I started searching the web for info about Route 66 and started planning a little field trip to Joplin. Then I came across a blog with a few exciting places to explore between Joplin and Carthage and texted my kindred spirit adventure mom friend Valerie to see if she'd been to any of them. No?! Well we must go then. Today! Now! In. The rain! And that's what we did! We loaded up my kiddies plus Val and two chandler boys into the Willy fun bus and set out for adventure.
First stop:All aboard Ice Cream in Joplin.
I'm too lazy to write all about the details of these great places so I'm totally copy/pasting excerps from Valerie's blog. She's wonderful with words and gives accurate accounts of details I overlook or forget easily. I'm "borrowing" several of her photos as well, and you can tell which ones are hers because they're real photos taken with a legit camera by a person with actual photography talents!
"Hamburgers at $1.90 was a deal! You could add ham and call it a "sow". You could add bacon and call it a "pig". Or, you could add both and call it a "farm". You could single it, or double or triple it. We had to get a "farm" just to try it, and we were sold. We also tried the homemade ice cream, because that is what this place has been known for since 1953.
"So, we met the owner of the place while there and he told us that he had just recently purchased the long-living Joplin favorite from the original owners. Somewhere along the way they purchased this long and amazing mail train car from the Kansas Missouri Railroad. He said that the car was extra long because it had an interesting purpose. Not only did it make the normal mail stops, it carried Secret Service people on it who were there protecting the Federal Reserves gold bars that were secreted inside the mail train. So cool.
"So, we met the owner of the place while there and he told us that he had just recently purchased the long-living Joplin favorite from the original owners. Somewhere along the way they purchased this long and amazing mail train car from the Kansas Missouri Railroad. He said that the car was extra long because it had an interesting purpose. Not only did it make the normal mail stops, it carried Secret Service people on it who were there protecting the Federal Reserves gold bars that were secreted inside the mail train. So cool.
"The big loud bell was awesome to ring. there was also a little train that you could ride for a couple of bucks. Darn. It's transmission was on the skids." -Valerie C
Don't worry, she politely left out the part where I let my kids climb on the little train ride and gave an employee a heart attack Wren he ran outside and scolded them for touching and moving it. Oopsie! Leave it those Willy kids to stir up trouble! Haha. That was our cue to split and head on to our next adventure!
First some pics. I loved this little dive. We will definitely come back. We are inside the train car in a booth below the mail slots with labels from towns around northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri. Such a fun place. Everything was super affordable, but we just kept ordering more things, I think I had four different transactions that added up to like $35 by the time we all enjoyed all the pig burgers and ice cream to hearts and bellies content.
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