Norwegians!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Hi to all who have decided to read my blog, which will include observations on life from the perspective of a rather new Route 66 business owner.  It will also occasionally include my random thoughts as I make the thrice-weekly 90-minute drive along old Route 66 from my home in Tulsa to Afton Station, since that's my best thinking time.  I'm warning you now, it's going to be essentially ego-driven, but I promise to tell it like it is, from the most exciting to the most boring days at my place.

Arrived this morning (Tues.) an hour early, and it's a good thing I did!   My ex-husband's enormous motor home was parked across the front of the parking area, my wonderful volunteer Marly was on hands and knees cleaning up a hose leak in the work room, and there were 34 Norwegians on Harleys right behind me.

David and Marly had turned on the A/C when they arrived, so the Norwegians were able to get some relief from the heat, which already read 88 degrees on my car thermometer when I got here and reads over 100 outside the Station right now.  (1:45 p.m.)  It makes me feel hot just to look out the window at the baking pavement of the Mother Road, especially when I see kids on bicycles panting past.  I know kids can stand heat better than we "olds" can, but even so....   The Norwegians, coming from a colder climate, must feel blasted here.  This group had come from California heading to Chicago, so they'd already endured the desert. Amazingly, they said that yesterday's trip across Western Oklahoma was the hottest day of all.  Well, y'know what they say... it's not the heat, it's the humidity.  The amazingly upbeat Norwegians left after buying a lot of stuff (pins, magnets, EZ66 Guides), then David departed in his motorhome for a 3-week vacation out west.

Some guys from Ohio came by.  They're not on a Route 66 trip, but are here to get an engine rebuild for their race car.  They saw Afton Station by chance and stopped to see the cars.  I was telling them that folks come to visit my little Station from all over the world and that 34 Norwegians had just left.  I think they weren't particularly buying it until a young mother and her two kids walked in.

"Hi.  Where are you from?"  (my usual opening line)

"Sutton, Alaska.  Fifty miles north of Anchorage."

The two Ohio guys gave each other that "well, so the goofy old gas station lady isn't hallucinating after all" look, and I was vindicated.

So far today, I've greeted 45 visitors and now there's a lull in the action.  I just ate an apple and a persistent fly is driving me nuts.  I have put the apple core at the opposite end of the table to lure the fly away, but so far it's not particularly effective.