“If You Ever Plan to Motor West…”
“If You Ever Plan to Motor West…”
At the close of the Vienna/Villagio Rally on Sunday, June 11, we broke down our campsite, packed up the rig, and headed for Las Vegas. The majority of the drive would take us along the path of Route 66, although mainly on I-44 and I-40.
From Shipshewana we headed west to pick up I-57 south of Chicago. I-57 parallels the old Illinois Central Railroad, the path of the famous “City of New Orleans”. It was the beginning of our southbound odyssey through Kankakee, and on to Springfield where we picked up I-70 west to St. Louis.
Main Street Pastures
Sunday night we parked at a Harvest Host, Main Street Pastures. Main Street has you park at their farm which is 4 miles from their farm store. It is remote, peaceful, and quiet, with flat gravel parking. Perfect for us. The owners of the farm will deliver any of their products right to your RV. We texted the owner Jill, and ordered a couple of Strip Steaks. She showed up 40 minutes later with two beautiful 8 oz. steaks. We love staying at these Harvest Host stops for this very reason. The Hosts are always so accommodating.
Will Rogers Downs
Monday the 12th took us on a fly-by of St. Louis where we picked up I-44 south through the heart of Missouri, to Claremore, OK, just outside Tulsa. This was the longest drive of the trip at 420 miles. We have now traveled I-44 twice in the last 12 months, and find it to be one of the best sections of interstate in the country. Our campground for the night was KOA at Will Rogers Downs, a horse racing track and casino. Our site backed right up to the clubhouse turn of the track. In the morning we got to watch the exercise riders take several ponies out for a spin on the track.
Big Texan Steakhouse
The next day it was straight across Oklahoma on I-40 to Amarillo Texas and the Big Texan RV Park. We stayed at this park with Cayden in April 2021 on GR84RED’s maiden voyage. This park is just down the frontage road from the Big Texan Steakhouse where you can get a free 72oz porterhouse steak… if you can finish it. If you don’t, it’s expensive. We didn’t visit the Big Texan Steakhouse in 2021, but we decided to this time, as they also have a micro brewery there. The beer was okay, but the rest of the experience did not meet our expectations. This is the quintessential tourist trap. It was a waste of an Uber ride. Thankfully there was a free shuttle back, but the shuttle was a stretch limo with bull horns on the hood.
Kaktus Brewery
Wednesday’s drive was a relatively easy one on I-40 to Albuquerque. Our campground was north of Albuquerque off I-25 at a KOA in Bernalillo, NM. Because of the time change from central to mountain, we gained an hour and arrived early. We took care of some housekeeping, that being 3 loads of laundry. Dinner plans were sketchy, so I did what I usually do and opened Google Maps to look for something around our location. To my surprise there was a craft brewery right next to the campground. A secret passage out the back of the campground led right to the place. A jazz quartet was just starting to play. That soon morphed into a jam with various guests coming up on stage to play trumpet, tenor sax, bass and keyboards. Plus, the brewery served boutique pizzas. We had the chicken, sun dried tomatoes, basil pesto and pine nuts. There were no leftovers.
Thursday it was on to Flagstaff. This was a little stressful as the interstate was crowded with semis. The wind gusts didn’t make it any better. Plus there’s not much to see once you reach Arizona. The Flagstaff KOA Holiday was a pretty nice campground on US 89. We cooked up the steaks we got at Main Street Pastures for dinner. It was an early night as we were completely wiped from the five days of driving.
One of these trips we’ll stop in the six states we crossed and smell the roses.
