Our final day on this trip was Friday, April 26th. We slept in as the place we were going to did not open until 11am. It was nice to be very leisurely. Not that we raced through the other three days of Route 66, but this was real leisure.
We had already been to St. Louis a few years ago. We hit a couple of Route 66 spots then. One was a frozen yogurt stand. So, we didn't feel a need to be a tourist in St. Louis. However, we have a favorite restaurant there, Zia's on the Hill, and we wanted to have a meal there. Specifically, we wanted one of their salads. They have the best Italian salad dressing ever!!
We left the hotel at 10:30am and made our way to The Hill. This is the section of St. Louis in which the Italian immigrants settled. It is an old neighborhood. On about every block it seems a family had turned an old home into a restaurant or bar. Zia's is one of the old homes serving Italian fare. We were introduced to this amazing place by Amy Clayburn. She was from St. Louis. It was the anniversary meal place for them in their marriage. We each ordered a full salad and had bread with it. Oh my. We were in heaven.
It is a 5-hour drive from Zia's to our garage. We settled in for our journey home. It was a pleasant drive.
As we drove we talked about our first adventure on Route 66 and what we liked and didn't like and learned that will help us when we finish Route 66 this fall. Overall, we felt very good about what we chose to see. The take-away from this is that a Route 66 adventure is your adventure. What appeals to you might not appeal to someone else. Select the things that you want to see. Don't worry about seeing it all. Knowing how much time you have to travel will help determine what you have time to see.
Don't be afraid to take a side trip off of Route 66. While you are in that area, you might as well see other things that you find interesting. This may mean you don't see something on Route 66, but it is your trip. We plan to do this a couple of times on our fall portion of the trip. We will go to the Grand Canyon and we want to visit Solvang in California. We have already seen the Petrified Forest, Winslow, Arizona, Kingman and Oatman, Arizona. We will by-pass or quickly drive through these spots in favor of things we have not seen.
An ice cream treat a day was a nice stop. Claude and I are really breakfast and dinner people. Two meals. Having that treat filled out the day nicely.
There are so many restored gas stations. I am picking ones with unique architecture or if it has a giant beside it. We will not search out every one of these gas stations. The same things goes with museums. It seems each town in Illinois had a museum. We will carefully chose the ones that will be the biggest bang for its buck. On the other hand, if museums are your thing, that might be where you stop in each town. It's your trip.
We try to eat at one of the fun restaurants along the way each day. Trying to stay away from fast food and chain restaurants. At minimum, we'll dine in a local restaurant. We can always eat at the chains we like when we are home.
Finding a hotel is another area to think about. We will still stick with getting rooms as we travel. We really don't want to be stuck to a strict schedule. Tom, at The Shop, travels Route 66 between his home and Las Vegas every year to see his kids who live in Las Vegas. He and his wife never make hotel reservations ahead. They have never had a problem. We are fortunate that our trips this time and, in the fall, will be at a time that is not high tourist traffic. My only concern is staying at one of the Wigwam Hotels. They might require an advance reservation. The first one of those was actually built in Cave City, Kentucky. It is still there, and we can always go stay at it if it doesn't work along our fall drive.
We are not buying lots of stuff. I will continue looking for the perfect Christmas ornament. Claude has his cap and is very happy with it. Our purchases will be unique food opportunities. We are look forward to a pinon roll in New Mexico.
I read The Grapes of Wrath before we started this part of our trip. Before reading it, I had a starry-eyed view of our Route 66 trip. After reading it, I was really aware of the difficulty many people traveling this road had. It was not pretty. It was heart-breaking. It was a good book to read to sober me up about this Mother Road in America and the part it played in the portion of America's history. I recommend reading it to understand that, as many fun and unique things as there are to see, there is a serious side to this Route 66. It helped to give Claude and I a more rounded view of the history of this road.
I can see why Route 66 is a 'bucket list' item for so many. I can see the charm it holds. I look forward to our fall journey.
We got home, unpacked, started laundry and began to get back into our normal routine. It was a great trip, from seeing our family to driving the Mother Road.
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