Route 66 Part One: How It Began

Friday morning, August 29th.
The Element rests in a quiet alley in Adrian, no idea what’s to come.

Three weeks ago today, it all began. Two 60 lb. dogs, their dog food, dog meds and dog beds, dog crate and dog blankets, and some of our stuff were all piled into and on top of the Element and the journey began.

We had plans, my friends, big plans. We needed to get to St. Louis and onto Route 66 where we would follow it as best we could to California. We’d get on a desert road and travel down to Palm Springs, get a license and get legally married. Then we’d get back into the car and do a zig zag tour of a few national parks and the great plains then rejoin Route 66 to follow the part of the Mother Road we missed up to Joliet. Then it would be a quick drive due east back to Adrian, and home. We had our plans, an alligator file folder of maps and we had 16 days.

We’ve crossed the country before. Brian did it twice with Hobie Cat, I’ve done it alone, a few times with friends and twice with Anioł. We never did it together, at least not in the same car.

Our goal this crossing was to take less traveled roads, HWY 52 out of Adrian was the first one. 13 miles led us to Ohio 108 and then to Indianapolis where road construction forced us into the city and to the first of our second goals, Road Food. I admit to my share of McDonald’s on the road but we wanted more. We wanted local food, and we found it at Mug n’ Bun, guided there by the Road Food web site.

A car hop served up pork tenderloin on a bun, excellent battered onion rings and the best glass mugged root beer I’d ever had. And it was all delivered to our car window on a clip on tray. Only hours into our first day, we were blissed. Mug n’ Bun was also handing our free bumper stickers, and that is how another goal was born. We slapped the sticker on the Thule roof box (named ”the coffin”) and resolved to collect place stickers wherever we could.

Fed and fueled we made our way back to the highway. We got a little lost, but were guided back by our iPhones. I learned the value of the the phone, a little pin found us and another one showed us the way. We drove to another detour around St. Louis which we navigated with a map I had emailed to myself from the AAA site, and met up with Route 66.

Route 66 was commissioned in the 1928 and started as a series of connected and signed local roads, many unpaved. It stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles, over the years becoming 4 lanes of portland cement in many states. Parts of it are gone or buried, but enough of it remains to follow. We were gong to do that, staying off the Interstate as much as we could.

We joined Route 66 outside St. Louis and followed it for the next two hours. The Route kept cutting across HWY 44 which had been built along and on it’s original path. It wasn’t easy but we persevered and were rewarded with some great road through the rocky Ozarks. We had reservations at a dog friendly Super 8 in Cuba MO. It was dark when we got there, but not so dark that we couldn’t find a six pack before we checked in. First Day 574 miles, travel time 12 hours.

Why Route 66? There are web sites and fan clubs coast to coast. There are groups in every state it crosses dedicated to preserving what’s left. It is lined with enough original architecture to keep me awake and too many turns to allow you to lull yourself into road hypnosis. There are neon encrusted Motels still operating AND there’s the famous song.

I had loaded two versions of the Bobby Troup song to the iPod. We played it often, we played it loud, the music bouncing off pavement, rocks and abandoned service stations.

“If you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way, the highway that's the best.
Get your kicks on Route 66!”

The guest books we were encouraged to sign attest that foreigners seem to adore the road even more than americans do. Despite all the attention Route 66 is getting lately, we often found ourselves totally alone on the pavement. This was a very different way to cross the country. There was nothing familiar to this old traveller. This was a dream that came true every day.

- - - David