2023 WB Day 8 - Cars & People On The Road

Our second week began in Carthage at the Maple Leaf... maybe the best breakfast en route?

Then we ran for the state line.

Only 13 miles of the old road lies in Kansas but their ambassadors make up for it with bravado!

At Cars On The Road, co owner Melba 'The Mouth' proudly and relentlessly spurts forth information about Tow-Mater and the real deal inspiration, Tow-Tator. She opened up just for us!

Around the corner in Galena is a new attraction where Doc Hudson is holed up along with a tire version of Big Boy. Vibrant revival is happening every day.

Dean 'Crazy Legs' Walker is right up there with Melba, illustrating first hand (or should that be foot!) where the inspiration for Mater going backwards came from.

He greeted us at the only remaining Rainbow Bridge on the Mother Road.

Baxter Springs Visitors Center brought another snap in the camera shutters.

And on the next corner is what surely has to be Luigi's Tire Shop from the movie.

It's opposite another cute gas station we left behind moving on to Miami, Oklahoma.

The Indian pronounciation is Me-am-a and this is where we find the 1929 theatre built for mining magnate George Coleman.

Just as old is the original 9 foot wide concrete road section that once joined Miami to Afton.

Imagine horses and buggies... and the all new automobiles cutting a path along here!

The rat rod hanging around the front of Al Childs' place in Afton was somewhat possessed,

but Al convinced us to smile anyway, as we jumped back on 66.

Rod Jones' aka the Tattoo Man had done a better job on car preparation, his '56 Chevy resplendent in patriotic colours.

Similarly Ron's body was covered in bright artwork... depicting highlights from the road, and the craziness of people and places we see.

We lunched in Vinita in a tire shop where half the garage was converted to cafe and the staff prayed for us to have a safe onward journey.

A journey that took us to the Pryor Creek Bridge which dates back to the start of all the fuss this road is about.

More bridges...

Big whales...

And even bigger gas pumps

...greeted us as we moved west across Oklahoma toward Stroud for the night. We even discovered another resurrected drive-in movie theatre, this one in Supulpa.

The time capsule that is Depew, which once hosted all traffic heading east or west, is today hardly showing any signs of life...

...unlike the locals on the land we've been crossing. It's a great way to learn about the heart of America and that happened a lot today!