This is my personal travelogue of a road trip along the Route 66, including some detours, from 18.4.03 - 12.5.03.

clickable map

Detailed Route 66 Map here

We're hitting the Mother Road! The immediate Chicago environs are dead boring - rusty industrial estates, mostly. North-eastern generica without the neon lights. It gets better after we pass the town of Joliet , which lies just beyond Romeoville. Geddit? The local founding fathers had cultural aspirations…

The road looks pretty straight on the map - it's basically a straight line to St Louis. However, we carefully avoid the interstate ("Der Weg ist das Ziel") and thus meander between the railroad (which will be our companion until LA) and, occasionally, an interstate.

It's smooth going, little traffic outside Chicago. We pass through fairly flat Prairie country, come through highlights such as Wilmington (with a church which looks like a miniature version of Battersea Power Station) or Odell (with the first restored 1930's service station).

We lunch at the "Dixie Trucker Home" in McLean and help ourselves to some excellent Sauerkraut with smoked sausage. Finally, we end the day in Springfield, Illinois (isn't this where the Simpsons live???). Actually, they advertise it as Abe Lincoln's home town. A quick hop to get some Cabernet Sauvignon and a six-pack of Corona (as always, miles better than any American beer, which is still like making love in a canoe). Out of tradition, I stroll through the Wal-Mart next door , and find, to my amazement, Multi Network phones: e.g. a Nokia 6340i which boasts connectivity in TDMA 800 & 1900, GSM (850, 1900), and Analog. Really - the Americans missed out in having a standard like we have in old Europe.

In all, the weather was fair: quite warm, a touch windy, and occasional rain drops, but so far nothing like the promised storms. Fingers crossed...

I now have been in the US so many times, and I've seen 25 states so far, and yet this country never ceases to amaze me. The sheer hugeness, the diversity is so stunning - I keep finding new and different things. It is, after all, a whole continent. OK, so is Australia, but Oz is pretty similar wherever you are (pace, Oz!).

Springfield, Illinois, is, as you may know, the place where Lincoln developed his career, married, and had four sons. So the town is full of Lincoln sights. There is a quarter with his house which had been turned into a National Park recently (people got fed up with old houses being torn down to make way for fast food chains or department stores). There's also Oak Ridge Cemetery, a most pleasant park like affair, with gently rolling hills and sprouting flowers. Lincoln is buried here, in a neo -classicist monument. Later, his wife was buried here, too. She came from a well-to-do family which didn't think Lincoln could ever afford her the lifestyle which was supposed to be her due. She spent about a decade after his death in France and Germany, to get away from the public eye.

We followed Route 66 to Missouri. Apparently, the Route changed it's official course several time in its lifetime, so every now and again one has a choice, like R66 (1926-30) or R66 (1930-40) or R66 (1940-77). In St. Louis, the trail becomes hopelessly muddied (how befitting for a city on the Mississippi!). Anyway, St Louis has lots to offer, and I was especially amazed by the Arch (Gateway to the West). You stand beneath it, gazing up along the graceful silver curves which seem to defy all laws of perspective, and you fail to grasp the sheer size of the thing. Underground, in it's basement, as it were (looks as though the Louvre got the idea here), there's a huge complex involving a Pioneer Shop and a Museum of How The West Was Won. Very well done, didactically. Lots of Lewis and Clark, of course (especially now, 200 years on). I picked up a handbook: The Prairie Traveller, with useful hints about "Routes; First Aid; Recommended Clothing, Shelter, Provisions; Wagon Maintenance and the Selection and Care of Horses; Information Concerning the Habits of Indians", first edition 1859... Just the ticket for Intrepid Exploring.

Unfortunately, it was too late in the day to actually get up the Arch, so that'll be the first item tomorrow morning!

We are at the Arch shortly after 9, and already there's a queue. A modest one, luckily. The ascent was very strange: first one descends ever deeper down (it seemed like 3 floors down), and then we were given boarding cards, and then told to line up on a set of steps just like on some of these special mountain trains. Several doors opened, one on each "landing", and were crawled into little - well, light blue plastic eggs. The doors shut, and we were shunted up, amidst great cranking of gears and chains. Since the Arch is arched, evidently, our direction kept changing, and after four minutes we were up on top - 630 feet or 190 meters. A small curved viewing platform afforded a view over half of Missouri, it seemed, even though the windows were little more than slits, and one had to place one's upper body on a slanted wall to actually see out. Actually, the view *up* from downstairs was more impressive. One does learn a lot about the city, though, eg how it had to transform itself from a great Mississippi steamer port (shades of Mark Twain) to a railway centre after the war, when Chicago threatened to overtake the city - one of the longest railroad bridges of the US at the time was built not by a civil engineer but by a Mississippi captain, and yet the bridge is solid and in service to this very day.

The next 237 miles were travelled, with a number of little stops, through the very pleasant Missouri countryside: gentle rolling hills, lush greenery, more forests than in Illinois (which is basically flat), and some specially pleasing corners like “Devil's Elbow” with an original 1923 iron bridge spanning a rivulet within a romantic park-like forested area. There was even a stretch of road which must have been one of the very first 4-lane highways way back when - now there are weeds growing through the cracks and the whole road looks deserted. But the 1920's design is still very much in evidence, and I imagined myself gliding along in a Studebaker, Gatsby style...

 

Route 66 in Missouri

Finally, the day endeth in Lebanon. Lebanon, MO, not Lebanon, Tennessee, which is were the founding fathers of this fair town hailed from. No mention of Lebanon, Levant.

