Family Reunion Trip, Day 77

Only one pic today. We took a 75 mile drive around the entire lake. Here's the dam.

The rest of the drive was either corn fields or soybean fields. There was not much to see or do. We have found that the folks in Illinois seem not to be to friendly, they never wave, whether in the campground or on the roads. I think it is the NY plates...LOL.
Tomorrow is our last drive on RT 66. It's only 220 miles to the next campground. After that we will pick up I90 head home.
Our loop at the campground filled up this afternoon! We don't feel so isolated anymore..LOL.
We hope to get a bunch of pics tomorrow on RT 66. All is well in the Boss camp.

Family Reunion Trip, Day 76

Last night it started raining (pouring) around 0300. At 1000 this morning it was still pouring! Kaylee was beside herself with all the thunder. Cath and I were worried that today was going to be a bust, but the rain slacked off around 1100 and we headed into St Louis MO & IL.
Got a few shots of the Arch on the way in to Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. More on the Arch in a minute.

This is a really nice National Site. It reminded us of James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Mentor, OH.

Here's the house.

And another view. It's a small place. but very well kept. Kaylee enjoyed the walk.

Then we headed to Gateway Arch National Park. We saw this mural on the waterfront road. There were lots more.

This park is a must see! It's not just the Arch, but the museum that is under the Arch below the ground. It is the size of football field, maybe bigger. It's not dog friendly, so that was a bummer. We could have spent all afternoon there. 

Here's a few views of the Arch.

It is really impressive when you are under it! 

Although these sites were not right on RT 66, we had to see them. And YES, the passport is getting full.
Back at camp the State Park is still empty, maybe 15 campers for 367 sites! We still have our loop to ourselves.The storms are coming back in this evening, but we are happy for the respite we got today.

Family Reunion Trip, Day 75

Today was our next to last travel day on RT 66.😭😥
First pic is of a giant bowling pin on a pole in Waynesville, MO. We didn't want the other two signs in the pic, but we got a good laugh about it. And NO! we did not go in the store!

This hotrod was in Rolla, MO. We see these hot rods in most of the towns along RT 66.

Here's the giant rocking chair outside of Fanning, MO.

The rocking chair is outside of this joint. They had really good homemade fudge, of course we had to get some for desert tonight.

We drove through Cuba, MO. This little town is known for it's murals. Here's a few samples, but there are probably 20 or more in the town, all in really good shape.

Just outside of Cuba we got this pic. Thought of Brian right away.

My favorite pic of the day was this water tower in Bourbon, MO. I winder if it's just water?

Typical hamburger joint in  Bourbon, MO. We see tons of these along the way.

Crossed the Mississippi just south of St. Louis and arrived in Illinois.
Our campground is on the largest man-made lake in Illinois, Carlyle Reservoir. We are in Eldon Hazlet State Park.

Our site is right on the water!

Here's our view.

The park has over 200 campsites, all nicely dispersed. We guess only 20 of them are full. We are in a loop of ten sites and we are the only ones here!

Family Reunion Trip, Day 74

We ran into Greenfield this morning to do a little shopping, get gas, and some ice. Back at camp I got the stabilizer repair finished. We spent the afternoon relaxing and watching some TV. Got packed up in the evening as tomorrow is a travel day.

All is well in the Boss Camp!

Family Reunion Trip, Day 73

Spent the morning sweltering, waiting for the folks to leave site #23. They finally left at 1130. We moved the camper over and turned on the delightful ACs!😍 The new site is really nice. Here's a few pics.

View of the lake from under the awning.

I ran into Greenfield to get a tool and some nuts and bolts. One of our stabilizer jacks has come loose. When Camping World moved the jacks to the frame last year they used standard hardware. The hardware they used has rusted and the heads came off the bolts. I'll do a temporary repair here, but will replace all the hardware with stainless when we get home. I'll do the repair in the morning when it's a little cooler. It's 96 right now and very humid. Forecast is for thunderstorms for the next two days, so we won't unpack much. It will not break our hearts to hang out in the camper.

Family Reunion Trip, Day 72

Today was a travel Day and one of the best. We did about 300 miles and never left Old RT 66 until we got to our new campground. The road was great and the sights were wonderful! We enjoyed this ride more than any other part so far. East of Oklahoma City, into Kansas, and them into Missouri, the states do RT 66 right! So here we go, we took tons of pics. I'm only putting the really good ones here, but we have probably 70 on our phones, it was a great ride today.
First stop was POPS just east of Oklahoma City. 66 FT tall neon pop bottle!

This joint also has any pop you can think of and some you've never heard of.

Here's the Round Barn in Arcadia, OK.

This is the Rock Cafe near Wellston, OK .

A pic of downtown Depew, OK.

Then on to Sapulpa, OK.

Couldn't pass this pic up! 

And there is a Miami in OK!

What a neat theater in Miami!

And they were having a wedding there.

An old Arby's sign. You don't see many like this anymore.

Interesting.

A statue of Mickey Mantle in Commerce, OK. His hometown and his high school field in the background.

Part of the short time in Kansas. There is only 13 miles of RT 66 in Kansas.

Nice neon!

Rainbow Bridge in KS.

Some of the original road in KS.

Hard to see, but this sign was kool.

Then we got into Missouri.

And then back to KS. Neat, restored gas station In Galena, KS.

More art.

The old train depot (restored) in Galena.

Junk Shop in Galena.

One more mural.

Just outside of Galena we ran into this joint. A great photo OP.

They had all the states on the "road".

Here's Cath being Betty-Boop!

And here's Craig on a cycle. We see tons of motorcycles on RT 66, but most of them are in Sturgis now. We read over 500,000 are there this year!

Cath made me do this one. The license plates are from each state on the road!

And finally in our campground, but that is a story too.

Not sure how I screwed up this reservation, but we booked a site with no power! When we arrived at 1530 the temp was 95. There were no power sites available. We opened all the windows in the camper and ran the fans on battery power, but at 2000 it was still smokin' hot! It started to cool off around 2100, we both took cold showers and went to bed. Temps cooled down to the mid 70s. Tomorrow we move to a power site and we are both looking forward to having some AC!