Rocking chairs, BBQ and Spyders!

     We rolled along the highway until we saw a sign that said World's Largest Rocking Chair!  Now, how could you pass that up!  We arrived and got our picture taken beneath the behemoth!  We then went inside the little souvenier shop and picked up a few items for family and friends.  It was quite humorous when the little lady running the store asked if we wanted a sample of moonshine!  It was Smoky Mountain Moonshine which is made not too far from where I live!  I passed and instead tried a Route 66 Orange Soda.  This was the first soft-drink I had had in over 15 years!  I should have waited.  It was not very good neither was the root beer Mark had.  Oh well.  We sat on the front porch and snacked and relaxed as we noticed an inordinate amount of Can-Am Spyders going by!?  Turns out the big Spyder rally was going on nearby.  It was also quite humorous how many Brits turned up at the store!  It really pissed Mark off!  "When I'm on vacation in America I don't want to see any bloody Brits damn it!".  So, if you don't like Brits, stay away from Cuba, MO!  They apparently flock there!  Actually, you better just stay away from Route 66 altogether as they were everywhere along the way!
     We journeyed on and passed several attractions such as Jellystone Park and Meremec Caverns but, we didn't stop.  We finally stopped in Springfield, MO. at a Motel 6.  We unloaded the bikes and headed to a BBQ joint for dinner.  The name was Buckingham BBQ.  The sign had a pic of a cowboy riding a hog.  Bucking-Ham...get it?  Very nice wait-staff and very good food!  They actually got the Okra right and I can't even get that very often at home!  As we ate, it begain pouring rain!  By the time we finished it had pretty much stopped and we rode over to walmart to acquire some items to do some work on the KLR. 
     This walmart was the biggest I had ever seen in my life!  Ginormous!  We acquired our stuff and headed back to the hotel.  Motel 6 became our motel of choice when we could find one!  The price was always the same and the rooms were always nice!
     We got up the next morning and cleaned the oil and crud off the KLR and sealed it with Flex-Seal (as seen on TV).  This stuff really is wonderful!  Everything I sealed with it stayed sealed the entire trip!  Then we once again loaded up and hit Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  I was concerned about the gravy as I have made the mistake of ordering gravy in places other than the South!  However, it's the same gravy at every Cracker Barrel!  Whew!  Then we hit the road and headed towards Tulsa, OK.
     We passed through Joplin, MO. along the way.  Nice little town with lots of old motels.  At the gas stations, several people stopped to warn us of bad weather and construction delays on the road ahead and looking at the sky suggested we should probably make haste and try to get to Tulsa as quickly as possible!
     We actually managed to avoid the weather and stopped in at our first America's Best Value Inn.  We would stay at several of these along the way and with the exception of one they were a good place to stay. 
     The boy running the front desk gave me a couple of menus of places that delivered to the hotel which was greatly appreciated as we had no desire to go back out once we were in our room!  I tried to order from a small burger joint that said open 7 days a week but, no one answered so, on to the pizza place where we ordered a pizza and a cinnamon desert of some sort and both turned out to be very good!
     This would turn out to be the only night I ever made an entry in my blog while on the road.  Since I was using my phone to make the entries, it was way to difficult and time-consuming after a long day on the road so, I decided to just wait until I got home to do it all in the comfort of my own home on the desktop!