-I'm on an epic journey to travel the entire Route 66, and so far I've followed the Mother Road through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and parts of Oklahoma.

And so I now pick up where I left off to discover small treasures, hidden towns, and this country's very important past, as well as connecting with so many people who share their passion and hard work to passersby like me.

I'm continuing my journey through Oklahoma and Texas on this leg of Route 66.

I'm Samantha Brown, and I've traveled all over this world, and I'm always looking to find the destinations, the experiences, and most importantly, the people who make us feel like we're really a part of a place.

That's why I have a love of travel and why these are my places to love.

"Samantha Brown's Places to Love" is made possible by... -Oceania Cruises is a proud sponsor of public TV and "Samantha Brown's Places to Love."

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-Since 1975, we've inspired adults to learn and travel in the United States and in more than 100 countries.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -I left off my Route 66 adventure in the gem of a city, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I'll be working my way through the rest of the state with a major stop in Oklahoma City, and then straight across the panhandle of Texas towards the Mexico border.

Route 66 is now synonymous with being open and free.

But as I learned at the Route History Museum in Springfield, Illinois, the way travelers moved on Route 66 differed greatly according to the color of their skin.

Black travelers during the Jim Crow era had to know which businesses would serve them gas, food and lodging.

One such business providing all three was in Luther, Oklahoma, and although it's been closed for decades, I was excited about visiting this historic place and the family members trying to save what their grandfather created.

-Grandpa, he was able to purchase the property here.

The only thing I can say is that he had insight, because this ended up being the first Black-owned service station on Highway 66.

-And the filling station was more than just a place for Black families to fill up their car.

-It was a gathering place because grandpa had -- they had a TV, there was produce here that they could buy, and there were canned goods that they could purchase and people could get things on credit.

-At that moment, Ed's cousin, the Reverend Allen Threatt, unexpectedly walked through the door.

Hello, sir.

-Grandpa's name is Allen Threatt Sr.

He's Allen Threatt III.

-The Reverend still has strong memories of his grandfather, who put him to work as a young boy pumping gas.

-Over the weekend, they had ball games.

The Black Negro league, Black baseball team would come from all over Oklahoma to compete with one another all day long.

-What do you hope the legacy of Threatt Filling Station is for the next 100 years?

-We want this to be a destination for people.

So it's up to us.

And that's what we're trying to make happen, myself, Reverend Threatt, three other people in our in our family and our generation.

We are attached to this property.

-Traveling further west out of Luther, you pass through Arcadia, home of the famous Round Barn on Route 66, and only half an hour beyond that is the state capital, Oklahoma City.

♪ -So to be a Neon artist, you need to be part artist, part scientist, part mechanic, part construction worker and part electrician.

But the end result is spectacular.

-Whoa!

Hey.

-So... My name is Kathy Reynolds.

I'm lovingly known by my friends and colleagues as the Neon Queen.

This will be my 40 year anniversary in the neon business, so I would like to see that continue on, and Route 66 is all neon all the time.

And I really think that we need to continue on the tradition of neon everywhere you go on Route 66.

My neon studio is located in what's known as the Gayborhood.

We are the only LGBTQIA+ neighborhood on Route 66 until you get to West Hollywood, and now it's just growing.

It's not a glamorous job.

It's a really dirty job, and it's a hot job.

And -- And, you know, I tend to burn myself and -- and always have a scar someplace or a scab somewhere.

[ Electricity crackling ] -Neon artists are known as glass benders.

-I'm going to balance this glass on my fingertips.

I'm going to bring it up.

I'm going to start to blow.

-Kathy blows into the tube so the glass doesn't collapse.

Wow.

-Then I'm going to walk over here and I'm going to lay it on my pattern.

-Wow.

-So this little piece right here, this is what I'm going to go back over into that fire.

-How many women are doing this?

-There's a lot of women doing this surprisingly enough, we're pretty good at it.

