Day 6 - St. Louis MO to Carthage MO

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE SCOTT!

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We had a big driving day today. Our first stop was at a Route 66 Park, which used to be the site of Times Beach, a city who's original inhabitants (mid-1920s) received a 6 month subscription to the St. Louis Times newspaper with the purchase of their building lot. In the early '70s, a contractor was hired to oil the roads, and unfortunately the oil was contaminated with dioxin. In the mid '80s, the town was evacuated and dubbed a Superfund site by the EPA. It was cleaned up and in 1999, a Route 66 park was opened at the site. Sounds like a nice place to visit, doesn't it?? http://www.legendsofamerica.com/MO-TimesBeach.html

Then we were on to the beautiful Ozarks and Meramec Caverns, the largest commercial cave in the world. Did you know that Missouri is also known as The Cave State? There are over 6,000 caves here (I wonder who counted all of them ;-) ). Mark and Trajan went on a cave tour (see above photo), while Macey and I waited in the gift shop, which is enclosed, along with a restaurant and information center, in the mouth of the cave. This cave also served as a hideout for Jesse James and his gang, as they could live inside of it, along with their horses, without detection. There are a few Jesse James themed stops in the immediate area. Trajan rated this cave stop a google thumbs up! http://www.americascave.com/

After the spelunking adventure, we stopped in Cuba for lunch and some mural viewing. The residents of the city have shown their pride in their place on Route 66 by painting murals of days gone by on many of the town's buildings. Cuba is also home of the Wagon Wheel Motel, which was the inspiration for the Wheel Well motel in the movie Cars.
http://www.theroadwanderer.net/66Missouri/cuba.htm

Onward, with a quick stop at the Russel Stover outlet for an ice cream cone for the boys, to a hot game of "Let's Find Devil's Elbow". Devil's Elbow is a bend in the Big Piney River, over which Route 66 runs. The river curves so sharply that several bridges had to be built in the area for the highway to cross over. The biggest problem with finding Devil's Elbow is that the sign for the turn off is only about 6 X 24, so if you blink, you'll miss it. Due to our having an excellent navigator, all was not lost. If Mark weren't here, we'd be stuck back in that cornfield in Illinois!

We drove through some gorgeous farm country on the way to Carthage, and had a wonderful sound and lights show courtesy of Mother Nature, along with the music of rain falling and windshield wipers swishing.

After arriving at our hotel, Trajan convinced Mark to go to Arby's for dinner. (Luckily, Mark was not that hungry, or it never would have worked!)

We have now completed 25% of our journey (570 miles of 2,250), and have seen 6 Waffle Houses along the way.

Tomorrow, we will be doing so much we will be in three places at once.......