Route 66 - Oklahoma

Day 5: We had fairly relaxed day today as we only had 140 miles to cover. After a "fat boy's" breakfast in Tally's Diner (where we discovered we're not that keen on chicken fried steak in "gravy" - for gravy read white sauce!) we left Tulsa and headed for Oklahoma City. We passed through a number of typical Route 66 towns: Sapulpa, Bristow, Depew, Chandler and Warwick to name a few. Depew was very atmospheric but also sad, as it seemed almost like a ghost town. A lot of the towns en route have suffered dreadfully from the bypassing by I40 and the businesses seem to have eventually closed up and just been left to go to rack and ruin. A lovely day weather-wise, sunny and a pleasant temperature. We also managed to follow the route quite successfully without going wrong!  We seem to be having more trouble finding our hotels at the moment!!

Day 6: Oklahoma City to Elk City - after an IHOP breakfast, we took an inordinate amount of time to get out of OC due to stopping to take lots of photos and getting a little confused with the route! The route directions in our guide book are not always terribly clear.  After an hour we'd only covered 25 miles! We crossed a couple of cool old bridges, Lake Overholser in Bethany (just outside Oklahoma City) and the Pony Bridge near Bridgeport which is 3/4 mile long! We Seemed to spend most of the day criss-crossing the I40. According to the guide book, one of the best stretches of Old 66 runs from El Reno to Hydro (about 30-odd miles of original concrete road).  I have to say, we did not agree! The road surface was extremely bumpy, with patches of asphalt that has big holes in it that are quite difficult to see until you get close, it is as straight as a die (I think there were 2 or 3 bends!) and there is not a lot to see.  I suppose from the Route 66 aficionado's perspective it might be the "best" but from a traveller's perspective (on a motorcycle) it was not particularly special.  We have been on more interesting sections already and we are only a third of the way through the trip! It was hot today, which didn't help - 95 degrees by the time we got to Elk City! Couldn't find the hotel again today!

Tomorrow we leave Oklahoma and head in to Texas - is this the way to Amarillo?