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Mother Road Replay

Oklahoma might offer Route 66 travelers the most immersive experience.

Tourists traveling the Mother Road through the Sooner State need only remember three words: Last Free Exit. That’s because Oklahoma’s best Route 66 experience isn’t in a museum or roadside café. It’s on the road itself.

Signs along the interstate make it pretty obvious the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority wants everyone to take the toll road. But now might be a good time, as America celebrates the Route 66 centennial, to flaunt one of our state’s most overlooked historical assets: State Highway 66.

Travel Tips for Car Nuts

Planning any road trips this summer? Not sure where to go?

I found a helpful article from Jalopnik listing the top ten automotive museums in the U.S. Then I added a few of my own and compiled it all on a Google map. You’re welcome.

Airhead Love

Over the years I’ve owned a slew of wheeled mechanical contraptions. Cars, bikes, scooters— mostly of the European persuasion, some quite nice, others.. not so much. I enjoy restoring and tuning on them. Many years ago my fascination was Italian cars. Lately it’s been German motorcycles.

I bought my first BMW about 20 years ago. I’m now on my sixth, all of which have been R-bikes with the distinctive “boxer” engine. But the most recent is a classic BMW motorcycle from 1984, and very different from the fuel injected, ABS-equipped machines I have previously owned.

Fried Pies

One of my favorite local motorcycle rides is a loop through Leonard, Stone Bluff and Haskell, Oklahoma. On occasion I have stopped at a small store to gas up or grab a snack. There is a clear display case on the counter filled with fried pies in various flavors.

Who doesn’t like a homemade fried pie?

Origins of the Ozark Trail

Arkansas: Where Route 66 Began.
Wait… what?

Back in 2010 a friend and I created a travel show called Two Wheel Oklahoma. It featured Brad Mathison and myself roaming the two-lanes of Oklahoma on our motorcycles. The first episode was about the stretch of old Route 66 from Sapulpa to Arcadia. We began that show on a crusty iron bridge over Rock Creek on the west side of Sapulpa. The bumpy concrete leading west towards Kellyville is part of a very old roadway that predates Route 66, known as the Ozark Trail.

TWO riders cross the Rock Creek bridge near Sapulpa

Before Route 66 became America’s Main Street there were several private efforts to cobble together cross-country highways. One of these was the Ozark Trail, a route stretching from St Louis, Missouri to Las Vegas, New Mexico. A large portion of this road network would later become Route 66, which has prompted some to call the Ozark Trail the “Mother of the Mother Road.”