I was able to listen to a good chunk of the premiere of Randy Raley’s “Route 66 of KMOX” show on Saturday night on the St. Louis flagship station — both online, and on the airwaves at 1120 on the AM dial.

It was about as good as I’d hoped. There were familiar tunes in the mix of 1950s and ’60s music, but also ones I hadn’t heard in many years from Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and “The Cheater,” which was a national hit in 1966 for the locally based Bob Kuban and the In-Men.

It also was invigorating to hear Raley’s brief salutes to the Mother Road, and the airing of old commercials from KMOX’s massive vault. I heard old ads for Falstaff beer, 7-Up, a car dealership “on Route 66″ in Pacific, Mo., and a slew of mothballed station promos.

“Route 66″ airs each Saturday from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Central. It may be pre-empted by college football or St. Louis Blues hockey, but it will air immediately after.  You can hear a sample here.

Lonely Planet focuses its tourism lens at Oklahoma’s state capital, with the perspective of a former resident, Robert Reid.

Oklahoma City indeed has seen breathtaking changes since the trauma of the terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, which is now the site of the Oklahoma City National Memorial.

Many of the attractions listed in the story are not on Route 66, but are side trips. But among those that are on the road are the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Museum and the Asian District.

I was pressed for time, but I managed to stick around for about an hour or so to shoot pictures the grand opening Saturday of the new Kansas Route 66 Visitors Center in Baxter Springs.

The visitors center is located at 10th and Military (aka Route 66). It’s housed in a 1930 gas station that was a Phillips 66 franchise. A cost-share grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program helped renovate it.

I got this photo right when two classic cars pulled in. Within five minutes after I shot this, there were probably 100 people looking around and chatting. Among the Route 66 community spied were Tommy Pike, president of the Route 66 Association of Missouri; University of New Mexico professor and oral historian Dave Dunaway; and Dean “Crazy Legs” Walker of the Kansas Route 66 Association.

Visitors Center director Carolyn Pendleton beamed much of the day.

Plenty of petroliana was on display.

One of the locals brought a fully restored 1925 Chevrolet. It will be in the center’s garage for a few days.

Visitors were allowed to write messages on one of the walls.

Here’s a compact history of the station:

KSN/KODE of nearby Joplin, Mo., has a short story and video from the event.

The Kansas Route 66 Visitors Center is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, although it can be opened after hours if you call 417-438-1007. The center’s phone number is 620-856-2066, and can be e-mailed at Kansas_66_Station @yahoo.com

UPDATE: Here’s a story from KOAM-TV in Pittsburg, Kan.

Laddie Williams, the firefighter who was bicycling across America (including Route 66) to raise money for the surviving relatives of nine firefighters who died in a furniture store blaze, finished his trek.

The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., reports:

After dodging a snake in Oklahoma, a vicious dog in Arkansas and a hit-and-run driver near Atlanta, Laddie Williams, a firefighter in Augusta, Ga., has some vivid memories of his cross- country bicycle ride to honor Charleston’s nine fallen firefighters.

But he said the most emotional moment of the entire 2,600-mile trek was at the end, as he wheeled toward the charred hulk of the Sofa Super Store.

‘It’s hard not to cry when you see that site,’ said Williams, whose father and grandfather also were firefighters. ‘I’ve been in buildings like that, and you know anything can happen. You picture yourself in that fire, and you think, ‘That could have been me, or one of my friends.’ That’s why we did the ride.’

The rise raised over $25,000. You can still donate money here.

The Austin American-Statesman published a good article about Stanley Marsh 3, the helium magnate who came up with the idea behind Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas, in 1974.

Marsh bought the old cars from junkyards, paying $100 to $125 each. Some didn’t have engines; most couldn’t run. But from the waist down, they were gorgeous. And yes, those are whole cars buried there. (Although Marsh confesses a few front bumpers might be missing.) [...]

Speculation about deeper meaning behind the art has gone on for years. Some say the cars are meant to echo the great white shark in “Jaws,” which was released about the same time that the cars went in. Others say they’re a reminder of wagon trains that brought settlers west. Or a nod to the great American dream to “get a Cadillac and a blonde, get on Route 66 and go to Las Vegas, break the bank, go to Hollywood and be a movie star,” Marsh says.

“The truth is it was fun to make, and I just like the design. Afterward we could say they remind us of the covered wagons, but we didn’t say that before.” [...]

Marsh says he figured high school students might paint graffiti on the cars once in a while, but he never expected them to turn into the spray paint magnets they’ve become. Not that he minds. In fact, he helps out the would-be artists, creating a fresh canvas once a year by painting the cars all white.

“A lot of people do a lot of different things to have fun, and I’m in favor of all of it,” he says.

A sign that Cadillac Ranch has become an icon of Route 66: Marsh is turning 70 years old soon.