Quote Originally Posted by Matthyj View Post
Sorry to say Gary from the Gay Parita station passed away and the station is no longer open, though I have heard there is a possibility his son may open it, I passed through less than a month ago... the one pic is Spencer and a section of the original route still exists there and its a ghost town (small) close to the Gay Parita station Don't forget also to go see Red Oak II outside Carthage built by famous artist Lowell Davis, he moved the town 30 miles or so and is a world class artist & nice guy, not on many maps anymore as he said they wanted him to pay to put it into books but he & his town are gems....Route 66 in Kansas is short but great as well with a ton of history, in Baxter Springs the restaurant was a bank robbed by Jesse James....
I've been helping jb work up his route and itinerary for this upcoming trip. Just to clarify, on their last trip jb & Rosie flew to Chicago and picked up a rental car there to run old Route 66 East to West. We had pre-arranged that they would deviate off of Route 66 to come up to Gardner, KS, timed to link up with the car show in Ottawa, the Old Marais River run. Rather than follow Route 66 across Missouri they elected to plug in our address as they were leaving St Louis, and the most efficient route was a straight shot across I70 as opposed to following the diagonal down to Joplin/Galena/Baxter Springs and then swinging north. As a result they "missed" the section from St Louis to Joplin & vicinity.

So, this trip the plan is to leave the KC area and head south to the SE corner of Kansas, do the missed section of Route 66 from there to St Louis, and then in St Louis start working the zig-zag route to reach Cape Cod over the next thirty days, and ultimately Boston to ride the aluminum cloud home. End dates and locations are fixed. Heading NNE and then coming back to Missouri for Steam-O-Rama September 17 to 20 just doesn't work - gotta be in Boston 9/26 to catch the cloud.

Ken gave some really neat suggestions about the Dayton area, which may push towards arriving in that area, spending some time at the "other" historic areas, and then dedicating the next day to the AFB museum before heading on to the next overnight spot. It's jb's choice, but Ken's suggestions are excellent points for planning.