We bugged our mother to please, please PLEASE can we stop?
When we got there, some old guy guided us knobby kneed Eastern kids out back, up some wooden stairs that led to a circular pen or corral that we looked down into.
In the middle of this .. ohhh, maybe 30 or 40 foot corral .. was a pool of muddy water about 10 or 15 ft across .. and in it was a fairly large crocidile or alligater or something that did NOT resemble the pictures on the signs we passed on the road.
I think we were charged a dime or something for this experience.
I came away with a memory and a cheap wooden tomahawk (probably 'made in Japan').
Ha ha! I have no idea where that might have been. Wish I had all my Rte66 books here with me, but they’re in storage. I could tell ya right now where that was.
Somehow in my memory, I associate those old dinosaur billboards (I do remember them) with some caverns or a cave. I wonder if it was near Meramec Caverns in MO.
Otherwise, it was probably in AZ somewhere and I don’t know all the ins and outs going that way - though I have driven it several times in my lifetime, just not lately.
I’ve been wracking my brain over the cowboy hat-shaped diner. I’m just not sure where that might have been. The Big Texan steakhouse in Amarillo isn’t shaped funny, but it’s memorable.
I’ll have to think about that one some more.