Americana Travels, Pt 11: Springfield to Oklahoma City

Americana Travels, Pt 11: Springfield to Oklahoma City

May 22^th, 2012 – We kinda’ leisurely strolled out of our massive suite in Springfield, Missouri this morning. We utilized both wings of the suite to its fullest by showering in separate rooms at the same time. We then reheated the leftover BBQ from Gates in Kansas City for breakfast, a food type that was certainly better the first time around, though satisfied the hunger enough to get us on the road.

We were on the road a little before noon and fueled up Harmony the Honda, and then made the short trek to one of the Original Twelve sites that we had almost missed. Right up the road from our hotel was the World’s Largest Fork! I know, right? How does one miss the World’s Largest Fork?!? We got there and I snapped a photo of Mrs. Pope posing next to the monstrosity. This guy was damn cool, and the team that crafted this fork did a nice job. It looked real authentic and one could actually imagine a giant hand reaching down from the heaven’s to pluck this sucker up, spin some spaghetti around the prongs, and hoist it to some unseen mouth.

We then made our way to a nearby Starbuck’s for our own fuel . . . a lot of miles were going on the car today, which meant a lot of windshield time. Gotta’ have juice in the blood stream or we weren’t gonna make it. A few minutes after getting our coffees and with Pope already punchy and yammering away about Foo-Kee Doo-Kee or something ridiculous like that, we drove a little out of our way to go to a particular cupcake shop, because it had a very special name . . . ! We then proceeded to the 65 South and made our way to Branson, Missouri.

We drove through another scenic portion of the state (and country), rolling past some amazing geological formations, zipping past Ozark on to Branson. The Ozark region of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas is gorgeous terrain. If ones not careful, one might start fantasizing about living amongst these massive trees and rolling hills. I’m not sure what time it was when we pulled off the freeway, but we pulled into Branson and drove through this town that I can only describe as a little mountain town working really hard to be the next Vegas. We found out where 80’s comedian icon, Yakov Smirnoff disappeared to. I guess he decided it was better to be a big fish in a little pond versus the other way around. The whole town kinda’ had that feel to it. Almost like it was trying too hard, but not trying hard enough . . . y’know? We eventually pulled up to the Amish Country Store that we had been trying to locate, and wandered through the narrow aisles of the place for probably close to an hour. We picked up some goodies for ourselves, family, and friends and ultimately did our part to support the Amish. Interestingly enough, this store wasn’t a hundred percent Amish owned and run, or whatever. It turns out that the store was owned by another group of folks who supported the Amish by hosting a ton of their manufactured wares in the store. In all, though . . . cool place with a huge selection of items that I’d never seen before.

On the way out of Branson, we loaded up on some more coffee at the local Starbuck’s and set a course for Gateway, Arkansas. This was a very scenic part of the travels as we weaved and wound through a State Park and across bridges spanning over lakes. If I hadn’t been driving the route, I wouldn’t have believed this area even existed. All of the weaving roads started to make Mrs. Pope a little motion sick, she described it as rolling down a hill in a hamster ball . . . so I tried to cool it with the speeds and erratic turns. I rocked out to disc five of my Travel Playlist and was treated to a wonderful mixture of Led Zeppelin, Modern Day Moonshine, CSN&Y, Dala, and Edie Brickell. Maybe it was my crooning and caterwauling that was making Mrs. Pope motion sick opposed to the winding roads.  Can’t blame her if it did . . . I was feeling a little queasy after my performance as well.

After emerging from the  . . . Sorry, news announcement: The L.A. Kings are going to the Stanley Cup Finals!!! WOOO-YEAH!!!

