Day 3 (Tues July 3, 2007) - Tulsa OK to Amarillo TX

I'm at the end of Day 3, sitting in a "rustic" log cabin at the KOA Kampground in Amarillo Texas, but enjoying the air conditioning and blogging via the WiFi Internet connection! (Camping just ain't what it used to be, folks... and I for one am grateful!)

Today's drive was fairly long again (400 miles), but we saw an amazing variety of terrains, towns and road types as Route 66 stretched out from rolling hills across the great plains. Oklahoma and Texas have had so much rain, but God blessed us with another beautiful day - some overcast skies in the morning gave way to sunshine, blue skies and huge cumulus clouds (Google that, meteorology fans!). The other benefit of the rain is that the grass, trees and fields all were beautifully green.

Just west of Tulsa, in a little town called Sepulpa, there was a "frozen-in-time" stretch of Route 66 that made us feel like it was 1935. Check out the historic Rock Creek bridge.

The town of Depew OK looked like a movie set with its western-style facades and rock buildings, but they still thought enough of Route 66ers to paint the logo on Main Street, and roads leading into and out of it.

In Davenport and Chandler OK we stopped to photograph classic examples of Texaco and Phillips 66 service stations (the Phillips station was undergoing restoration).

Oklahoma City has the distinction of being the only city along Route 66 with a state capitol building on the road. And an impressive capitol it is!

For many, many miles, Old Route 66 ran right alongside the Interstate, now as a "frontage road" or service drive. This was true for both I-44 and I-40. The interesting thing about the drive was that the old highway followed the ups and downs and turns of the terrain much more closely. On many occasions, the road would dead end on the south side of the Interstate, so we would cross over to pick up the frontage road on the north side, and vice versa. The road did this so many times we lost count!

Somewhere between El Reno and Hydro OK, the old highway crossed the Canadian River via a 38-pony bridge. (A "pony," we learned, is the term for one trussed arch unit of a bridge. This bridge, at nearly 4,000 feet long, had 38 ponies strung together! Quite impressive.)

Shortly after we crossed the Texas border, we drove through Shamrock, which is the home to a Route 66 icon - the Art Deco-designed Conoco tower service station, with its attached "U-Drop-Inn" restaurant. The design elements of this station were featured in the Disney/Pixar movie Cars as Ramone's House of Body Art.

At last, around 7:30pm local time, we arrived at the KOA, Becky made a dee-licious dinner of grilled chicken breast, peas and cole slaw, we took a nice walk around the campground, and I settled in for some blogging! God is good, and the Mother Road is a blast! Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds... until then, nighty night!