Afton, OK to Carthage, MO 05-07-2026 Day 27

It was one of the coldest mornings of the trip. The temperature was 43 degrees, but there was practically no wind. We dressed accordingly. Ron’s knee had been bothering him near the end of last night’s ride. He had iced it some last night, so we went off at a slower pace for our 65 mile day starting at 7:05. Last night’s BBQ dinner had made up the bulk of our breakfast.

We made our way down the road to Narcissa and Miami. There wasn’t much to Narcissa. I found a shield on the road and remnants of what might have been a filling station or garage.

Miami had been our original target for yesterday’s ride. The downtown area still had a lot of the look it had during the early years of Route 66 during its glory. As we went past the historic district, we went over some miles of urban sprawl that bled into North Miami, then Commerce, MO.

From there we passed through the Tribal town of Quapaw and onto Baxter Springs.

We did stop along the way to see what an armadillo would like like before he went through the tortilla press.

Baxter Springs was not as big as Miami, but held the similar charm of an Old Historic district down main street. We glided down a road of years gone by.

We stopped at a donut shop to get some refreshments and shed a couple of layers. We were getting warm, the sun was getting out, and there was not much wind.

While Ron took a look at the cabin and trading post, I had gone ahead to the Historic Rainbow bridge outside of town. Ron eventually caught up with me there on a stretch of Old Route 66 north of Baxter Springs.

Our last stop in Kansas was Galena, “The oldest mining town in Kansas”. It had some modern areas, but also the historic old town in the center had not lost its charm.

As we left the town, we caught sight of one more restored filling station, then saw something bigger.

Less than a mile later, we had left Kansas and were entering Missouri.

We didn’t have far to go in Missouri before we were on the outskirts of Joplin. We went through streets that weren’t too busy and even rode a packed fine gravel bike trail for 5 miles.

It was approaching 1:00 by the time we were out of Joplin and passing through some of the smaller towns northeast of that city. In Carterville, we stopped at the “Famos on 66” for a beer before the last few miles to our hotel in Carthage.

We checked into the hotel to do our routine shower and laundry. We found that our hotel had a hairdryer that we would use to help dry our clothes, but it wasn’t functioning. However, it says on their card that they are also a public laundromat. It took 75 cents to dry my stuff.

I had been in contact with an old colleague from my HP days, Ken Gill. I am grateful that Ken was one of my early supporters from my first big ride in 2016, when I became The Lone Rider. We finally got to spend some time together as he drove down from his home in Arkansas to meet us. We had a good time catching up with where we are in life right now over dinner.

Even more, he left us with breakfast for tomorrow!

We almost made it through the entire state of Oklahoma without a flat until I lost air 2 miles from the Kansas border. It was an easy repair since we didn’t have gale force winds tipping the bike and blowing my gloves across the road like we did in Texas. The winds were not an adversary today and the temps got to be pleasant as the day went on. The density of sites to see grows more with each mile. I think Kansas actually wins for the amount of Route 66 attractions and charm in spite of having the shortest mileage. Even though we had a great dinner, there was Braum’s in walking distance. A day without ice cream is like a day without sunshine. The Ride Stats are here. The 3 D video is here.

The Not So Lone Rider