After emerging from the Roaring River State Park, we crossed over the Arkansas state line and a few minutes later, into Gateway, Arkansas . . . population 116. I shiver when I see a town population that low. I’ve just seen way too many horror movies, I guess. Anyway, the subject of our next stop would make a perfectly terrifying serial killer, if filmed the right way. Meet Jack, The Goofy Bunny Rabbit. He lives in someone’s yard and scares the hell out of little children. After driving on, yet another, winding road, we found this guy, pulled to the side of the road, and Mrs. Pope jumped out of the car to snap a photo. I warned her not to . . . again, too many horror movies start this way . . . but she did anyway, and captured a great image of the wild hare. Having to use the restroom pretty badly by this point, we pulled up to a tiny candy store a few yards up the road, used their facilities, ordered some candy for the use of said facilities, and then ran in horror as I guy with a old school hockey mask and revving chain saw burst from the back . . . just kidding. Well, all of it was true except for the chainsaw wielding psychopath.

The next part of the trek was arduous for me. We traveled for what felt like a half century, even going back in time, to get a view of a Popeye statue that was located in Springdale, Arkansas. So far, I’m not a big fan of the towns of Arkansas. I like the country areas just fine, but the towns bug me. I’m not even certain what route we took to get to this location, but we took it and battled traffic along one of the strips for what felt like an hour. We got to the Allen Canning Company and Mrs. Pope hiked from the parking lot to the front of the winking sailor to snap his photo. Not a bad shot, eh?

Mrs. Pope then relieved me of my piloting duties . . . probably coz’ I was arguing with Jack the Navigator too much . . . and we headed west to our next destination. We were headed for Siloam Springs where there was reported to be another Popeye statue at the corporate offices of Allen Canning Company. We got there and found no such statue. I did, however, receive some odd glances from the townsfolk of Siloam Springs as I scampered across the highway to find the plaster figure. Feeling slightly defeated, but more perturbed, we recalculated our route towards Oklahoma City and our final destination (ooooh, creepy how I worked that one in there . . . how y’all liking the horror themed episode of the blog?).

We made our way along the 412 through western Arkansas and into Oklahoma, and eventually through Tulsa. All of this was looking familiar since we had just been there a few days ago . . . or has it been a week already? Who knows . . . the point is, we’re on the stretch of the trek that will ultimately get us back home. But, for the time being, we still have a number of sites to get to. We picked up the I-44 and hightailed it towards Oklahoma City, watching the sun dip below the tree line along the freeway. We pulled off at Stroud, Oklahoma and tried to get a photo of this guys Alien Lawn Art, but it got a little too dark and the flash on the camera didn’t capture the freakish landscape to its fullest freakishness. We quickly turned around and got back on the road and aimed for our last site of the day in Arcadia, Oklahoma . . . The World’s Largest Pop Bottle.

This last site was situated on the old Highway 66, and along the road, we probably hit or clipped every flying bug between Stroud and Arcadia. At one point, it sounded like rain hitting the car. Totally gross, and I dread going to the car in the morning to clean off that windshield. Anyway, this last leg was totally worth the effort. We arrived at The World’s Largest Pop Bottle and were surprised to find a large store right behind it, dedicated to, not surprisingly, soda pop! We pulled into “Pops” as it was called at about 9:30pm and perused the store. The store was lined with soda bottles and the refrigerators were packed with bottles of carbonated beverages that I’d never heard of before, with a multitude of flavors that I never thought I’d see or be interested to taste. We loaded up a six pack of random flavors for later tastings. We may or may not inform you on the flavors that we like and dislike.

We finally pulled into the hotel at about 10:30pm and found our room waiting for us on the sixth floor. We checked in and I paced frantically for about an hour as I waited the results of the Kings game. My pacing resulted in a worn carpet, but that’s a small price for the opportunity to play for The Cup! Congratulations, boys!

And with that . . . I’m exhausted and tomorrow will be a gnarly drive. Where are we going tomorrow? You’ll just have to wait, happy reader . . . tomorrow will be an adventure all unto itself!

Pope

Quote of the Day: “I’ll Foo-Kee Doo-Kee your ass . . . I don’t know what that means, but it’s not good.”  --  Mrs. Pope