Three states today! We left Missouri, touched on Kansas, and are now in Oklahoma. It really is an extraordinary drive, straight through hick country (don't tell the locals). Springfield, MO is a dead loss. Downtown is unrecognisable as such, and a highly praised mosque (now converted to a sports club) doesn't look anything like the mosques I saw in Samarkand. Well, it *is* a different country... In Halltown there's a curious little shop in an extraordinarily rickety little house, with an old lady running it, and she happily told us all we wanted to know (and then some!) about the house ("Oldest in town, built in 1900!") and her family history (German roots, like so many here).

 

Galena, KS	Galena, KS
Halltown, KS	Baxter Springs, KS

Strangely, the countryside seems to change at the borders. The pleasant hills of Missouri give way to the plains of Kansas and Oklahoma. Granted, we only cut through a corner of Kansas, but the locals are proud of their 13 miles worth of Route 66 ("Connecting the Route 66!"), have even a Kansas Route 66 Association, and have restored a 1923 concrete bridge (the Marsh Arch Bridge), now closed to traffic. There's a place called Galena, which still looks an authentic 1930's town - bit of a Ghost Town, actually. In Baxter Springs there's a restaurant built in what used to be Baxter National Bank, with the Ladies' Room in the former Strong Room. Unfortunately, the place was closed over lunchtime...

 Oklahoma makes the best of the little it has on offer ("The largest Indian Totem in the world!"). The Dust Bowl is long gone, of course, and to be honest, the place doesnt look any poorer than Missouri. The oil might have helped. The people all look as though they're from the same sturdy farmer's stock (same family, maybe?).

Next day: oh what a drive! First highlight of the day was the Red Round Barn of Arcadia. As you can tell, this is a very rural country (and, incidentally, the centre of the Bible Belt - there are more churches than you can shake a stick at). Anyway, there was this charming old hick at the Barn who told me all about it - about it being a Quaker design, of how the original builder was called Odor (of German extraction), how he was teased about his name, and how he refused to tell anybody about the secret of how to build this vast cupola (any Roman could have told them, I'm sure!). It being the only Round Barn on Route 66, it advanced to Major Attraction Status.

 We had a coffee stop at the Rock Café, another Route 66 institution (not to be confused with the Hard Rock Café, which apparently was started by some Yanks in England after the war to serve hamburgers - burgers being unknown to the Brits. Or so they say). The chap who built it only used rocks dug up during the building of the original Route 66, and paid $5 for the lot. The coffee, however, was pretty awful...

Next, Oklahoma City. OKC tends to be looked down on by Tulsa, because OKC came into existence on one single day. The story is this: the Indians got shunted into Oklahoma (where nobody wanted to be at the time). Then, the pressure for fresh land got so great that the Government allowed settlers in - but only after a certain day. On that very day, there was a storm of settlers into the area (never mind the Indians), and literally overnight a lonely railway station turned into a settlement of over 10,000 people in 1889.

The town experienced another boom when oil was found in the 1930s - right underneath OKC. Hence you have the extraordinary sight of the Capitol of Oklahoma with an oil well in its front yard! The Capitol was open to the public (no security, strangely!) and we were offered free lunch (fajitas). They must have had an open day for schools because kids were roaming the whole area. Interspersed some people in suits and mobile phones who would smile broadly at you - politicians, evidently. The interior reflects the country: whereas the Capitol in Washington has a lot of gravitas, with real art on the walls, and marble busts of whoever, the OK Capitol has naive murals depicting the history of the state, including sombre treaties with the Indians, the founding of OKC, cattle and railroads.

Unfortunately, it had started to rain ("Welcome to Oklahoma April!"). Still, it seemed just the right mood for the Murrah Memorial (where Timothy Veigh blew up the Federal Building in 1995). A very tasteful and sombre site, very frequented by the Americans.

After OKC, we passed into what can really and truly be called Western country. The population gets ever sparser, the horizon seems to get wider, and all you see is a vast expanse of country (plus an occasional oil well). The Route is virtually deserted here, a concrete surface with moss growing in the cracks, and the regular thump of the ridges between the concrete blocks. I am tickled by details, such as the shoulder of the road being raised, as though there should be a sidewalk coming next, instead of a field with cattle. In parts, the road is dead straight, but very hilly - very frequently it dips down to cross some creek or other by means of an ancient concrete or steel bridge (rusty!), with a weight limit of 2 tons... It's raining steadily by now, but that doesn't matter too much.

One often sees several roads side by side - the various incarnations of the Route 66. Sometimes, there will be a very old stretch, now closed for traffic. Once, there was a crossroad of the "Old Highway 66" with the current State Road 66 - yes, there is a modern road called the 66!

We have a look at Fort Reno, in existence since the days of the Old West. During the Civil War the Buffalo Soldiers were stationed here for some time, and a charming old chap was telling me about the time when he flew supplies into Berlin during the airlift (having bombed Berlin earlier). It also was a POW camp for prisoners taken in Northern Africa; there's a separate cemetery for the Germans and Italians, with a wreath laid every year by the German Consul.

Of  course, I lost my way out here, since signposting for the Historic Route 66 is virtually nonexistent. The historic signposting will vary hugely from one state to the next, depending on how sharp the local associations are in refusing to let the “66” die.

Next day, and the sun is back! A wonderful bright morning. We get another taste of the wide open plains - a vast expanse of country, the view only limited by the curvature of the horizon...

