Photos: Route 66, Day Three (The Oklahoma Adventure)

[thehefner]

Not only do I have my own road in Oklahoma City, but I also have my own lake, a lake apparently so awesome that it had its own parkway named after the lake named after me.

Clearly, my influence is spreading faster than I thought. When do I get sexy, sexy minions?



So the awesomeness that is Claremore, OK, is threefold. The first being the J.M. Davis Arms and Historical Museum, a Wal-Mart sized collection of over 20,000 firearms. For a start.









At this point, I regret to say that I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I could or should have here. You need to believe me when I say that these don't do justice to the sheer overwhelming enormity of this collection. Also, the glass cases made the exhibits devilishly reflective and therefore resistant to being photographed.

You can check out their website to help give yourself a better idea of the many, many, MANY other things here I did not photograph. I spent two hours there, and could easily have spent two more. It was insane.



That's a seven-barreled shotgun. When two barrels aren't enough, three are insufficient, four are for pussies, five are fit only for commies and unwed mothers, and six? Well, now you're just being silly.







Did I mention Mr. Davis also owned over 1,200 beer steins?







Even Kaiser Wilhelm steins!



Even steins of Sir John Falstaff!!!



Even THE BIGGEST BEER STEIN IN THE WORLD. At least until the Americans catch on to the beer stein craze, otherwise I would so have seen a twenty-foot tall one made out of fiberglass on the road somewhere.

Plus there was an impressive collection of propaganda posters:



(You can see more of their WWI posters here.)

Canes, both of the walking and killing varieties:



And just outright clobbering devices.



Look at the one on top: that's an Irish brawling club. It's a fucking stick. For bashing skulls in. There's not even any pretense of art or craftsmanship, they just found a good stick, gave it a polish, and went to town. God, I love the Irish.

He also had tons of neato Nazi weapons and memorabilia (would that I had more pictures, but I had to get up so close to this Hitler Youth knife just to avoid the camera itself being reflected in the glass case!):



On the walls at one side were drawings from schoolchildren for Veterans Day, most of which were... well, pretty much what you'd expect to see small town Oklahoma schoolchildren draw for Veterans Day. But amid the dozens upon dozens of Crayola-depicted American flags, scenes of gun-toting violent explody action scenes, majestic soaring eagles, slogans, and symbols... there was one drawing, shunted almost off to the mass' corner:



It's like something you'd see out of FOUND Magazine. Of all those drawings, that was the one that gave me pause.

From there, it was off to the Hammett House, for what ROAD TRIP USA says is home to "out-of-this-world pies."



Actually, I tell a lie, I did go there the previous night, but I had to come back the next day. Here's why.

Rather than go for a pie I know I'd love, like apple, I opted for a specialty pie of a kind I normally wouldn't have. Theirs was the German Chocolate Pie. A google image search can give you some idea what these pies are like:



Most of their pies come topped with whipped cream. By which I mean, three inches of *stiff* whipped cream.

Now, it was pretty goddamn good, let me tell you. I couldn't finish it in one sitting because it was so rich, but it was good. And yet, the fact ultimately is, I'm just not a fan of chocolate pie. It's really the principle of the thing. Chocolate just shouldn't be in pie form. Anything more than filling is where I cross the line. But I figured, "Okay, so if they can take a pie I wouldn't normally like and make it good, then what could they do with a pie I normally *would* like?"

So I decided to relax from the gun museum with the Hammett House's famous Sizzlin' Apple Delight. Here's their menu description: Hot homemade apple pie with ice cream & hot brandy-butter sauce served in a sizzlin' skillet.



It was the greatest goddamn fucking apple pie I've ever had in my entire goddamn life. And maybe it shouldn't count, because the sizzlin' nature and that brandy/butter sauce gave it an edge of distinction, but no, the pie itself was beyond compare, and even the boring vanilla ice cream (and I speaking as one who *is* vanilla, I'm a proud defender and advocate of that flavor!), the result was a sweet masterpiece that the kind Lord saw fit to let me somehow *keep* tasting for hours afterward.

