Some of my favorite memories involve my travels. It is refreshing to get away. It gives you a new perspective on life and an appreciation of your life. One of my favorite trips was from Chicago to Colorado including Route 66.
As the song by Bobby Troup goes:
If you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way, the highway that's the best.
Get your kicks on Route 66!
U.S. Route 66 (also known as the Will Rogers Highway after the humorist, and colloquially known as the "Main Street of America" or the "Mother Road") was a highway within the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926 -- with road signs erected the following year.[1] The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in America, originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California,
Route 66 served as a major path for those who migrated west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and it supported the economies of the communities through which the road passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive in the face of the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System
In the 1950s, Route 66 became the main highway for vacationers heading to Los Angeles. The road passed through the Painted Desert and near the Grand Canyon. Meteor Crater in Arizona was another popular stop. This sharp increase in tourism in turn gave rise to a burgeoning trade in all manner of roadside attractions, including teepee-shaped motels, frozen custard stands, Indian curio shops, and reptile farms. Meramec Caverns near St. Louis began advertising on barns, billing itself as the "Jesse James hideout". The Big Texan advertised a free 72 ounces (2.0 kg) steak dinner to anyone who could consume the entire meal in one hour. It also marked the birth of the fast-food industry: Red's Giant Hamburg in Springfield, Missouri, site of the first drive-through restaurant, and the first McDonald's in San Bernardino, California. Changes like these to the landscape further cemented 66's reputation as a near-perfect microcosm of the culture of America, now linked by the automobile.
New and faster routes caused the decline of Route 66. However, In 1999 the National Route 66 Preservation Bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, which provided for $10 million in matching fund grants for preserving and restoring the historic features along the route.[16]
Modern-day sign in New Mexico, along a section of Route 66 named a National Scenic Byway
In 2008, the World Monuments Fund added Route 66 to the 1998 World Monuments Watch. Sites along the route, such as gas stations, motels, cafes, trading posts, and drive-in movie theaters are threatened by development in urban areas, and by abandonment and decay in rural areas. The Fund, aided by financial services company American Express, helped the National Park Service develop the Route 66 Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary.[17] As the popularity and mythical stature of Route 66 has continued to grow, demands have begun to mount to improve signage, return Route 66 to road atlases and revive its status as a continuous routing.
Route 66 has also been a fixture in popular culture. The crux of the story in Disney's 2006 animated film Cars revolves around the decline of the fictional Radiator Springs, a once-booming ghost town that fell into the doldrums when its mother road, Route 66, was bypassed by the Interstate. Pixar's creative director John Lasseter was inspired by what he saw after he took a cross-country road trip with his family in 2000, particularly on the segments of Route 66 he visited. After arriving home, he contacted road historian Michael Wallis, who led the creative team down the still-drivable parts of the route as research for the film. The movie's subsequent success led to a resurgence of interest in Route 66 among the general public.
(from wikipedia)
My son, who was about 18 when we traversed this Route fell in love with the nostalgia. It has a feel that you are taken back to a calmer, nicer era. Some of our highlights can be seen at http://www.historic66.com/description/
Get out there and enjoy!!
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