-We've got a lot of air.

A lot of hot air to release.

-[ Laughs ] -How many glass benders are there?

-I've heard that there's fewer than 2,000 in the world.

It's a dying art, so that's why I need to teach this.

It needs to continue.

And if we're going to have signs on Route 66, we have to be here to make them glow.

LEDs are good in good in their place, but they couldn't hold a candle to the beauty and the brilliance, I don't think, of neon, and it's the difference between glass and plastic I think.

The end product is absolutely gorgeous.

It takes my breath away still to this day.

-The new First Americans Museum is the largest single building tribal cultural center in the United States, and it's a highlight of a visit to Oklahoma City.

-The word Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw people.

From their language, the term "Okla" could mean like a group of people.

And then the word "homa," its pronounced homa, is the color red.

My name is Ace Greenwood.

I'm the cultural ambassador at First Americans Museum.

My job here, I think, is to make the world just a little redder each day.

-We have been brought up in a time where we were, you know, the stories that we were told, the history that we were taught was very one sided and just totally wrong.

So it must feel amazing to see every person walk through the door, understanding you're going to learn something that you have never known before.

-Voices that were never heard before are finally being heard, and it feels good to -- to the 39 tribes, because now they have that voice.

They have a place that they can tell their story.

So this is Joseph Erb.

He has done a piece called "Indigenous Brilliance."

He was contracted to build something that represented all 39 tribes here in Oklahoma.

And the sun is huge with southeastern tribes.

And so that was the first thing I saw.

Then I saw the spaceship and I said, okay, this guy's Chickasaw.

Because the first enrolled Native American to go in space was John Herrington, a Chickasaw enrolled member.

A lot of people think that beads and feathers is the culture of Native America, but the family and the community is our culture.

That allows us to carry our stories on, to be storytellers and share these things, pass that down.

And so we see a mother and daughter, you know, working together.

We see maybe a grandfather passing on songs or stories to his grandson.

This picture here, where you see the children walking in lines, you know, this was to me, it kind of represents the boarding school era, you know, when this was beginning to be taken away from us.

And now we see them walking in line, graduating because we're in a whole new era.

-A part of the permanent collection is a gallery dedicated to Native American contributions to sports.

-This particular wall are athletes that are professional athletes today with Native lineage.

But we also think back to the old, old games.

Shinney looks a lot like field hockey.

Stickball looks a lot like lacrosse.

This game was played as a means to an alternative to war.

If you could settle a dispute and everybody didn't have to die, that's a good thing.

And so that's what this game was.

What sets apart First Americans Museum from any other museum in the world is that we are Native-run museum.

So this is something that we really want to get across to people that, you know, 39 distinct individual nations right here in Oklahoma.

♪ -Next stop after Oklahoma City, El Reno, where there's a diner that can't be missed -- Sid's Diner.

-So this is my Grandpa Sid.

-This is Sid right here?

-That's Sid.

-Ah.

-Over here is a picture of me and my dad.

-And it's your dad who opened Sid's.

-Dad bought this corner, and they were starting to build it and grandpa passed away, so he never saw the building.

So kind of in honor of grandpa, he named it after him.

-And how long did your dad flip burgers here?

-56 years total.

-But not just any burger.

El Reno has become world renowned for the Oklahoma onion burger, which was originally called a Depression Burger.

-So during the depression, hamburger meat was very expensive.

They had kind of a local restaurant in town.

The guy started adding onions.

It just helped the meat go further.

-Yeah.

-So if you got a half a bowl of meat in just the same amount of onions, it stretches it and you get more out of it.

-Do you still slice all those onions, or does that get pawned off to, like, the new person you hired?

-Yes and no.

-Okay.

-And you also grill the bun, too.

-When you grill the bun, it gives it something to hold on to, just not mushy, so... -Uh-huh, uh-huh.

And I have been strategically planning my burger eating this entire Route 66, and since Chicago, this is my only second burger that I'm having, so I'm very excited.

