Advertisement
Published: September 20th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Days 49-53, 13th September to 17th September
Route 66 - “The Mother Road” as coined by John Steinbeck in his novel “The Grapes of Wrath”, was the first road in the US that really connected the East with the West. We picked it up at St Louis, Missouri. Having obtained a detailed map of the Missouri route from a very talkative lady in the route 66 state park, we set off to follow the route as closely as possible. This soon proved frustrating though - although 85% of the original road still exists, it is not a continuous route and is no longer an official highway. Some of it has been paved over by modern highways; other parts exist as small sections of minor roads which have fallen into disrepair. One of the major problems we faced was lack of signage - we learnt later that the signs are often taken by tourists as souvenirs, and the authorities just can’t replace them quickly enough. Route 66 is characterized by old neon motel signs, diners, steel bridges and quirky tourist attractions- most of which appear as rather odd landmarks in the surrounding cities that have grown up around them as the
original 2 lane highway was replaced by Interstates. Others stand deserted in near ghost towns where the new roads, often just yards away from the original, were the death sentence for these smaller communities.
The next day was more successful. The route heads into Kansas for only about 18 miles, but it was much better signed. Immediately after leaving Missouri we came across a tiny town called Galena, with a restored (but not operational) route 66 service station. We went in for a coffee and were greeted by one of the four, very enthusiastic lady owners, who proceeded to show us her scrapbook of the restoration. Outside was an old rusty truck which we didn’t give much thought to at first - turns out that this is the inspiration for the character of Tow Mater in the cartoon movie Cars, as proved by numerous newspaper clippings and photos of the movie’s directors on site. Not only that, but a local man whose feet face backwards was the inspiration for Tow Mater only being able to move backwards in the movie! All a bit too bizarre!
Having acquired a new set of route 66 maps for each county, which
proved to be much more helpful, we headed on into Oklahoma, where the route was easier to follow than in Missouri. Easier to follow on the map but not necessarily easy to follow in reality - at one point the road was just 9 feet wide, with original Portland cement paving (plus ruts, holes, weeds and gravel). A novel experience, but not so clever on a motorcycle! That night we stayed in an original route 66 motel, the Lincoln Inn at Chandler. This was also a novel experience - I don’t think the décor had been changed since the early 60s, and the bathroom and toilet had a quirky slant (literally). It was truly awful, and as such a perfect experience of the route 66 culture.
The next day we completed our trek through Oklahoma, stopping just before the border to visit the route 66 museum at Clinton. This was a very interesting stop, charting the birth and history of the route, how it was constructed, the people who migrated along it and the birth of motels and diners that sprung up to serve the needs of those travelling the route (this was a new concept in travel).
From
here we headed into Texas, which can be summed up as being long, flat, windy and hot. Most of route 66 in the area we covered paralleled the interstate, and took us closer to the land along side. We stopped at one point to investigate the cacti and shrubs growing along the route - Tom handed me the dried fruit of a choya cactus, which looked harmless enough but I soon discovered was leaving miniscule (but irritating) little needles in my hand. We travelled on, pushing to reach the original route 66 “Vega motel” - unfortunately it had closed down, as many of these “mom and pop” places have done. We ended up staying in a modern Best Western motel instead, which was very expensive. Needless to say, I was not that impressed with Texas. The most bizarre was yet to come, however, with the “Devil’s Rope” museum at McLean. It has a small route 66 exhibit, but mostly it is given over to … barbed wire. I kid you not; this was an extensive exhibition and history of barbed wire. There is even a barbed wire wall of honor and a barbed wire society. In truth I guess there
is much to be known about barbed wire, but by this point in the trip I just couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to become more acquainted with it. I was too bemused by the whole experience even to purchase any souvenirs - itself a new experience...
I was relieved to leave Texas behind and head into New Mexico, and the scenery changed quite quickly as we headed towards the state capital, Santa Fe. Plans to meet up with another friend and work colleague unfortunately did not pan out in the end, but we decided to spend a day in Santa Fe anyway. The old town is extremely attractive, built in adobe style throughout, and even the modern areas of the city are low rise. We camped at the rural state park a few miles out of town; a good site apart from the lack of running water and the dramatic drop in temperature at night (something that, as I write, is becoming a feature of our trip). We spent a day wondering through the streets and shops of the old town (most selling high quality silver and turquoise jewelry, original art works and crafts), while the bike was being
serviced (we have already covered well over 10,000 miles on this trip) and the rear tire replaced.
From this point we would leave route 66 and head towards the four corner states and their national parks, rejoining route 66 later in the tour.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.072s; cc: 15; qc: 30; dbt: 0.031s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb