The Drive Home VII: Route 66 Centennial – The Missouri Waltz Pictoral

By William Hall

—
January 12, 2026
On Saturday morning the Drive Home VII crew greeted the sun in downtown Tulsa with the coldest weather yet on our cross-country journey to the Detroit Auto Show, with an even chillier homecoming parade down Woodward Avenue scheduled for Tuesday. Making our way across the Great Plains, we are making friends and adding privateers in our relentless march to Motown.

All photos courtesy of the author are not shown. Only the captions.
If you want a link to the pictures, email to Bobfixesitup@yahoo.com I will email them.-Bob

Meeting up with us in Tulsa for the ride was Rianna Melton, the owner of a yellow 1976 AMC Gremlin X known on social media as Yertl the Supernational Gremlin. The 232-cu.in. inline-6 powered Gremmie had previously been owned by a production company in British Columbia, where it appeared as a character car in the Daniel Radcliffe 2013 movie Horns before being repainted its current yellow for the CW series Supernatural. Rianna drove 4 hours down from Kansas to hang out and drive Route 66 with us.

The Drive Home VII crew grabbed a quick hotel lobby breakfast before heading out to the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, to learn a little bit about the cowboy philosopher and even attempt a few rope tricks. There we ran into Jack and Debi Petitt and their 1966 Chevrolet El Camino, now sporting a crate motor 454, 700R4 automatic transmission and airbag suspension. Jack is a So-Cal transplant to Oklahoma, with the El Camino still wearing Cali plates and a Mercifuls Car Club badge.

Not to be missed on any Route 66 tour is the lovely Coleman Theater in Miami, Oklahoma (pronounced MY-AM-uh if you want to sound local), with its elaborate Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. The lush Louis XV-style interior and original pipe organ transport you back to a time when theater was a grand event, and the Coleman was considered the finest theater between Dallas and Kansas City.

While fueling up in Miami we ran into Mia Walker, all dressed up for her senior picture photoshoot with her mom, Mandy. The ladies asked if they could get a picture with some of the cars, and Mia posed with her favorites while holding a photo of her parents. Sadly, her dad had passed due to colon cancer, and Mandy was emotional that her husband and the father of her child was not there to see this day. Not wanting to catch a young lady in an unflattering photo, Mia and I reviewed the pics and agreed on the one above – with her shining smile and a sudden gust catching her hair, as if her dad was blowing her a kiss.

Runnin’ and gunnin’, we swung by Aaron Perry’s Gearhead Curios in Galena, Kansas, for a peep at the “most-photographed bathroom on all of Route 66.” Legend has it that Aaron’s ex once called him a narcissist, so he went out and acquired a 30-foot statue of himself to prove her right. Gearhead Curios has a great selection of unique t-shirts and Route 66 memorabilia, including full-size, authentic metal Route 66 signs supplied to the shop by the same vendor the highway department uses. Aaron is just one more example of an entrepreneur moving to Route 66, living the dream and making a go of it in this new era of the Mother Road.

Saturday evening, we crossed into the state line and were welcomed by the Chairman of the Federal Route 66 Centennial Commission, Rob Reid, and other car enthusiasts at the Shepard Hills Factory Outlet in Lebanon, Missouri. Once there, we were hosted for a spectacular brisket and rib dinner at Smokin’ Jones BBQ, with accommodations at the historic Manor House Airbnb, provided by Lebanon Tourism.

By Sunday afternoon, The Drive Home VII was headed through downtown St. Louis to the decommissioned Chain of Rocks Bridge. Formerly a two-lane Route 66 auto bridge over the span of the Mighty Miss, it has been converted to a pedestrian greenway. The bridge is unique in that mid-span it takes a 22-degree bend, necessitated by weak bedrock discovered during construction. Today, it is only available to car traffic through special permit, making our crossing indeed special.

One last stop for the night, at the Route 66 Motorhead Bar and Grill in Springfield, Illinois. A sprawling complex filled with Route 66 collectibles, petroliana and classic cars, it is the ultimate man-cave writ large. With great food and hospitality, it’s a must stop in central Illinois. Part of the building is actually constructed over an old iconic Stuckey’s roadside store. One look at the curved ceiling over the bar will instantly determine if you are of a certain age to remember what a pecan log roll tastes like.