The local accent has changed, too, into a Western drawl usually heard in Texas. "Y'all got a reservation?" The pronunciation of place names can be a problem... There's no doubt about "Rusty's Welding" - it needs it, evidently. - Fashion is dungarees, or at least jeans and checked shirts. This fetching ensemble is complete only with a baseball cap - worn day and night, it seems, indoors and out, the right way round.

As always, this is SUV country, only they call them trucks around here. Complete waste of metal, plus they spoil the view when you're stuck behind one. But at $1.32 a gallon, what do you expect? Diesel is more expensive than petrol - so much for trying to sell a TDI.

The road sticks close to the interstate here, and still it can be a problem to find the frontage road - or to know when to switch to the other side. Several times I found myself at a dead end. A very charming dead end, to be sure, with your friendly neighbourhood cows coming by to say hello, but a dead end nevertheless.

The land in the Texas Panhandle (which is what this area is known as) gets drier and sparser as we go along. Oklahoma seemed to consist of the colours grey, green and red (red earth!) but now it turns dustier and a light shade of grey. We pass some small towns who answer to the same description. Tiny little spots like Texola which marks the border between Oklahoma and Texas - a decrepit, long abandoned motel, with its old advertising just about still visible. Little farming communities like Groom whose highlights are a couple of windswept grain silos. The place seems entirely flat. A bridge crossing the interstate can be seen for miles ahead. The horizon is only broken up by occasional grain silos... Still, I find it fascinating to go through this extraordinary land like this - I feel like I'm in a movie.

 

Texola	Groom

We rested at the shores of Lake McLellan, a small man-made lake, and enjoy the sun and the relative calm - there has been a strong wind all day.

Some 286 miles later we arrive in Amarillo, the Yellow Rose of Texas. In fact, we go straight on to Canyon, known as the entry point to the Palo Duro Canyon. Apparently the largest canyon after the Grand Canyon! I didn't know that... You drive along this great plain, and all of a sudden you find yourself staring down this precipice, where a puny little river has carved a great big canyon over millions of years. The view is simply spectacular, no doubt about it. Steep and craggy cliffs lead to a green and lush valley, red dust bordering a dry riverbed. This canyon is where the Comanche were forced to give up their fight in the 1870's, but the canyon has also been a refuge: white "hunters" started to kill buffalo in their thousands as of 1876, and by 1880 the buffalo was virtually extinct. However, one certain Mr Goodnight, owner of much land hereabouts, herded some of the remaining buffalo into this Canyon, where they were safe. All of today's buffalo - and there's a program to resettle them in the plains - are descendants from these animals. (Just as, incidentally, all American horses came from some 24 horses which the Spanish brought with them in the 1530s.)

Route 66, it turns out, can mean many different things. For the Oklahoma farmers escaping the Dust Bowl in the 1930s it was a way to the promised land, California. They followed an old path beaten by the first white settlers in the 1800s. Later, in the 1950's, it became *the* way for the newly prosperous Americans to discover their own land. This is when it turned legendary, a *fun* thing to do, rather than a bitter necessity. With the building of the interstate, it turned into a single stretch of blacktop connecting Chicago with Los Angeles - in fact, it's possible to travel that distance on the I-55, and then on the I-40, without ever having to stop for a single traffic light.

Physically, the Route manifests itself in many ways. Sometimes, you can travel on the very 1920s surface, other times the road has been frequently resurfaced, especially when it leads through the Main Street of some country town. Sometimes, a new road was built right next to the old one, and you can see traces of it shimmering through the grass. In some places, the route disappeared altogether, and you can only follow an approximation. In yet other places, the interstate buried the old route beneath it.

Today, Friday, we started with Amarillo's Sixth Street , which was part of the original route, and houses zillions of antique shops. However, it being just past 9 am, there wasn't a soul in sight... Then, a little out of town, where "development" abruptly gives way to farming fields, we see the famous Cadillac Ranch - a bunch of Cadillacs half buried in a field. No explanation, no plaque, no nothing - just a regular field with a bunch of cars sticking up their backside. It's art, obviously, since I can't understand it - but it works!

There were only some 67 miles of Texas left, and we happily trundle along the frontage roads of the I-40. Every now and again the road just ends... which meant that we missed a crossover to the other side at some point. Then, just before the border, there a very tiny settlement called Adrian with a sign by the roadside:

At that point my odometer shows 1554 miles, which includes the little extra bits one drives.

Then we stop at Glenrio (that's Spanglish), with the sad remains of the Glenrio Motel "The First and Last Motel in Texas", a wrecked gas station, a bunch of dead cars, and a couple of mangy dogs. A real life ghost town - no cowboy show needed.

As we crossed over into New Mexico , we hit a new time zone; we gain an hour. All of a sudden, the landscape changes dramatically. Whereas the Texas panhandle is flat, flat, flat, here you get your first mesas (tabletop mountains). You pass some dramatic sights, steep eroded cliffs, dried out riverbeds. Shades of Monument Valley, definitely. It's very good of nature to have adapted to modern borders.

There are some minor bits of interstate one has to drive, because there is absolutely no other way. Here, they put new tarmac on the road, it's nice and smooth and shiny - and already somebody had smeared a roadkill all over it.

At Santa Rosa we decide to follow the pre-1937 track through Santa Fe rather than taking the straight route to Albuquerque. It's a detour north through the mountains. We keep climbing steadily, and we see some snow on some mountaintops. Down in the valley it's still a beautiful high 20s, with the clear desert sun burning down on us. The air is so much different here, so clear and clean, it's wonderful. It's wooded now, all possible shades of green.

