When we left Turkey Run, we criss-crossed down Indiana and Illinois until we saw our first Route 66 sign! Almost immediately, we lost the route. We will definitely need a map in order to stay on track, while there are usually signs at the turns to keep you going in the right direction, it’s not like you can put “route 66” into your GPS app. If you miss a turn, it can be tough to find your way back again!

I think we were an hour or so out of St. Louis when we caught our first glimpse of the gateway arch. After we crossed the Mississippi, we pulled over to see what we had to do to get to the arch. It was only a 20 minute deviation from our itinerary, so well worth the stop! Between cleaning up our campsite and making a few stops along the way, we were a little later in the day than planned and wanted to make our campground before dark.

We arrived at the arch parking lot and since it doubles as the levee for the Mississippi River, the whole thing is at a large incline. The bus is very tall and narrow and even a small sideways incline makes me feel like we’re about to fall over, but it doesn’t bother Kyle so he drove and I kept a death grip on my seat.

But, since I was stressed out, I didn’t want to park because the incline was much worse in the parking spaces, so we only grabbed a few photos. The parking lot was messy, loose bricks and junk everywhere, so it was the prudent choice anyway. It all looked surprisingly run down.

As we headed out of St. Louis I called the campground to make our reservation. We’re still figuring out the best way to do this, and since we’re in a vintage vehicle it’s a little harder to plan ahead when we can’t guarantee how many miles we’ll cover in a day. It threw me for a loop when I called the state park and the first sentence of the recording was “We don’t accept same-day reservations.” Okay, there goes that plan. I had a couple backup options picked out, but I thought if we showed up at the campground maybe they’d be able to find us a site, so that was where we were going to start.

Then the bus started stuttering, making really jerky motions especially while going uphill. This set off a little panic as I looked at how much shoulder space we had (none), how likely it was that the engine would die (seemed high), how close we were to dark (too close), and the fact that it was very cold and it was Friday night and it all just seemed like a really bad situation. Also, because we were on our way to the state park, we had deviated from Route 66 and were now in the middle of nowhere. Kyle pulled over to do a cursory check, and I started looking for the nearest civilization that might provide us with lodging and/or spare parts. Could we limp along like this for half an hour? We didn’t have a choice!

We drove straight to a hotel. Now, don’t forget, we’re supposed to be in quarantine right now, which pretty easy to do when camping. Fortunately, the hotel room doors were on the outside of the building, and we completed our booking by phone, so other than a quick step inside to get our room key we did not have to interact with anyone. As an extra bonus, we could back the bus right up to the room door and perform the full diagnostics. Kyle was only outside for about five minutes before he came in and said he figured out the problem! It was the same issue that stymied us last summer, a loose injector wire. After he made sure it was seated, it ran fine on his test runs.

It was a great place to regroup, and we were able to do some planning for the next few days of travel. This is REALLY important, because OK and TX are about to get hit by an ice storm, and not only do we not want to be on the road during an ice storm, we don’t even want to be camping.

The next morning we hit the road, bus running great! For five minutes. Then the wire came loose again. We pulled over and gave it a more permanent fix!

If you watch any videos on Route 66, they make it look like it’s all historic sights and interesting stops. Most of the route has been freeway service route (so far). Meaning we’ve been getting some great views of vehicles traveling much faster than us. I’d heard that most of the original road doesn’t exist anymore, and I now understand what that means. Modern roads and freeways have been paved, and Route 66 has been re-routed to follow these newer roads.

That being said, today we started having a lot of fun trying to stay on Route 66. There are signs that usually show you where to turn, so it’s a game of I-spy to spot these signs. Plus, Kyle picked up a map at the hotel. Okay, it’s really a paper placemat. And it doesn’t show any turns, just a dotted line and occasionally a road name. But it shows whether we’re supposed to be north or south of the freeway, and that’s actually been enough to keep us on the right track! After we’re out of quarantine, we’ll stop at a store and buy an actual map!

In the meantime, any outdoor stops are fair game! We drove through quite a few small towns today, and it takes both of us to watch for Rt 66 turns plus watch out for any historic photo ops!

Since we’re under quarantine, we’re passing by a few of the things I was looking forward to. For instance, I wanted to check out the car museum in Springfield, MO, but right now we aren’t entering any buildings unless absolutely necessary. We would have loved to check out some breweries in St. Louis, and it would be really nice to grab some takeout for dinner occasionally. So that’s been a bummer, and the source of frequent discussions regarding our obligations as travelers during a pandemic.

