Route 66 - Day 3

On the third day of driving I finally managed to leave early from the Motel. At 8:30 am I was already driving. Really proud of myself actually. I do enjoy my long morning sleeps so getting up at 7:30 am was really a small "miracle"!

When I looked at the map and the sights I'd like to see for the day I noticed that I had just passed one of the most famous Route 66 road side attractions: the Blue Whale in Catoosa, Oklahoma. It was only about 10 km north from where I was staying so I decided to drive back to check it out. Most of the Route 66 roadside attractions are really "corny" and the blue Whale was no exception. It was this huge Whale sculpture that used to be part of a playground and swimming in the little pond it was next to. nowadays it was still in good shape and a nice camping stop but the pond was pretty dirty and muddy and there was definitely no swimming in it. What I found really interesting though was the fact that there was loads of turtles in the pond! small ones just swimming around and taking sun on the side of the pond. I took the pictures I wanted and continued towards Oklahoma city.

The next sights were in Arcadia, Oklahoma that I wanted to check out. There was actually plenty: the Round Barn, Motorbike Museum and the newest attraction on the Route 66 the "pops" diner with a big sculpture of a old soda bottle on the front of it.

Soon after Arcadia I arrived to Oklahoma city. There was nothing really that interested me to see in Oklahoma City. It is a big city and for sure with lots of places of interest, but I decided to just drive through the downtown to see the place and then move on. I wanted to reach the city Groom in Texas as my next overnight stop.

the round barn

On the way to Groom I went through something I haven't experienced before: A major thunder storm just came out of nowhere! and to make it worse it was already completely dark at the time. The rain from the storm was so thick and heavy that I lost completely the sight of the road and driving 65 mph (110km) at the time. Slowed down obviously after the rain started. I wasn't even able to see the backlights of the car in front of me during the heaviest downpour! Now to add to all of this rain and wind it was a thunder storm, and it was right above me. So when the lightnings stroke, all of my visuals just got filled with white light from it. One of the lightning strikes was so strong that I could feel it inside the car as it stroke!! I've seen big storms before but this one, feeling a lightning "shockwave" when it stroke was something I hadn't felt before.

The storm lasted a good 30 minutes and it kept raining for the whole night. I arrived nonetheless to Groom around 10 pm and got myself a place. At this point I started feeling the driving for the first time. After 3 days of 10-12 hours on the road was starting to ask for its toll.