Editor’s Note: This is the fifth column in a series featuring the author’s travels along Route 66.

This was our eighth day to travel The Mother Road, The Will Rogers Highway, The Main Street of America, all names given to Route 66 over the years. This day could be described as a reverse scene from Storm Chasers. As much as I was determined to stay true to the twisting, winding route, that I had really come to love, I decided on this day we needed to get moving early and keep moving across Oklahoma, taking advantage of as many short-cuts as possible. For five days TVs and radios had blared with warnings of possible expected tornadic activity in the area in which we were expecting to travel. As much as I pushed to keep moving, my husband held back, telling me the bad weather wasn’t expected until late afternoon or evening.

The urgency died down for me when I read Jerry McClanahan, the author and illustrator of “EZ 66 Guide,” our daily companion, guide and teacher, would sign the book if brought by his shop in Chandler, Oklahoma. As soon as our visit and an interview for this article were completed, the urgency to “go west” consumed me once again.

My husband didn’t feel the same as we drove from village to village looking for the little bits of 66 described in the Guide. Our next stop was in Bristow where Bolin Ford recently rebuilt in art deco style, after a fire had destroyed their building. We were impressed that they didn’t replace their building with a modern structure.

Arcadia and the surrounding area were full of surprises. One of my favorites was the 1898 Round Barn, which was nearly a pile of rubble when Luke Robinson poured his heart and soul into a wonderful restoration, along with the help of other volunteers.

I will admit I thought of that unique barn later that night, when I heard tornados were in the area.

Down the road a short distance was the ultra-modern Pops, which sells over 700 varieties of soft drinks. The glassy structure contains yards of floor to ceiling multi-tiered shelves of brands and flavors of pop, set up according to color, from around the world. Not only does Pops have a crazy, large selection of beverages, but an extensive collection of vintage candy, above which was a TV that was lit up with severe weather warnings. I envisioned this glass building full of colorful displays of fragile bottles as I listened to the TV, while praying it never happened when the building was occupied.

In the front, outside the modern structure is a 66 ft bottle that illuminates the night sky.

A large flour mill with massive grain silos, built in the very beginning of the 20th century, is in downtown Yukon. Spelled out across the front of the building in large letters painted in black is “Yukon’s Best Flour” with another very large lighted sign on the roof. Not far from the mill are murals depicting a cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail.

After spending several minutes looking for a boulevard named after the town’s famed country singer, Garth Brooks, in order to see a renovated filling station at the home of A.J, Clements, we were told Clements had died the year before and the property had been sold.

By now the radio had gotten my attention with its constant warnings and reports of severe weather southwest of us. The announcer was sure this weather was headed northeast. I was sure my husband was hightailing it west in an attempt to escape the incoming storms, that is until he asked me to check the points of interest on the pages of the EZ 66 Guide.

Each time the voice coming through the radio would report a new location of inclement weather, I would remind my husband that our lives were more important than seeing the remnants of Route 66. I envisioned friends and family saying, “To think we worried about them on those darn cruise ships all of this time, but at least she died doing that which she had dreamed.”

The more upset I became, the more unconcerned he seemed until I finally insisted we find a room in Weatherford, Oklahoma. After settling in our room, we watched the reports on the local TV station of numerous little disturbances north, south and east of us. There were stories of golf ball-size hail and how a local parking garage was overflowing with peoples’ vehicles filling every space and driveway in an effort to avoid being pelted by the damaging hail. I thought about the new Town and Country in the hotel lot that my husband had purchased seven months earlier and how it had fared very well in Boston while we were on his cruise to Quebec. If we survived, I would never hear the end of it. And then it happened, the chorus of “I Will Survive” (Gloria Gaynor’s 70s version, of course) played through my head.

It was hard to believe on Day Nine that it was just that, the ninth day on The Main Street of America. All was well. Of course, I knew it would be.

Route 66 traversed many, many times from the north frontage road to the south, crossing over I-40 each time. Elk City, Oklahoma, was one of our first stops on this “bright, bright, bright sunshiny day” (Okay I’ll stop!) where we found ourselves standing at the base of a 179-foot tall oil derrick, one of the world’s largest. (Yep, another world’s biggest found on 66.)

Shortly after being christened in 1967, it was sent to the Aleutian Islands. There with two other rigs, it dug nuclear test holes for the US Atomic Energy Commission. The trio completed the largest diameter holes ever drilled, deep shafts in which to detonate atomic bombs. The rig was brought to Oklahoma, modified for use for oil and gas drilling until “the bottom fell out.” It was taken to Oklahoma City, where it was stacked in a vacant lot. The 17 story rig was brought to Elk City in 1991 where it serves as a tourist attraction.

Also in Elk City was the National Route 66 Museum, one of many museums dedicated to the Mother Road. One of the exhibits was a mock-up of a drive-in movie theater with four 50s era science fiction movie selections. We watched the original version of “The Blob” starring Steve McQueen, while sitting in the rear clip of a ’59 Chevy convertible with a speaker attached to the window.

At this point I could say I saw this movie in a theater in my hometown when I was seven years old, but you would never believe me, so I’ll refrain.

Adjacent to this building was the Pioneer Old Town Museum. Numerous buildings and displays represented a small town, including a mortuary, soda shop and telegraph office. An opera house, schoolhouse and church and a doctor’s office, train station and blacksmith’s shop were represented, along with many more shops and services. The cost of the combined admission to the two museums was just $4 for children and $5 for adults. An amazing deal!

When arriving in the small town of Erick, Oklahoma, we learned it has much to boast about being the hometown of Sheb Wooley of “One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People-Eater” fame, as well as having starred in Rawhide, the TV western that was popular from 1959 to 1965. He also acted in a few movies. Also from the little town was Roger Miller the country superstar that recorded such hits as “King of the Road,” “Dang Me,” “England Swings” and many more in the 60s and 70s.

The town has named two intersecting streets after the men, who were briefly uncle and nephew by marriage. Miller’s gold albums are displayed in a museum dedicated to him on the corner of Roger Miller Boulevard and Sheb Wooley Avenue in downtown Erick.

Shortly after driving away from Erick we came upon a marker designating the spot where Route 66 was rededicated on June 26, 1952 as the Will Rogers Highway. It states “This was one of many ceremonies that took place on the state lines of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, as well as Oklahoma.” Rogers promoted Route 66 before a plane in which he was riding, crashed on takeoff taking his life in 1935.

By now we had become very fond of the towns and the people of the once great route, the road that led thousands of people across this great nation driving family cars, moving vans, farm trucks, tractor trailers and what have you.

To be continued …