Having climbed a fair deal, we come to Las Vegas, NM , the "other Vegas". I am astounded by the dramatic change: this is not an American city but a Mexican one. For starters, there's a zocalo, a central square, which defines the city centre. The population looks Hispanic, Spanish is spoken, the students cruise in their low-riders. The first Harleys make their appearance.

On to Santa Fe , the "oldest city in the United States", as they call it, founded on 1620 (actually, I believe the St James settlement was a touch earlier). Well, one does have to appreciate that the Spanish had a good colony going well over 100 years before the Anglos ever made it here. The Americans simply fought the Mexicans for this bit of territory, taking what they wanted, in 1846. Santa Fe today is wonderfully atmospheric town, Adobe-style buildings everywhere, with what they call a Plaza but which really is a zocalo - however, in stark contrast to the Mexican zocalos, there are no cafes or restaurants. I just don't get it - people would crowd cafes like that, but somehow the locals have not cottoned on.

 The South-west tends to be seen as the most Southern tip of the USA. Historically, however, it would be more correct to see Santa Fe, Tucson, San Francisco or San Antonio as the most *Northern* bit of the Spanish-Mexican empire. It shows. But just as Greece or Bulgaria deny that most of their culture is Turkish, so the Americans will distinguish between *South -western* and Spanish. Oh well.

This is where we decide to take a break, and we find a house: all Adobe, with stylish rustic Spanish furniture (locally known as South-western, of course), an open fireplace, a patio in the sun - just wonderful!

With Santa Fe our temporary base, we made a little round tour and still ended up driving some 200 miles or so. It's so darned easy to underestimate the distances - this really is a vast country. We started off with the Tesuque Pueblo Flea Market. Indian territory, thus no photographs allowed. However, there were hardly any Indians in sight - instead, there were plenty of Pakistanis, Afghans and Chechens selling the most wonderful rugs. Boy, was I tempted! Beautiful carpets of all descriptions, stall after stall! I have no idea why they should all congregate here, but it was a feast for the eyes. When it came to prices, however, they all sobered up a bit when I told them of my frequent trips to Uzbekistan, and the asking price of rugs in Bukhara... A $300 Uzbek carpet magically turns into a $15.000 rug here. Not surprisingly, no sale.

Next stop, the White Rock Overlook with a stunning view down a canyon with the Rio Grande majestically flowing along, followed by the Bandelier National Monument, with the remnants of an Anasazi Indian pueblo settlement from the 12th century. A quick look into Los Alamos ("Welcome to Atomic City!") (no statue of Oppenheimer), and finally the Valle Grande, a huge flat valley where aeons ago a volcano collapsed onto itself, with a force of 500 times the explosion of Mt St Helen in 1995.

All that looks just a speck on the map, but still took all day. The weather is brilliant, sunshine, and a pleasant 25° or so. Actually, Santa Fe lies at 2100 meters above sea level, and as we drove *up* the Jemez Mountains, we actually saw some snow by the wayside... Imagine throwing snowballs whilst dressed in short sleeves???

This place is wonderfully quiet, yet there are two kind of noises which I can't stand: extra-loud motorcycles and that nasty beeb some trucks emit when in reverse. Both can be heard from many blocks away, and are a real nuisance. I can't understand why some bikers get a perverse joy of having an antique engine which seems to explode in an uncontrolled fashion at every stroke, then not fitting proper mufflers so that they drown out any conversation and make the windows rattle. It's loutish at best. - However, the sun is shining yet again, and it promises to be a wonderful day!

The slow road to Taos . Again, we climb steadily, passing the most spectacular desert scenery - bizarre rock formations, dried out riverbeds, sagebrush, and always snow-topped mountains in the background, under a brilliantly blue sky. New Mexico's state slogan is Land of Enchantment", and it really is!

We stop at a little Spanish frontier mission church at Chimayo - it's the Lourdes of the Southwest; it is said some earth from a hole in the floor inside the chapel works wonders... Strange how miracles happen only in areas where there are Catholics! By rights, there should be a more even world-wide distribution, shouldn't there? Anyway, I grab some "holy dirt" and make a wish. You never know. Can't hurt. That sort of thing.

 

Chimayo

A picturesque and hilly road leads ever higher into the mountains, until the desert brush gives way to a proper forest - the Carson National Forest , in fact. The road follows the crest of a mountain ridge, passes some - unfortunately dismal - villages, and finally leads into Taos, which is still something of an artist's colony, even though it is in danger of being overtaken by the tourist-trap sort of establishments.

To close the loop, we take the route along the Rio Grande , where some hardy souls try their luck at white-water rafting... The Rio Grande is, in fact, anything but grand by our standards. A decent European canal is more impressive. The difference, of course, is that this is the only river for hundreds of miles, and it goes slam bam straight through desert country. Plus, it carved out some impressive looking canyons along the way...

Back at home I come to the conclusion that I would have been a failure as a pioneer because I'm struggling to get the fire going.

More history today - Pecos National Historical Park, NM. This was the sight of a major pueblo settlement over several centuries. The local Pueblo Indians were farmers and traders, bordering the habitat of the Plains Indians. The settlement held some 2000 people - which definitely was a big place then. They had it good, it seems, with plenty to eat, and lots to trade - they bartered crops, clothing, and pottery with Apaches, Spaniards and Comanche for buffalo products, flint for tools, and slaves. These in turn were traded with other Pueblo Indians for pottery, parrot feathers and turquoise.

