Crossing the Heartland | An American Road Trip Journey 🚗

🛣️ Driving Route 66: The Yellow Giant Under the Blue Sky After lunch in Kansas City, we headed south through Missouri. Once we passed Joplin, we entered one of America’s most legendary roads—Route 66 🛣️. Known as the “Mother Road,” it once symbolized the dream of heading west toward freedom and romance along the Pacific Coast. As we left the towns behind, the road opened wide under vast skies with giant clouds drifting above ☁️. Endless green pastures stretched on both sides, dotted with grazing cattle—it felt like stepping into a painting, reminiscent of summer in Inner Mongolia. Driving slowly up the hills, it truly felt like we were on top of the world! ✨ 🚧 Tulsa: Where Industry, Culture, and Native American History Intersect Arriving in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we were instantly amazed by the Golden Driller—a 75-foot-tall golden statue of an oil worker leaning against the Expo Building 🗽💛. This giant symbolizes Tulsa’s rich oil history. Standing at his feet, you grasp how small humans are… and how Americans love making everything larger than life! Driving through the city, we also spotted many well-preserved, grand American mansions 🏡—red brick walls, fountain gardens, luxury cars parked in driveways—a stark contrast to the more worn-down areas downtown. Yet behind this prosperity lies a painful history: Tulsa was originally part of Native American reservations. After oil was discovered, the federal government and developers forcibly displaced Indigenous tribes, privatizing and auctioning their lands to build oil fields and towns 💔. Tulsa lies at the heart of this history. While some white businessmen grew immensely wealthy almost overnight, building what are now quiet and incredibly affluent neighborhoods, this prosperity came at the tragic cost of Native peoples losing their homes and lands. 🌙 Night Adventure on Route 66 After dark, we changed into comfortable clothes and set out for a "Route 66 Night Tour" 🌙. We passed retro neon-lit gas stations ⛽✨ and classic road landmarks—each spot so captivating we couldn’t resist stopping for photos. It felt like traveling back in time to a 1950s American town. Though Tulsa may seem like a small dot on Route 66, it carries deep layers of Western U.S. history. If you’ve ever dreamed of the classic American road trip, this stretch of Route 66 around Tulsa will completely win you over! Next stop: we continue south toward the cowboy capital—Dallas! 🤠 #USA #Tulsa #Oklahoma #Route66 #RoadTrip #AmericanHistory #TravelDiary