Tour of Route 66 Through Eastern Oklahoma

With temperatures taking a break from the chill of winter and rising into the upper 60's on Saturday, January 17th I figured it would be a good time to go out and see some sights and try to cure a little bit of the cabin fever.  So we traveled up Route 66 to the northeast from Oklahoma City and ultimately making our way to Foyil, OK before we called it a day.

Our first stop brought us to Pop's, a popular current day stop along the way where they have several hundred, if not more, flavors and brands of soda in addition to a small diner that serves burgers and shakes.  We stopped outside and caught a picture of the over-sized soda pop outside.

Just down the road, we made a stop for a quick pic of the famous Round Barn in Arcadia.  It was so beautiful outside and the sunlight was just right so the colors really popped.

Afterwards we traveled to the northeast along Route 66 and I was really surprised at the lack of sites along the way.  If it weren't for the businesses in town reminding you that you were indeed along 66, you wouldn't be able to tell it from any other highway.  We stopped in Chandler for a quick photo of the sign on the Interpretive Center that I felt turned out pretty well.

Next up was going through the small towns and then getting to Sapulpa where we stopped to eat lunch.  Highway 66 turned into I-44 for a short while through the Tulsa area then broke off at Catoosa, where is where we made our next stop at the Blue Whale.  It was easy to access and offered the opportunity to climb in, up, and around it.  I climbed on top of the tail but since I'm terrible with heights I felt like a good breeze could blow me over into the water so I kept pretty low.  We walked around the outer edges of the pond and we got about halfway around when the trails started to tail off into thorny bushes.

About 20 minutes later we stopped at the totem poles just outside of Foyil.  The totems aren't really on Route 66, but actually on Highway 28.  There were several totem poles and the artwork on the poles were pretty cool.  It was worth spending about 15 minutes looking around and soaking up some sun while we were there.

All in all it was a great day to get out and travel into an area of the state that we hadn't spent a lot of time in.  There were other attractions like the Motorcycle Museum in Warwick that we didn't choose to stop at although it could have been an interesting place to spend time.  There were plenty of diners along the way and although traffic was a little heavier at times than I would prefer the roads were nice, and there are spots along the highway you can see where the old road went through.  Well worth spending an afternoon learning about the Mother Road.