Get Your Kicks
October 2, 2023 – Day 4
The morning was difficult. We were beat up from yesterday. Paul made some morning tea, forgetting to put water in the electric kettle, which triggered its self shutdown mode. Then he put the tea in the microwave, since the kettle needed to cool, and, seeing the numbers 0 on the display set the clock to 12:00 and put his tea in. He realized this about 6 minutes later when he realized he had no tea. Of course bag exploded and the tea was everywhere.
At this point we realized that we were beat up from yesterday. No, we wouldn’t go into St. Louis to see the Arch, we wouldn’t go into St. Louis for the Science Museum, which was a double shame since it would be closed the next day. Resting for the morning seemed like a very good plan. Instead, Paul would play ham radio and Susan would knit and relax.
And Paul played radio.
There’s a thing call Parks on the Air where you go to a state or national park to broadcast and other hams try to contact you. Just like it was no coincidence that Susan found herself camped at an alpaca farm/yarn store, there was also no coincidence we stop at state or national parks.
There is nothing in the rules that say you have to be outside. Sitting inside in with the AC on or even just at night away from the mosquitos is perfectly in the rules. (susan here: HAMS have rules. Who knew!) Paul would dutifully sign on at 0:00 UTC (7PM in Missouri, 8PM for you east coast folk) and played radio the next morning over breakfast.
We had a nice chill morning and by lunchtime we decided to go out and grab something local for lunch. We like to do a meal out. Sometimes it’s because we’re tired but usually it’s to experience local delicacies and culture. Letty Lou’s Cafe sounded interesting with items like TV Dinner and Nana’s Pot Roast. When we arrived we found it closed. Where would we go? We noticed that next door was the Wildwood Cafe which we had also considered. (Hint, we were in Wildwood MO so the name isn’t that surprising.) Paul ordered a Brisket Pizza and the server asked if he wanted hand thrown or St. Louis style. He asked, “St. Louis style?” Our server told him “Thin.” Paul, always full of questions asked “Like NY?” And she replied, “Thinner.” And thin it was!
It was very good and very thin. Susan had a Pulled Chicken sandwich with ‘bama sauce, which is a white BBQ sauce. It was tasty but quite impossible to hand hold. Paul wanted to document this with video. Susan thinks it was a blackmail attempt.
Full of yummy local food we were off to find the next best thing. We start driving to see what’s around. Susan had been looking at Google earlier in the day and remembered the Route 66 State Park & a Route 66 Museum. We put it into our maps, it wasn’t very far away from where we were so off we went. Paul was temped to go back for his radio but resisted.
It was’t much of a park. Lots of trees, parking lots, picnic benches, hiking trails and some remnants of the old Route 66.
Paul quickly put together a Route 66 playlist and Depeche Mod’s version was first up. We probably didn’t even make it a 1/10th of a mile before the road ended and we had a 2 mile driving loop through the woods and fields.
There was a lot of construction also and one tiny little sign said “Route 66 Visitor Center exit something I-44” So we googled around and found the real Visitor’s Center. What a gem!
First, we got to see the remnants of the bridge over the Meramec River.
And we stood on it! (susan here: actually we melted at that spot. Sunny, 90F and humid. The sun is stronger here. We were both quite happy to get inside the museum.)
This kiosk told us just why the State Park we had just visited was the way it was.
The Rise and Fall of Times Beach
Times Beach got its name from the St. Louis Times newspaper and from the beach along the Meramec River where the town was established. In 1926, the same year Route 66 became a federal highway, the St. Louis Times newspaper sold land lots in the resort area of Times Beach to the public for $67.50 with the purchase of a six-month subscription to its paper. The town never quite blossomed into the summer retreat the newspaper advertised that it would become. Instead, it turned into a small, middle-class town of roughly 2,000 people.
After hiring a private company to spray oil to keep down the dust on the town’s dirt roads in the early 1970s, Times Beach experienced an environmental crisis. Before the environmental issues were discovered, many of the residents of Times Beach had fled the town in early December of 1982 to escape a massive flood. Most could not return to their homes after the high water had receded, due to the discovery of dioxin in the oil that was sprayed in town. At the end of that December, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) testing revealed extremely high levels of dioxin contamination in Times Beach In 1983, the EPA agreed to buy out and level the town so it could clean up the soil and debris leftover from demolished buildings. Soil sampling completed by the EPA in 2012 confirmed that the area no longer poses health risks to visitors or workers.
Route 66 initially bypassed the Meramec River and Times Beach. But in 1931, as traffic increased on the burgeoning motorway, a new plan extended Route 66 westward across the river. Construction soon began on the Times Beach Bridge, more commonly known as the Route 66 Meramec River Bridge, which opened in 1932.
The historic Meramec River Bridge runs through Route 66 State Park and connects the visitor center to the park’s recreational activities. In 2009, the Missouri Department of Transportation closed the bridge, and in 2012, removed the decking. As a result, it is no longer open to vehicle or pedestrian traffic.
Can you imagine the ecological nightmare that caused? What looked like a cheap, easy fix turned out to be a town-killer. There was a lot of information about the now lost Times Beach community. You could see where trees had been and where nature was reclaiming the land. Those areas everything was a shorter, relatively uniform height. You could just imagine buildings and business there. It was sad to realized we had just been driving through echos of neighborhoods and people’s homes.
Next up? The Route 66 State Park Visitor Center which showed us the fun side of Route 66. It’s known as the “Mother Road” since it was one of the first continuous stretches of paved highway from Chicago to Los Angeles. The end points have been moved over the years so it would connect up with the interstate highway system.
We both really enjoyed this Visitor Center and promised that one of our future cross country trips will be to follow Route 66 and do all the silly touristy things that are still there.
On the way back to camp we needed gas, and yes, we did the proper thing.
The Story of Phillips 66
Phillips 66 Petroleum company has been an American icon throughout the history of the “Mainstreet of America”, Route 66.
The first gallon of Phillips gasoline was offered to the motoring public in Wichita, Kansas, on November 19, 1927.
Preparations for the big event had kept everybody in the 10-year-old company busy for months.
It was felt that the name and trade symbol for the new gasoline should be catchy, descriptive, and arouse curiosity. However, no name seemed quite suitable.
There are many myths about how Phillips 66 got its name.
Some of these myths include the following
- The founder, Frank Phillips, was 66 years old when he started the Phillips 66 company.
- Frank Phillips had only $66 to his name when he hit oil.
- When the first Phillips 66 station opened in Wichita, Kansas it sold 6,600 gallons of gasoline.
In reality, a special executive committee session was called for the sole purpose of settling the question of a name and trademark. On the eve of the meeting, a Phillips official was returning to the company headquarters in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in a company car being used to road test the new Phillips gas.
Driving on Highway 66 to the meeting, the official exclaimed, “This car goes like 60 miles per hour on our new gas!” “Sixty, nothing,” answered the driver, glancing at the speedometer.
. . .
“We’re going 66!”
The rest is history.
So, in the end, the “wasted” day turned out to a truly wonderful day.
Daily: 0
Total: 1163
Moving Miles/Day: 385
Overall Miles/Day: 291