night for now!