After a couple stops, we realized just how chilly it was getting, so our desire to trek around outside waned. The bus does have a heating system, it needs to be above 40 degrees F outside in order to keep us comfortable. I think temps must have been between 40-50, because it was nice in the bus but we didn’t want to get out!

We made it to our boondocking site earlier than planned, but there were plenty of downed trees to make firewood out of. We were in a conservation area, staying at a no-amenities free campground in MO. The first thing we saw when we arrived was an armadillo! It waddled off into the woods before I could get my camera. We started up a fire in the firepit, and it warmed us up enough that a cold beer sounded good!

The fire kept us occupied until nearly dark, when we took a walk around the tiny campground and saw the BURN BAN sign. Whoops. So we let our campfire burn itself down a bit then doused it. Even in those cold temps, it’s still very comfortable sleeping in the bus. We stayed nice and warm!

Between the time zone change, and the cold campsite, we got an early start the next day. Since we had added layers, it was much easier to get out of the bus and wander around today. One thing about Route 66 is that there are places where it branches off. Usually one sign will say “Rt 66 this way” and another sign will say “Rt 66, 1926-1932 that way.” Our placemap doesn’t show any of the forks, so whenever we see the signs we have to make a quick call. Now that we’ve had some practice at it, we try to choose whichever one is from the Rt 66 heyday, ie the 60s and 70s. We had a sign early this morning that said to turn right, and this is what we found!

That must have been an unmarked fork, the road can’t end yet! When we got back in the bus I couldn’t find my lens cap, so we hunted all over for it. Kyle even checked his pockets (I rarely sneak things into his pocket so I’m not sure why he thought to look there), and he realized the gas cap was still in his pocket after filling up this morning! So that was a good stop.

We weren’t too far from the Missouri border, and looking at our placemap, I realized we’d actually duck into Kansas for a hot second. Kansas only has like ten miles of Route 66, but they make the most of it! We stopped 3 or 4 times here!

If you asked me for my assessment of Route 66 yesterday, I would have told you to give it a pass. Today, however, I started to really get into it, it’s like an I-spy / scavenger hunt all day, trying to stay on the route and look for historic photo ops!

We got to Oklahoma and found the weirdest one yet. We were waiting at a stop light and I saw a little cinder block structure on the corner of the road with a Route 66 sign on it. I was trying to figure out why it was there, then I read the rest of the sign: Pedestrian Underpass Mural. We were on the edge of a tiny town, so a pedestrian underpass seemed wildly out of place.

We turned around and parked the bus. Sure enough, the cinder blocks were actually a concrete entry to the stairs of an underpass, and there was indeed a mural under the road! So random!

Our lunch stop coincided with another random icon of Route 66, the Blue Whale of Catoosa, OK. Despite the waterslides and multiple raised platforms for jumping off, they are strict about NO SWIMMING (not like I wanted to anyway)!

The rest of the afternoon passed by with very little to see. Even Tulsa had some interesting relics as we passed through the downtown area, but nothing so compelling that we stopped for photos.

Our last stop before Oklahoma City was just outside of town. In writing this out, I realize I have no idea what the name of this place is, but it’s a gas station with a huge soda bottle sculpture with neon lights (which you can faintly make out in the daylight). They have something like the world’s largest collection of soda flavors inside, but it was packed with people, plus we’re under quarantine.

OKC is where we are currently staying. We have an airbnb for a few nights here, where we’ll wait out this ice storm – as I’m writing this I’m watching icicles form on our porch railing while the parking lot floods. It’s a good day to NOT be on the road! In fact, Kyle just did battle with the iced-over drivers side door – our only bag of lime tortilla chips was stuck inside, but eventually he prevailed! This will also finish off our quarantine, plus this is where our placemap ends so we need to pick up a real map for the rest of the trip.

Rule number one for this trip was always: only if we can do it safely and responsibly during the pandemic. Since we’ve had some very real concerns over the last few days of travel, including potential exposure and also a potential bus breakdown, we’re amending our plans. What would we have done if one of us had a serious case of COVID? Living in the bus is not a viable option for a serious illness. What would we have done if we had a breakdown while we were supposed to be quarantining? If the bus had to be towed, we’d either be in a vehicle with a tow truck driver or an uber driver. We’ve concluded that we can’t responsibly continue under these circumstances. We’re still heading towards the southwest, but we will find a home base to post up in, plan our adventures from there.