Route 66 Festival 2010
Day 1
Things in St Louis
Day 2
To Afton
Day 3
Reordering the Plan
Day 4
Back on the Route
Day 5
Bum Assumption Revealed
Day 6
Ghost Town in the Making
Day 7
Awards Day
Day 8
Festival Interlude
This was my sixth Route 66 national festival (2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008) and I'm starting to know most of the players. Among other things, that means there's a good chance I'll know the award winners and might even have an opinion. My opinions on the awards is usually an approving one and that was completely the case this year. It also means that a major attraction of the festival is the chance to renew old friendships. I did plenty of that. And I took advantage of the festival location to visit some new (e.g., Ku-Ku, Vintage Iron, Pops) and revisit some old (e.g., Eisler Brothers, Marsh Bridge, Rock Cafe) Route 66 attractions and I got a new, inside, view of Afton Station. The tri-state area was also a good spot from which to visit some non-66 sites (Picher, Bartlesville, Guthrie, Coffeyville, Tallgrass Prairie) including two stops at the Tom Mix Museum in Dewey. I also got to see both of Oklahoma's remaining Ozark Trails markers. My big screw-up was missing the Spook Light tour. I signed up for it then was enjoying chatting with friends at the pool party so much that I blew it off. I don't regret the chatting but I know visiting Spooky would have been fun.
Attending national gatherings for Route 66 and the Lincoln Highway back to back certainly invites comparisons and I've done a tiny bit of that in the postlude of the LH trip. I originally intended to duplicate it here but pointing is better that copying. There's a one paragraph comparison here.
June 20, 2010 (day 8)
This was my last day on Route 66. I should reach the Lincoln Highway
sometime tomorrow. Today I stopped by the Truman Library & Museum and
benefited from free admission on Fathers Day.
June 19, 2010 (day 7)
This day had egroup breakfast, car show, local museum, and Will Rogers
Award Banquet yet I think the best part was meeting an old guy driving an
old car on an old road.
June 18, 2010 (day 6)
I visited the brand new ghost town of Picher, OK, then hung out at the
festival site.
June 17, 2010 (day 5)
I began the day by learning that the building I called Oklahoma's first
capitol was something else entirely. I learned a lot more than that about
Oklahoma history the was able to correct a Tuesday oversight on the way
back to Kansas.
June 16, 2010 (day 4)
I dashed directly to Stroud on the interstate then took Sixty-Six through
Arcadia before turning north to Guthrie.
June 15, 2010 (day 3)
I'd worked out an "optional" loop through Bartlesville just in
case I had extra time. With the planned drive to Arcadia looking unwise
because of flooding, I decided I had time. I saw the Price Tower, bison,
Tom Mix's saddles, and paintings of dead Daltons.
June 14, 2010 (day 2)
An early start meant some planned stops were not yet open but it allowed me
to make an unplanned swing through Kansas.
June 13, 2010 (day 1)
I ended the day in a vintage motel -- with carports! -- after seeing some
St Louis sights including the Museum of Transportation.
Back in January, I added a forum to the website thinking that it might result in some fun discussions. After a small flurry of posts, the forum went silent and has been pretty much forgotten. I'd like to think it can still be useful. So here's a new invitation. I've even started a new thread for this trip so that no one else has to take the first step. When the forum first appeared, I allowed posts by unregistered guests but that just lead to a steady stream of spam. You can read things as a guest but you now have to register to post. The forum can be reached by clicking the word "Forum" on the site's home page or directly here.
ADDENDUM: Sep 13 2012 - The forum fared no better following this invitation than it had in the past so it was removed toward the end of 2011. The direct link in the preceding paragraph was just now rediscovered and removed.
Prelude 2 - May 23, 2010
Ever since the dates for this festival were solidified and it became
apparent that this drive would flow right into the drive to the
2010 National Lincoln Highway Association Conference
in Dixon, Illinois, I've struggled with thoughts of combining the two
into a single trip report. Partially because I could never settle on what
to call it, I've decided to continue treating them as two separate trips
for purposes of the website. The locator map linked to the button at the
top of this page shows the route from my reaching Route 66 in St Louis to
the 2010 International Route 66 Festival
near Joplin, Missouri. A locator map for the combined drive is
here. The journal for the drive to Dixon
is here.
Prelude 1 - January 15, 2010
In 2010, what's called the International Route 66 Festival is being held
in Joplin, Missouri. There isn't actually an organized traveling festival
that pops up in a different Route 66 state each year. An awards ceremony,
held in conjunction with a banquet, is really the only visible and
"official" item with a national connection. The banquet is
usually piggybacked on an existing festival such as Flagstaff's
"Route 66 Days", as was done last year, or San Bernardino's
"Route 66 Rendezvous" as was done in 2005. Whatever event is
associated with the banquet becomes the national event and draws authors,
artists, and just plain attendees from everywhere.
Joplin, it seems, has no existing festival to hook up with. The flexibility that allows is both a good and a bad thing. It means organizers can consider input from a lot of people but it also means a lot of people expect to be considered. One result is that, despite a date being chosen at the Flagstaff event in September, the actual date was in flux until just hours ago. As things now stand, the 2010 International Route 66 Festival will take place June 17, 18, & 19.
Obviously a lot of people like the date change (the original start date was June 10) and I guess I will too, eventually. It makes it convenient to head directly to the 2010 Lincoln Highway Conference just 3 days and 400 miles away. It does mean that, assuming I go, I'll once again be on the road for Father's Day and my Dad's birthday. When the festival was scheduled to end on June 13, I figured I'd be home for those occasions.