♪ -Okay.

-Oh, boy.

-The Oklahoma way.

-Yeah.

It's just mustard and pickles.

-Mustard.

-You can have it however you want.

-No, no, but that's the Oklahoma way?

-That's the traditional way.

-Alright, I'm gonna get a little pickle in there and an onion.

♪ Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh.

Adam, that is fantastic.

Oh, my gosh.

That's the happy dance.

-Yeah.

-And it's got that sear on it.

And then the onions are caramelized and soft.

The pickle.

Thank you for kicking off my salad eating for the next four months.

[ Laughs ] But it was well worth it.

Mmm.

One of the many privileges of driving Route 66 is being able to slowly take in the changes of our nation's great landscapes.

Illinois and Missouri have rolling hills and green forests.

Leaving the Ozarks from Kansas into Oklahoma, you can see the Great Plains of America, where it's green but still has population to Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

But leaving El Reno, you are now going due west, and the sky just opens up as you continue through the state and reach Texas.

They say everything's big in Texas except Route 66.

At 150 drivable miles, it's the second shortest stretch of the eight states.

Kansas is the shortest, but it's a beautiful stretch.

My first stop in Texas is the tiny town of McLean, home of the one of a kind Devil's Rope Museum, where 91-year-old founder and lifetime rancher Delbert True has curated a most unexpected collection.

-This all started in 1870.

-Okay.

-At that time, every farmer and every rancher had a blacksmith shop on his place.

And he was a pretty darn good blacksmith, so he was equipped to make this wire.

And the main reason there are so many wires is because everybody thought they were going to build a wire, patent it and get rich.

-Okay.

[ Laughs ] -It's just that simple.

Did they?

They did not.

Barbed wire is what some people called devil's rope, because animals that had never seen it before got tragically caught up in it.

-And then they made more humane wire.

And today, even though it's sharp, the barbs are loose.

And when an animal hits that point, instead of hurting the animal, it'll just turn it.

-And it's just a way to be like, don't, don't come here.

-Yeah, yeah.

-You're still a rancher?

-I'm still a rancher at 91 years old.

I'm still -- I worked -- I just got off a tractor a while ago.

-An unexpected and powerful display is War Wire, where you learn that McLean was the home of a German POW Camp.

Delbert not only has this model, but remembers firsthand how the camp housed 3,000 prisoners of war.

-They weeded out all of the hardcore Nazis, but the rest of them, the boys that were here 18, 20, 25 years old, just farm boys.

Boy, they just tickled to death to get here and get out of the war.

-Yeah.

-I think that it's the most cruel aspect that there is in barbed wire is using wire against your fellow man.

-And the museum never lets you forget about the hard work necessary to construct a barbed wire enclosure.

What's the hardest part about it?

-Well, the most serious thing that I found about barbed wire affected me is it taught me how to cuss.

-[ Laughs ] -You'd be surprised how many bad words you can call barbed wire and not use God's name.

-[ Laughs ] -Texas is different.

When you get into Texas, it's a different vibe.

It's a different feeling.

And the longer people will spend here, the more they'll understand.

Our thoughts are different, we think differently.

-And to prove it, I've arrived at the largest city I've seen so far in Texas, Amarillo, to check out a unique art gallery that specializes in jewelry created out of some of Amarillo's unnatural resources.

-I'm Bob "Crocodile" Lile, an artist at Lile Art Gallery on Route 66 in Amarillo.

I paint abstract and I make jewelry, and that's about it.

-I was really enchanted by this stretch of Route 66 here in Amarillo.

-Yeah, we have 13 blocks of art galleries, antique shops, restaurants with full bars and live music.

We have two bookstores, a record store, a game shop, tattoo parlors, we got it all.

-Bob displays his paintings here in the gallery, but he is most famous for his jewelry, and the material will surprise you.

-This is paint off the cadillacs at Cadillac Ranch.

