I write this post with a heavy heart, because I have just discovered that I messed up today.  Driving from North Texas to Kansas City, we had the choice of two routes:  I-35 through Dallas and Wichita, or back roads that would take us to the Eiffel Tower at Paris, TX, and to Galena, KS, the home of the original Tow-Mater.  Our driver chose the latter.

We found the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and even with its cowboy hat on top it was smaller than I expected (and surprisingly unmarked from the road).  It had taken us three hours to get there; they sure do fit a lot of Texas on a map.

Then we zipped through Oklahoma, where there are an awful lot of toll roads.  The kids would say, “ANOTHER toll booth?”  They weren’t exaggerating.

From Oklahoma we moved into Kansas on Route 66.  After the Old National Road and the Lincoln Highway and the Jefferson Highway and Old Red Ten, driving a bit of Route 66 was to be expected for us.

On Route 66, in Galena, Kansas, I had input the address for Towmater.  We got into town and the GPS announced we were at our destination.  Right in front of us was an old service station that was nicely painted, and was next to a park with Route 66 displays.  But we couldn’t find Mater anywhere.  We circled the block just to be sure, and there was no sign of the old tow truck.

So we turned around and retraced our steps out of town through the tears of a three-year-old crying, “I waaaannnttt Maaattteerrrr.”  The crying lasted for about 20 minutes.  She’s been a trooper throughout this trip, but today we could tell she was nearing the end of her rope.

We ate supper along the way, checked into our room, and I took allergy-son to Whole Foods for one last provisions run before we start his specialized diet Monday.

When we got back to the room, I plugged in, and logged onto Roadside America to tell them Mater’s gone.

And then I realized that we had been at the wrong service station.  I looked at the map again.  The GPS did us wrong.

We missed Mater by 5 blocks.

If you zoom in on the map until you can see Galena’s streets, look for the name of Galena, right above Hwy 66.  Then look to see where Mater really is.  Yeah.  We were that close.

This shouldn’t be a big deal to me; after all, we’ve had a great trip, we’ve seen a lot of things, we’ve rolled with the punches.

But we were that close and missed it?  Normally I would have investigated a different route out of town, which would have taken us right past it.  Normally I would have double-checked the location this  morning, but I thought I’d done my research.  I had, but it was one birthday, one Christmas, one roadtrip-packing week, and one specialized-diet-planning-session ago.  I guess I’ve had a few other things on my mind that precluded remembering exactly what Mater’s home looks like.

Does it make the blow any less?  Not really.  I don’t think I’m even going to break the news to the girls. They’ll cry again.

I suppose this means we’ll be taking a trip to Kansas again before too long.

Related:  Notes from the Road: Texas, Day 10 Notes from the Road:  Texas, Day 12

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