Day 38 - Tulsa, Oklahoma

Dawn was purple and rose, and then brightened to that milky blue usually seen in winter - not a cloud anywhere! Hit the road before 9 a.m. and drove through mile after mile of Texas prairie and rough pasture, past the biggest cross in the Western hemisphere, and on into Oklahoma, till I saw a sign for the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City (actually there are a lot of Route 66 museums!). My route from LA has been following this iconic 'Mother Road' with a few diversions into Nevada and Utah; it would be a great roadtrip to follow the original Route 66 (with as little interstate as possible) - many people do, and there is a turn-by-turn set of directions (both ways) here.

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The museum is a dear little place: the 'transportation' section is housed in what used to be a cinema - with an original Harley Davidson Electra Glide in blue if you want one, look here), a 1953 Lincoln Continental, a 1928 Ford Model T and a 1917 fire engine. Next door is the 'history' room, with nicely-done tableaux with descriptive commentary that starts as you move around the space. It was a very quiet day (I was the only visitor all morning) and the 2 ladies staffing it spent their time either discussing one of the local charities providing meals for Thanksgiving, or playing dice on the counter!

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On the prairies still, the road goes past the Oklahoma Spaceport and the Stafford Air and Space Museum and through into the lands of the Cherokee Nation, and then the Kickapoo Nation. The scenery gradually changed to become more hilly and wooded - a bit like Iowa but with fewer farmhouses and grain silos and more cattle; the earth here is the same red as the rocks in the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon.

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And so on to Tulsa - I seem to be chasing the song titles on my route - Take it easy ('Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona ...'), Show me the way to Amarillo, Electra Glide in Blue (OK, this one's a movie ...), Only 24 hours to Tulsa, Get your kicks on Route 66, and tomorrow it will be Meet me in St Louis (also a film, but at least a musical)!

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