-That Cadillac Ranch.

-1.3 million people a year go out there and spray paint graffiti on those cars, and chunks get knocked off.

And for the last 11 years, I've been recycling it.

-When the paint peels off the cars, it comes off in chunks like this?

-Oh, you'll be amazed when you get out there.

How -- Some of the ways 50.

I've got one piece in the backyard that weighs over 100 pounds, fell off the second car.

[ Laughs ] -Wow.

That's how many people go to Cadillac Ranch, and this is all built up spray paint over the years.

So you get a chunk like this.

This is what you start to work with.

And then how as an artist...?

-You split it off, and then I grind it down with a flat top, which is a lapidary tool with a diamond disc until I get colors I like, and then I make decisions on what I'm going to do with it.

♪ -Bob's jewelry is a unique item where the material is, I guess you could say made locally every day as people travel here to leave their mark on one of the most famous art installations in the world.

As the saying goes... [ Cans rattle ] ...spray 'em if you got 'em.

♪ ♪ There's a lot to do in Amarillo, and if you want to say to your friends back home I did Texas stuff, then this is a must.

I'm channeling my inner cowgirl here at Cowgirls and Cowboys of the West at Los Cedros, a real working ranch co-founded by head cowgirl Phyllis Golden.

-Tighten him up a little with your hands.

Perfect.

-Phyllis loves to take visitors to a geological exclamation point that her property overlooks, Palo Duro Canyon, considered to be the Grand Canyon of Texas.

It's the second largest canyon in the United States.

How large is it?

Is it measured in miles?

-20 miles long and 20 miles wide at its widest point.

-All in Texas?

-All in Texas.

-When you're riding here, you are enjoying a part of what's known as the Staked Plains, a geological area larger than the total area of New England.

-So there is Palo Duro Canyon.

You can see some views of it, and it's millions of years old.

It was the home of prehistoric men who hunted woolly mammoths.

And more recently, it's been the home of Native American Indians.

Down in the canyon, there is a natural water supply.

So they would farm down there.

1541 the conquistadors, Spanish conquistadors, came through here and they say they were searching for the seven cities of gold and the fountain of youth.

And I wish they had found that fountain of youth.

-[ Laughs ] I think you found it, though, looking at you.

-No, I think so.

And they did something that changed history.

They brought horses and that changed the history of this land.

-It is beautiful.

♪ [ Utensils clacking ] -Of course, where there are cowboys and cowgirls, there have to be cows.

And where there are cows, there are steaks.

And what may be the most famous steak house in the entire state is here in Amarillo.

Big Texan Steak Ranch.

This is quite the place you have here, Bob.

-Well, thank you.

-I know you already know that, but this is my first time.

How many people can you seat at one time in this restaurant?

-About 452 people.

We average about 3,000 people a day during our super peak times.

-So your father built the Big Texan when?

-In 1960.

His idea was a modestly-themed type restaurant on Route 66 that served big steaks.

-This is modest?

-It used to be.

-[ Laughs ] -And we call it a three ring circus because we serve food, and the act, the circus, the three rings are done by the people that come here.

-One of your biggest acts is the 72-ounce steak.

-Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?

Up here on stage, we have Alex.

He has one hour to complete four and a half pounds of beef, a baked potato roll, shrimp and a salad.

Y'all give him a round of applause and cheer him on.

[ Cheers and applause ] -How often do you have someone saying challenge accepted?

-Three and a half people a day, every day.

We put it on a camera that goes all over the world.

-It's on a live camera?

-It's on a live camera.

And we have people from Brisbane, from Sydney, from Tokyo that are wagering on the steak eaters.

-No way.

-Oh, yeah, yeah.

-Alex said he didn't mind if I joined him with my less than 72-ounce side salad.

When did you decide I'm going to do the 72-ounce steak eating challenge?

-A couple of days ago.

-Okay.

-Yeah.

