One Quilt Top Started and Finished

Being the Route 66 fan that I am, I have many Route 66 themed fabrics and ideas for several quilts.  I am working on one quilt that has embroidered blocks - that will take a bit to finish.  I have another idea for one that will feature actual pictures I have taken along the Mother Road.  That one will take a bit to make.  And then there is the special one with the rusty old trucks along Route 66...and that one will take a bit to design. 

So two weekends ago, I got tired of having the "perfect" place on my living room wall for a Route 66 quilt wallhanging and decided to piece one.  I cut it out and started piecing it that weekend and finished piecing it this weekend.  And here it is ....



 

TaDa !!!  Done.  Finished.  Finally.  Oh crap, I still have to quilt it.  OK - almost finished.

~ Kat

Flashback - Retro Candy at Pops

We decided to go to the TLC nursery in Edmond, OK, in search of desert willows - we had seen them in Utah and fell in love with them.  We were in luck - they have them and they will grow in Oklahoma.  So now we just need to decide where to put them.  As we left TLC, we were driving on Route 66 wondering (and wandering) where we could stop and eat - Pops!!!!  So we headed east to Arcadia and pulled in at Pops - home of hundreds of sodas!!!  

Food was good as always and we brought home some different sodas to try as always.  But one new offering caught my eye...retro candy!!!  How cool is this...

Lots more blast from the past candy - love this place! - Kat

It's a Thanksgiving Tradition - Pops

A slightly embarrassing, but true story...

It started 3 years ago - our niece and two great-nieces came up to Oklahoma from Texas for Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving, while many people were out fighting the crowds on Black Friday, we spent a wonderful afternoon cruising Route 66 with a stop at Pops in Arcadia (not anywhere near as crowded like it usually is). Pops is one of the newest attractions on Route 66 and is known for its unusual "flashback to the 50s then flash-forward to the space age" architecture and its selection of over 500 sodas!!! We left the place with 4 6-packs (yes, that's 24 in total!!) of different sodas.

Our intent was to try many of them out over the weekend before the nieces left for home. So, we sat down at the table on Friday night and started off with two sodas. We each got a glass and had a "shot" of each soda. We discussed their pros and cons in a very culinary, analytical way, and then decided to go for two more.  Then, 8 sodas later, we got a pitcher and put it in the middle of the table and poured the leftover soda from the bottles into the pitcher in a combination I will call the Concoction!  That is when things really got out of control!!!

After about 12 sodas, we were all on a caffeine/sugar high and the Concoction was looking pretty murky, taking on an odd greenish-brown hue.  (And we were determined to try the Concoction at the end of all the soda shots!)  We kept going - 16 sodas, 20 sodas and, finally (this is the embarrassing part), we finished all 24 sodas - stomachs aching, uncontrollable carbonated burps and belching, and way past high and into the giddy/giggling/stupid stage!!! 

We had gone through root beers, colas, ales, fruitys, herbed flavors - through brown, red, orange, purple, blue, chartreuse, yellow, pink colored sodas - from Russia, Jamaica, Mexico, China and many different states - with names like Freaky Dog Watermelon, Love Potion #69, Road Rage, and Rat Bastard Root Beer.

We were soda-plastered. And we still had the Concoction to go - it was still murky, but now with a bluish-green brown color and what I swear was an oily-looking sheen on the top!!! Funny thing is - as, ummm, unusual as some of the individual sodas tasted (many were awesome!), the Concoction was not bad at all!!! (of course by then, our brains, taste buds and stomachs were probably in a soda stupor, unable to really tell what was good and what wasn't). Needless to say - NONE of us slept well that night and NONE of us drank any soda for the rest of the weekend.

But, that didn't stop us the next year - when our niece and 2 great nieces came up again for Thanksgiving, they brought my sister, another niece and two great-nephews. The "newbies" had heard the Pops soda-binge story and they were ready for the experience! While it wasn't quite as much fun for the five of us who knew what was coming, I can proudly say that the "experienced drinkers" were able to "out-drink" the rookies!

So began the tradition of a Pops soda run on Black Friday (or as we call it, Soda Friday) - though we are older and wiser now, and refrain from overindulging! (i.e., drinking all the sodas in one night - been there, done that, got sick! - twice!)  Here are pics of the sodas from this year's adventure -



Chihuahua Cherry and Barkin' Birch Beer

Bug Barf and Zombie Brain Juice

Cream My People, Nuclear Orange Bomb, Seal Ya Later



Buffalo Wing Soda, Bacon Soda, Sweet Corn - the "seasonal" favorites


If you are ever in Arcadia, OK - stop at Pops on Route 66 and have a soda, or 24! Their food is awesome too!
Kat

The Original Route 66

I LOVE ROUTE 66!!!  When we moved from south Texas (no where near Route 66) to Oklahoma (only 10 miles from Route 66), I became a happy cruiser - Pops, the Round Barn, the Braums bottle, Route 66 Bowl - all within 30 minutes of our home.

But what I didn't realize was how much the actual nostalgia of the road would affect me.  When we are driving it, my mind relaxes and takes me back to a time when this was it - this was your vacation - this was seeing what the great country of the United States of America had to offer - this was simple (compared to the super highway interchange monstrosities of today).  I feel so humbled when I am on this road, with the fields, farms, and old structures barely standing from days gone by.  And the new Route 66 attractions that will one day be old and fondly remembered too.  It is like therapy for my soul to get my kicks on Route 66.

Now, mind you, most of the current day Route 66 has been rerouted, become a highway, or at least repaved and/or widened several times.  Last Thursday evening - Keven and I went to The Boundary (great BBQ) on Route 66 east of Luther, OK with our friends, Steve and Krista.  As we cruised Route 66 with the setting sun turning the farm fields gorgeous colors, Steve surprised us by turning onto a side road with a sign that said "Private Historical Site ...".  We had seen this sign before, but it said PRIVATE - so we looked (and went) no further.  Well, we should have stopped to read it...

An ORIGINAL section of ROUTE 66 that parallels the newer highway for about 1/4 mile !!!!!  Route 66 heaven !!! - narrow, unstriped, ORIGINAL pavement of Route 66 - life doesn't get much simpler than this for me.

Keven and I both appreciated that excursion and can't wait to show it to our family when they come visit again from Texas.  Thank you so much Steve and Krista.

Blessings from the Mother Road -

Kat