From there it was off to the centerpiece of the town, celebrating Claremore's favorite son, the great Will Rogers.



I don't have any photos from the museum itself, mainly because I think that as comprehensive a collection as it is, none of it is nearly as impressive as the man himself. Unlike the Lincoln museum, this place was mainly concerned with worshiping the legend of Rogers, not so much the human being he was. And maybe he really was all that! I'm naive enough to believe it.

But honestly, it made me far more interested in seeking out his writings and films. So in that sense, the museum might have been a success in the truest form.

Oh, and as I was departing Claremore, heading to Tulsa, I came upon another one of the true legends of Route 66: the Blue Whale of Cartoosa.



Formerly a park and swimming hole, it closed down many years ago, but the original owner's family have lovingly restored the whale for visitors and pilgrims of the Mother Road.





From there, it was a long slog through Oklahoma, with the only bright spot being a RTUSA-recommended stop at Russ' Ribs in the Route 66 near-ghost town of Bristow. I was the sole customer at that moment, and Russ himself joined me for a little small talk of the laconic variety.

I told him these were actually my first-ever ribs. He didn't seem particularly impressed. I told him where I was from, where I was going, that sort of thing. He still didn't seem particularly impressed. Why should he be, when the walls of his diner are literally covered with the scribblings of hundreds of 66 travelers like me? He gave me a Sharpie, inviting me to make my mark anywhere I like.

On my way out, a couple new customers came in, and I overheard Russ telling them that the barbecue sauce was his Grandma's recipe. In lieu of goodbye, I told him how much I liked his barbecue sauce, even though I'm usually not a fan of that particular condiment (I tried it anyway because, hell, you can't have ribs without it, right?). Talk about your noviceness with ribs, he doesn't care. Talk about your huge sprawling adventure, he's heard it all before. But with a man like that, if you sincerely compliment his barbecue sauce, I'm guessing from that little smile of his that it's the best thanks he could ever hope for, coming from a dopey Yankee kid like me.



(The above photo, and all subsequent photos in this entry, are not mine and have been found via google search.)

After that, as the sun began to set rapidly, I headed off to El Reno to hit up Johnnie's Grill, home of the famous "fried onion burger." I'll let the photos speak for themselves:







As I paid up, the grizzled old waitress asked me where I'm from and we made small talk. Then she asked the following:

WAITRESS 1: "So where ya stayin' tonight?"

ME: "Oh, well, I was thinking of trying to make it around the Texas border before finding a place to turn in."

WAITRESS 2: "You really think that's a good idea?"

ME: "What? Why wouldn't it be?"

WAITRESS 1: "Hey, if you want to, go right ahead."

ME: "Wait, what? Shouldn't I?"

WAITRESS 2: "Ahh, we're just teasin' with you!"

WAITRESS 1: "Yeah, we like to tease folks! Seriously, though, don't go off the main roads."

WAITRESS 2: "Yeah, stick to the highways, don't go off."

ME: (looking increasingly nervous as John Hefner is wont to do) "Uh, okay. That's what I was planning."

(pause)

WAITRESS 1: "Ahhh, we're just teasin' with you!"

WAITRESS 2: "Haha, look at you, goin' pale! Nah, we're just teasin' you!"

WAITRESS 1: "Seriously, though. In those towns, black and white don't mix, if you know what I mean."

...

I didn't, frankly, considering my own cracker nature, but that was my cue to get the hell out of there. Or at least, out of Johnnie's. But for the first time, the feelings of freedom and joy I had on the road became tarnished with my own neuroses, causing me to lodge into the skeezy Budget Inn, where I wrote to you guys last week. But hey, at least I got free crappy beer out of the deal!

From that point on, though, things were never quite as joyous as they were on that first day, nosebleed and all. But then, I suppose it couldn't have lasted long anyway. Too bad Texas wouldn't prove to be much of an improvement, which in retrospect was probably as much my fault as it was Texas,' but I'll get to that in the next post.