Coronado turned up in 1541, didn't find any gold, and left again. The Spanish were back in 1598, and Franciscans built a church. Relations were shaky - at best, the Indians would include the Christian god among their own gods. By 1680 they had enough, killed a few hundred Spaniards and destroyed the church. When the Spanish came back in 1692 they changed their minds and welcomed them back (it is unclear what size army the Spanish had with them...). Things went downhill then, and in 1821 the last Pecos Indians packed up and left to live with their cousins at Jémez Pueblo. Here endeth the lesson. Actually, the whole history of the area is fascinating. Indians, Spanish, Mexicans, Americans; sheep, cattle, railroads, cars, nuclear bombs, and now tourists. Bit of everything, really.

If one delirious post-World War II definition was being able to get in your automobile, turn the ignition, put the pedal to the metal and go anywhere you wanted to, then Route 66 offered an asphalt of independence that stretched all the way from the wind-buffeted shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago to the balmy beaches of the Pacific in sunny Santa Monica.

For 2,448 miles, it was one glorious, eight-state road show. For the scores of communities and thousands of businesses it once serviced, it became the Main Street of America.

Although it began in 1926 during a national movement to standardize America's highways, Route 66 is best remembered for the way it fuelled the United States in the '30s, '40s and '50s. It offered its own high-octane brand of manifest destiny.

First came the penniless, dispossessed Okies and Arkies, escaping the dust-choked farmlands, westbound in rattletrap roadsters during the '30s. They came to life as the Joads, clattering California-bound in a cut-down Hudson Super-Six on "... the mother road, the road of flight..." in John Steinbeck's epic 1939 novel, "The Grapes of Wrath": "Tom, they's a hunderds of families like us all a-goin' west. It's like they was runnin' away from soldiers... like the whole country was movin'."

After World War II, the entire country seemed to be doing just that, fueled by tens of thousands of ex-GIs longing for a better look at the America they had fought for, and wanting to see what the country held in store for them.

Paved since 1937, that shimmering, black ribbon of highway beckoned. Bedazzled, the veterans cut loose, heading for the Promised Land, just beyond the setting sun. One of them, a likeable young Pennsylvanian named Bobby Troup, listened to the rhythm of that road. Bound for what he hoped would be a lucrative West Coast music career, he left Harrisburg in his green '41 Buick convertible in the summer of '46. Slipping onto Route 66 in Chicago, he arrived in Los Angeles 10 days later with a new song that caught the ear of Nat King Cole, who quickly turned it into a hit that became the anthem of the asphalt: "If you ever plan to motor west, take my way, the highway that's the best. Get your kicks on Route 66". (Bobby's wife, Cynthia, however, said: "For me it was more of a long road with cheap hotels and restaurants. Besides, I really don't understand why Albuquerque's missing in the song.")

Route 66 helped raise a new crop of vocabulary words for a country that hungered for the open road and thirsted for the automobile. Some of the words identified the new businesses that began to service an increasingly mobile public: motels, fast-food drive-ins, service stations, convenience stores, commercial strips, strip mall, shopping malls, parking lots, and drive-in theaters. Fast food was the fare of drive-in restaurants. Burgers and fries became inseparable.

Along the highway were billboards and Burma-Shave signs, "jingles", signs in short distances to be read in sequence, e.g.:

He had the ring He had the flat But she felt his chin And that. Was that. She put a bullet Thru his hat But he's had closer Shaves than that.

(To see how they worked, cf. here. For a quick potted history and more examples, try here or here.)

There were retooled cars everywhere sporting bigger engines. The words became abbreviations, then brand names. The eight-cylinder overhead valve engine became the V-8. Chevrolet's ultimate sports car, the Corvette, became the 'vette. Ford and Pontiac countered with the Mustang and the Firebird. Motorcycles became hogs and choppers, then Harleys. At truck plazas, all trucks were Mack and all truck engines seemed Peterbilt.

Swing and be-bop surrendered to Elvis, Little Richard, and Buddy Holly who belted out rock and roll tunes from car radios, as teenagers in hot rods, street rods, roadsters, and muscle cars cruised America's Main Street on warm Saturday nights bathed in Route 66's signature signage, neon.

As the heartbeat of America accelerated into the '50s and '60s in an era of unparalleled prosperity, so did the volume and speed of the nation's affordable automobiles and a commensurate need for a vast, national network of bigger, faster highways.

But by then a Federal Interstate Highway system that had begun in 1956 was spreading across the landscape. The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 put an end to individually, often crassly designed service stations acting as their own advertisement. Standardized gas stations and chain motels took over. Waving and cleaning hands were replaced by digital pumps operated by credit cards. In 1985, after the last segment had been bypassed by the I-40 the year before, Route 66 was decommissioned and passed into history.

But its legacy endures. Some of its gas stations, garages, and service stations, and tourist cabins, tourist courts and motor-hotels, survive. Many of its hundreds of architecturally and historically significant motels, hotels, restaurants and cafes, some of them protected by preservation covenants and clustered in historic districts, are undergoing restoration. But most importantly of all, that ribbon of highway is still there, connecting them all, and calling out to everyone who yearns for yesterday.

