Springfield, Missouri

A few weeks ago I took Jonah up to Missouri so we could visit Silver Dollar City so we could celebrate a successful end of the first grade. I have an Aunt who lives in Springfield, so we stayed with her over the weekend, and got to see some sights. Springfield is home to the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium, which is right by the Bass Pro Shops Headquarters. We went through the aquarium, which contains 1.5 million gallons of water and has over 35,000 fish, birds, reptiles, mammals and amphibians on display. It is really neat, but expensive. The ticket price cost an arm and a leg (and a fin?).

I tried taking pictures with the camera but most of them didn't turn out. I managed to get this shot of guy, not sure if it's a croc or a gator.



And then there was the jellyfish room...



Springfield is also known as the birthplace of Route 66. Way back in the 1920s, the course of Route 66 was mapped out at a hotel in Springfield. The Mother Road passed through Springfield, and you can still find lots of old buildings that travelers would have driven by back in the olden days. One of those places is the old Shamrock Court Motel, which was built in 1927. Sadly it's closed and empty now (but up for sale).







Down the road is a park that has a reproduction of a sign for Red's Giant Hamburg, a restaurant on Route 66 that has operated for decades. The restaurant was a staple on Route 66, but closed in 1984. But a few years ago, it was reopened and features the same recipes as the original. We ate there and it was pretty tasty! Apparently it was called Giant Hamburg because there wasn't enough room on the sign to fit all of "hamburger."



And one last shot from Springfield - we stopped to get gas at this station, which was right by some old silos. They had some neat vines growing on them so I ran out with the infrared camera for a quick picture....