Missouri

In 1926 the route was officially opened in this state, using old trails such as “The Osage Indian Trail”. The path goes from the Mississippi River (the ending of the route in Illinois) to Joplin, where we find the Kansas border and it is 482 kilometers long. Nowadays this old route has been substituted with the I-44 freeway.

A big difference that makes this state really interesting to visit is how full of mountains it is compared to many others that are mainly flatland.

Even though the state of Missouri is said to have done a really good job at marking sure where route 66 used to be, you should always keep a map with you, otherwise it is probably going to be pretty confusing for you, and you might even get lost!

Gillioz Theatre

This is one of the best theaters located in the Midwest part of the United States. We can find it in the city in Springfield, where in 1926 it first opened its doors, with a successful sold-out of all the tickets, due to the amaze of many people from all over the city and nearby ones, which were desiring to see the plays that were held there.

As a really interesting fact, this theater was a pioneer in talent show. For all those who know tv shows such as The Voice or the X factor or many others, this theater held contests called “Pretty with a Voice” which consisted of 15 young girls singing in order to fight for the first place. There were no judges voting for them, it was actually people in the audience who had the job to decide who was worthy of the victory. Even famous people like presidents or famous singers like Elvis decided to visit this kind of shows.

In 1990, a non-profit organization decided to purchase the building (which was starting to look really emaciated) and decided to take charge of the restoration of this iconic place, which would begin a year later and it would not be completed until 2006.

It is needless to say that just because I just mentioned to visit this theater, it does not mean that a whole tour to the city should be done. It is a really pretty city and I am sure everyone would enjoy visiting it for a couple of hours after having seen a great performance at the Gillioz Theater.

Rocking Chair

Yes, we are talking about a rocking chair, but not a normal one, it is the second largest one in the whole entire world, and it is in Missouri, in Cuba to be more specific.

The reason for this humongous chair to be built was that two Cuban partners who had started their own chair company wanted people to come to their shop and visit it. This led to their idea of building this really tall chair that would attract anyone who would drive past it.

Finally, on April Fool’s day they decided to put it up, and until today, it has attracted many families, visitors, tourists, motorcycles groups and others, which all love taking pictures of and with it. After having set it up, they started their new challenge, getting it certified for the Guinness World Records as the Largest Rocking Chair.

Officially, the measurements of the chair are as follows: 12,8 meters long, 6 meters wide and it weighs 12246 kilos.

In case you are interested in taking a picture on it, you need to know that you can only do this once a year, the first Saturday in August, so schedule the trip carefully if you decide to do it.