(Inspired by a brochure from "New Mexico Mainstreet", and "Route 66" by H. Schmidt-Brümmer)

Time to hit the road again! We went south from Santa Fe, stopped by the Old Town of Albuquerque (which had a pleasant zocalo by an old mission church), and chose once again the pre -1937 Route 66. It led us right through Albuquerque to Isleta Pueblo and Mission. Having missed the turn-off a couple of times (this time they're sparse in signposting) we find ourselves in a dusty Indian village, sandy streets, small modest houses, a warren. The church, small as it is, still stands above all other buildings. There's a mass going on and the church is packed, even people standing outside. I notice it's the younger ones standing, all very solemn and well-behaved (except a couple of very little ones who're having a fun time trying to climb an iron fence). A very pretty scene, all in all.

Then, through some very minor roads and a major bit of road repair, we hit the NM 6 from Los Lunas to Mesito. What a scenery! Rolling desert, steep cliffs leading up to regal-looking mesa, small craggy canyons - dry riverbeds, really - and the Santa Fe railroad hooting its horn through the shimmering haze. I stand there and soak up the atmosphere - beautiful! Total silence except for a few insects, little flowers pushing their blooms through the dry ground, the sun bright. This bit alone makes it all worthwhile. Laguna - yet another tiny hamlet in the desert - yields another beautiful mission church. Say want you may about their politics, those Spanish certainly built with style!

Budville is a tiny little desert three-shack townlet, where Hemingway retired to the Villa de Cubero to write "The Old Man and the Sea" - rather odd, to choose a lonely desert spot to write a drama about the sea... Soon, we reach the Continental Divide, and then, as we approach Gallup there's the Red Rock National Park to our left - strong reds shining off high cliffs in the afternoon sun.

In Gallup it's back to normal motels, and a spot of shopping in the evening. This is Indian country, and it shows by the people. Virtually all around us nothing but Indians, with round faces, Mongolian eyes, and all of them overweight! Strange - either they're genetically predisposed, or they're on a strict diet of fast food.

Leaving Gallup, and not sorry. It's a railroad centre, and they start their shunting early. However, we're luckily once again able to avoid the interstate and to cruise through yet more phenomenal desert countryside. There's one bit where one is informed that the Arizona Department of Transport has officially abandoned the road. But a few miles of broken tarmac, gravel and dust has never yet hurt an Intrepid Explorer!

Since there's plenty of time, we decide to abandon the Route 66 for a while to detour to Canyon de Chelly and maybe other bits. Current planning is to stop in Mexican Hat (thinking of you, Tim!) and Grand Canyon, before we hit the 66 again at Flagstaff, bound for Seligman... We'll see.

The 191 north of Chambers is phantastic! A partly wooded plateau at 6000 feet, giving way to vast expanses of desert, with not a tree in sight... It's the sort of sight that I love to soak up. Can't get enough of it.

Chinle, the entrance town to de Chelly, arrives far too soon at midday. On the other hand, we now have time to settle in to our room for tonight, and to re-explore Chelly! - Four hours later: it really is as beautiful and grandiose as 7 years ago, when I first saw this canyon. It's too beautiful for words! (Incidentally, I now found out that the way to pronounce it is "Shay". Originally, it comes from Navajo "Tseyi", which means "in the rock". The Spanish turned this into "Chegui". The Anglos got it further wrong, and now we have "Chelly" aka Shay. But what's in a name?)

T-Mobile has abandoned me. I haven't had a phone connection since leaving Santa Fe. I'm curious as to when I'll be back in coverage - LA, perhaps?

Leaving Chinle, we are once again surrounded by beautiful re rock formations, basking in early morning sunshine. Some miles up the road, at a place called Many Farms, I double-check with a gas station, and they confirm that one may drive the 59 to Kayenta - the map is lying in that it claims unpaved roads. Something new awaits me now - sandstorms! Absolutely amazing, there are sand dunes half way across the road, and sometimes the sand pummels the windows just like rain! Then, just minutes later, clear bright sunny sky. This goes on for a mere 50 miles or so (I'm beginning to adapt to the local sense of space and distance). They're not large and permanent sandstorms, more like eddies of them - one drives along happily and then, suddenly, wham, you can't see what's 10 yards ahead of you. The wind is strong all along the way - quite unsuitable for bikes (there are none, either).

Kayenta ! I had remembered it as a sleepy crossroads in the desert with a gas station. Wrong, there are two gas stations. Plus, today, the whole place sometimes descends into a murky gray sandstorm... I'm amazed that people want to live here. But then again, this is the turn-off for Monument Valley ! And indeed, the valley hasn't changed much. I'm not about to measure how much erosion has taken place these past few years, but this is definitely where John Wayne swaggered about in 'Stagecoach'.

It is, however, far too early in the day to settle down, so we decide to skip Mexican Hat, and aim down the 160 and 89 to Grand Canyon. The drive takes us once again through startingly beautiful and ever-changing landscapes, from the massive towers of Monument Valley to wind-swept plateaus to golden-brown rocky cliffs... Simply amazing. Words cannot describe it.

Many miles later, as we approach Grand Canyon National Park, we rise steadily, once again, and pass through parts of the Kaibab National Forest , a forest of smallish high-altitude fir trees, and then, suddenly, the eastern gate of Grand Canyon - and what a shock! Out of nowhere, masses and masses of cars and people! It seems that all the tourists we have *not* seen so far have all congregated here. Ah well, it was to be expected, wasn't it. The Canyon is, after all, *the* attraction here. Last time, I saw the Canyon from the North Rim, now it's the South, and apparently this means more people. But, luckily, as the Rim Road extends for over 20 miles, people disperse - or rather, tend to stick to the entrances, which means you drive a bit and find relatively empty spots, too.