-Do you have a strategy for this, Alex?

-No.

-Have you ever done it before?

And you can just nod.

Yeah.

-Actually, going a little slower may not be a bad idea.

-I'm gonna one for one you with my salad, with my iceberg lettuce.

Do you know that this -- there's a live cam on you right now, and this is getting shown, like, across the world?

And people right now are making bets on you.

-And you know what?

That's fine.

-Okay.

Alas, Alex did not complete the challenge.

But if you were betting on me finishing my salad, congratulations.

Milestones are many.

But the midpoint of the entire Route 66 journey in Adrian, Texas deserves a little celebration.

Yep, it's time to fill the pie hole.

-Well, today I've got blueberry banana, I have some cherry vanilla, strawberry banana, Tennessee whiskey chocolate pecan, regular pecan, and our Elvis which is chocolate peanut butter and banana coconut cream.

-[ Laughing ] Wow.

How long have you been making the pie?

-Well, for about 12 years now.

But I've only owned this place for the last six.

-What did you start as?

-A cook?

[ Chuckles ] And what do I still do?

I cook.

-That's impressive.

Wow.

So after much deliberation and a little less conversation, I went with the Elvis.

-Okay, young lady.

-Oh, my gosh.

♪ -Is it good?

-Oh, my gosh.

-Oh, God, thank God.

Thank you God.

-Oh, my gosh, it's so good.

The diner has been here since the 1950s, but it wasn't until like the late '90s that it was figured out that this was sort of the midpoint of Route 66.

-Yes.

-After the highway was decommissioned.

-That's because they were fighting between the three, three little towns.

El Dorado, Vega and here.

-Okay.

-They all -- we all want to be midpoint.

-Yeah, yeah.

-But then the state stepped in and put the sign here.

-Oh, so this is official?

-Mm-hmm.

-Any, um, advice for me as I make my journey onwards?

Tucumcari.

That's a pretty famous stop.

-Yeah.

When you when you leave here, say you leave here at 11, you're going to get there at 11.

[ Both laugh ] -But that's another state in another time zone.

So I decided that the midpoint is a good place to pause my Route 66 odyssey for now.

But what a journey it's been so far.

-Route 66 is magical.

It's got a different vibe than any other road in the country or in the world.

I want people to experience what Route 66 was, what it was like in the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s, because it's a whole different deal, and that's some of the best American history there is.

-The station was never in the Green Book.

-Really?

-Never.

It didn't need to be because word of mouth.

-Okay.

-Word of mouth.

-A lot of trails, uh, that we use for migration, for hunting, they're used today for highways.

And so Route 66 is actually one of those.

It's good to be a part of that.

-Well, Route 66 is known for neon, and I feel like it's my job to teach and continue the tradition of neon glass on the signs on Route 66.

-Okay, I've officially passed the midpoint of Route 66.

I've had the best burger I've ever had, learned history that my textbooks never taught me and met the most incredible people who share with you their personal stories, stories that create the pavement that continues this Mother Road.

Five states down, three more to go where I'm sure I'm going to find so many more places to love.

For more information about this and other episodes, destination guides or links to follow me on social media, log on to placestolove.com.

"Samantha Brown's Places to Love" was made possible by... -Oceania Cruises is a proud sponsor of public TV and "Samantha Brown's Places to Love."

Sailing to more than 600 destinations around the globe, from Europe to Asia and Alaska to the South Pacific.

Oceania Cruises offers gourmet dining and curated travel experiences aboard boutique, hotel-style ships that carry no more than 1,250 guests.

Oceania Cruises.

Your world.

Your way.

-Since 1975, we've inspired adults to learn and travel to the United States and in more than 100 countries.

From exploring our national parks to learning about art and culture in Italy, we've introduced adults to places, ideas and friends.

We are Road Scholar.

We make the world our classroom.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ Cans rattling ] ♪ ♪ [ Air hissing ] ♪ ♪