The views as spectacular, as advertised and seen on TV. The weather is strange - sunny and bright one moment, then it rains and there's even hail, too. Quite cool and windy. We find the "historic" accommodations right at Canyon Village a bit expensive, so we find a room at the little town of Tusayan, right outside the South Entrance...

Off we go again, southwards ho! We descend the 180 down to an elevation of 6000 ft, and find ourselves on a wide expanse with some brushland, past the Red Mountain - a massive red boulder - with the snow-capped San Francisco Peaks in the background. Suddenly, we are up again at 8000 ft, apparently the Colorado Plateau . Forest everywhere, some of it recently burned. After 70 miles or so we reach Flagstaff , now at 6800 ft. Apparently, in 1876 some enterprising spirits started this settlement and, it being the centennial, raised a flag. However, the place was not what they hoped for (it snows a lot and hardly ever gets hot, even in summer), so they left again, leaving only the flag on its staff... The town then got going a few years later. There is indeed a cutesy Old Town area, with "Historic Route 66" as its main artery.

After a most pleasant couple of days in Sedona (do check it out, the Red Rocks are out of this world!) I was on the road again. Back through Flagstaff, on to the old "66". The landscape was wonderfully varied, once again. Up again through the Kaibab Forest, retracing the old Route with the remains of the 1936 tarmac - or what was left of it. Bits of gravel road again , but that doesn't matter, it's only for a short while anyway.

Through Williams and Ash Fork...

... at Seligman a lovely Route 66 memorabilia shop, and then the road veers off to the North. We descend into a dry and dusty valley, with stretches of road that seem to go on for miles on end in a straight line...

"It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well. The Coolerator was jammed with TV dinners and ginger ale. C'est la vie say the old folks it goes to show you never can tell."
Hackman	From Seligman to Kingman

We stop at the Grand Canyon Caverns , where one descends some 50 meters by lift to access the caves. It seems this chap found it by accident in the 1920's, thought there was gold in it, didn't find any, and turned it into a tourist attraction: for 25 cents he would lower you on a 150-foot rope into sheer blackness, armed only with an unlit kerosene lamp (unlit because these things gave off more heat than light and you couldn't hold a lamp and the rope at the same time). Once down, the dare was to untie the rope and light the lamp. God help you if you dropped the matches - darkness is *absolute*. The locals called the whole deal "dope on a rope". But then this chap got the Roosevelt CCC people to build a proper entrance; however, the steps were so crooked and uneven nobody could believe these were the same folks that built the Hoover Dam. Further attractions down here: a pre-historic sloth that got trapped several thousands of years ago; a mummified bobcat from 1850; and a couple of Indians that died from the flu in 1918, and - the ground being frozen too solid to dig a grave - were buried here. That, of course, made it sacred ground, and a way had to be found to respect the Indians *and* keep the tourists coming...

We finally made it to Kingman. The edges of town were visible some 25 miles away, truly. The town itself is pretty industrial, but nevertheless quite ok. The bloke at the Visitor's Center, however, didn't know where the Mohave Desert started or ended...

Oh what a great day again! We started off by going over the Sitgreaves Pass from Kingman, which was the only route until 1953. The road is steep and narrow, leading over a rugged and lovely terrain. Even today, there are some Americans who don't want to drive it because it is too narrow and winding. On top, the pass affords a great view back on to the valley where Kingman disappears in the haze, and on the other side into the Colorado River valley.

On the way down one comes into Oatman , a little former Western mining town which has transformed itself into a little gem - the main attraction being the wild burros! Those donkeys roam the street (there only being one), wait to be fed by tourists , and just stand there and crowd the entrances to the shops. Very cute!

Moving on: down in the valley we get the next surprise, because the whole valley turns out to be a major urbanisation - Bullhead City is bursting at the seams and spills over down the river (as it where). As we drive along, we suddenly spy a mass of modern high-rise buildings, very strange in this desert landscape. Turns out that the other side of the river is Nevada, and I'm looking at the casinos of Laughlin, NV!

We carry on on the 163 West, and hence the 95 North, and then the 164 West, and again North on the 127. Somewhere, just before Nipton, we passed into California. That whole way was continual change: we climbed passes, dove down into valleys, cruised over seemingly endless, dead-straight roads, or wound our way through massive mountains. All desert of some sort, but it always looked different. In one area, it was nothing but brushland, in another tree-height cacti.

In Nipton, there was an incident bordering on the surrealistic: having crossed miles and miles of nothingness, we happened upon a railroad crossing where just this very minute a freight -train decided to go (one of those 4-locomotive, 2 km long things). So in the middle of nowhere cars got bunched up, but people got out and started to chat with their fellow-travellers. Quite memorable, really.

The reason for that route was that we wanted to see Death Valley (so far untouched by my much-travelled hands). Well, it turned out that accommodation was far and few between. Shoshone offered one dusty little inn (add a cafe and a gas station and you summed up the whole town). Death Valley Junction is a ghost town which nevertheless sports an opera house (really!), and a six-room hotel. Furnace Creek, right inside Death Valley National Park, has a place for some $200 or so. Thus, we took a chance and veered off to Pahrump , NV, instead, some 23 miles away. (Amazingly, there was a little rain, in an area which usually gets 4 inches a year!). In Pahrump, I spy billboards for casinos and brothels (yes, really!). On a hunch, we approach the newest casino and lo and behold - we get a lovely hotel room, with all the mod cons, for a *very* moderate price! Hot breakfast comes in at 99 cents... Evidently, they do the same here as elsewhere - they expect people to leave their money at the gambling table.

Next day: the idea was to have another easy-going excursion, but you know how it is with these distances...

We took the 160 to Red Rock Canyon near Vegas. Not very originally named, true, and spectacular as it was, it couldn't compare with the Red Rocks of Sedona. Then it seemed a good idea to idle through Las Vegas , just to refresh our memory. We came in on the Charleston Boulevard, and this boulevard went on and on, and on and on... Las Vegas is big. When I looked down on LV from the height of Red Rock Canyon, the whole town looked like something completely surreal - in the middle of a dusty desert Bang this mass of highrises; it looked as though a bunch of alien spaceships had landed. Then, idling through The Strip, I could but marvel at the massed kitsch and bad taste. Most of the Strip simply looks tacky by day, but even where the big-name casinos are clustered it looked massively barbarian. Of course, having had a steady diet of old, small towns on the Route 66 didn't help.

Anyway, we then went on to Lake Mead. Unfortunately, that experience was a bit spoilt because of a very strong wind, nay, a storm, which blew up the dust in great big clouds and shook the car. Definitely not biking weather. Thing is, one couldn't get out and sit anywhere. So it was back via a bunch of freeways through Henderson, before we caught the road back to Pahrump again. Those freeways - awful. Grey in grey, nothing but concrete, lots and lots of traffic - was I glad to be outa there! By the way, Nevada drivers sport a complete disregard for speeding limits or the other usual niceties of the road. Plus, broken breaklamps seem to be the fashion, and nobody bothers to indicate before turning. Oh well, I fought the car against the storm back to Pahrump, trying to keep up with traffic at 80-90 mph, and made it back safe and sound!

Death Valley today! And my, what a day... I'd always missed Death Valley in the past. Somehow, I thought I knew what the place looked like, from TV and pics, and boy, was I wrong. For a start, the place is huge. Not just big, huge! It's the largest State Park in the continental US - i.e. bigger than Grand Canyon, too. I thought the place is basically one big salt lake. Oh no.

Entering via Shoshone (a tiny hamlet with a gas station - the gallon Regular at $2.75, it having been $1.32 in Chicago - and a 'museum' with a rusty hulk of a pre-war automobile sitting on rotten tires as the main attraction outside, plus a cute café) one has to climb over a little pass.

Shoshone, CA   Death Valley, near Badwater

Then, one descends some 3000 feet to the bottom of the valley, and drives some 73 miles to the Visitor Center. The valley bottom is in fact a dry salt lake, but steep mountains tower on each side. “Badwater ” is the lowest place in the US, 87 metres below sea-level. It's also supposed to be the hottest, but today it was a balmy 27°. Later, past Zabriskie Point, at Furnace Creek , the main road turns west, and one starts to climb again - from 0 to 5000 feet. Then, all the way down again, back to 0. And would you believe it, up again to 5000 feet! There were sand dunes in the valleys, and frequent radiator water reservoirs, and signs suggesting to turn off the A/C to avoid overheating...

As we came out at the dry Owens Lake , we were stunned to see the majestic, snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada looking down on us, including the US' highest mountain, Mt. Whitney (14.494 feet). Very impressive.

We ended the day in Ridgecrest at China Lake, incidentally home of the US Naval Weapons Center. Which would explain the occasional odd-looking low-flying aircraft...

The wonders never cease. Yesterday in Death Valley, the hottest and most desperate place in the US, and today? You'll never guess: a ski resort at 7000 feet, with snow within reach. We were aiming for something outside LA, since this is not a big-city-trip, and we wanted to avoid to contaminate our memories of vast, open, empty spaces. A look at the map suggested the San Bernardino Mountains . So we went south on the 395, through terrible, flat and desolate terrain, and turned east on to the 18 at Victorville. Victorville - what a surprise again; it's a very large town with massive traffic, and corresponding jams. Never would have thought it. In town, a group of 5 marathon runners carrying a torch of some sort (unlit) held up traffic, and two police cars with flashing lights galore behind them (sheriff and state trooper), two more in front of them, AND two Chips in front of THEM. Speaking of overkill.

Anyway, after Lucerne Valley the road started to rise, and we ended up in a small, steep and winding mountain road, leading through a cactus forest. Very pretty. And now, in Big Bear Lake , we find ourselves in a ski resort, got ourselves a little house right in the trees, nestled between grand gnarled pines, sit on the porch, and relax! Great stuff.

Day of departure, and a kind of depression sets it. It has been such a wonderful trip, I hate to let go...

Driving down the San Bernardino Mountains from Big Bear Lake one suddenly comes on a grand view - the whole valley spreads out before you, you can see for miles, or rather, could, if the distance wasn't hidden in a grey-brown cloud of smog. Oh dear...

You suddenly hit the flat valley (having come down from 7000 feet to zero), and it's horrible. A crowded freeway leading on, above, and under other freeways; speeding trucks and other maniacs of the road; a continuous built-up area from the town of San Bernardino right through to the coast, a whole 100 miles of it.

Unnerved, we finally hit the coast at Santa Monica Pier ... Ahhhh! The ocean! Living proof that we made it! This is where the Route 66 ends, physically and metaphysically. The End, and a new beginning for so many who have taken this road. For me, it is merely the end of a vacation, albeit a great vacation. Including all the detours, canyons, and dead ends, I clocked up a total of 4630 lovely miles, the vast majority of which off the Interstate (that had been the point, after all) and have touched on Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California. I'd do it again, in a flash!

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