Route 66 Day 1: We’re Back!
After more than a year of cancelled and postponed travel, Art and I embarked on a trip we have dreamt about for awhile- traveling historic Route 66 from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California.We have been planning this trip for months, hopeful everything would come together to get us back out on the road. Our…
Route 66 Day 2: Coming Home
Where we love is home- home where our feet may leave, but not our hearts Oliver Wendall Holmes This morning we woke early at 5 AM to begin our travels on Route 66. Our first stop was the “Begin” sign in Chicago. We got up so early to avoid the worst traffic. That at least…
Route 66 Day 3: Breaking Out of Joliet
It is Day 3, and well, we are still in Joliet. Yup, we have so many memories here, and so much we wanted to see, we travelled about 250 miles and are in still in the city! Time to break out, and our first stop out of town was the old Joliet Prison. The architecture…
Route 66 Day 4: Playing In The Rain
I loved playing in the rain as a kid. Splashing in puddles, the coolness of the rain on a hot summer day. Ehhhh, not so much as an adult, and especially with a camera! We got to play in the rain today as midwest rain storms welcomed us on the road. Impressive clouds and torrential…
Route 66 Day 5: We’re Not In Illinois Anymore
After a full day of driving we crossed the bridge into St Louis, Missouri. It only took us 5 days to get to another state! 1 down, 8 to go! Actually, we walked to Missouri before we drove to Missouri. We went to the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River. It…
Route 66 Day 6: Show Me, Missouri!
Today we spent a beautifully sunny day driving through the picturesque Missouri Countryside. One striking observation was the number of armadillos we saw at the side of the road. Armadillos appear to be the equivalent of Northern Virginia squirrels in frequency. Ok, most sadly, all the armadillos we saw today were, well, what is the…
Route 66 Day 7: OOOOOOOk-La-Homa!
As we travel along, lots of old show songs keep popping in our heads. Today was the musical Oklahoma. We left Springfield, Missouri this morning after a fantastic stay at the Best Western Rail Haven Motel (We highly recommend when you take your Route 66 trip!), and traveled through Kansas into Oklahoma. Kansas went by…
Route 66 Day 8: The Star of The Show
We spent the night in Miami (pronounced My-am-uh), Oklahoma. When we arrived we drove through the main part of town and saw a beautiful building that really stood out among the others on the main street. We learned it was the Coleman Theatre Beautiful. We were happy to see they offered tours, and before hitting…
Route 66 Day 9: Signs, Signs, Everywhere A Sign
We decided to get an earlier start to our travel today, which allowed us to take in a brilliant sunrise in Catoosa OK. As we headed out, we didn’t really know where we would “land” today. Today turned out to be a day of signs- literally. We passed so many old Route 66 business signs,…
Route 66 Day 10: See You Sooners
We decided to spend an extra day in Oklahoma City. One of the places we wanted to visit was the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. On the eve of September 11, it seemed appropriate to visit this memorial and remember the 168 victims of the Alfred P Murrah Building bombing. The memorial is so…
Route 66 Day 11: Blowin’ In The Wind
Day 11 dawned with a cool breeze in Oklahoma City. Before we left, we wanted to take in a few more sites in Oklahoma’s State Capitol. The Gold Dome was built in 1958, and is currently undergoing renovations to turn it into a performance venue. We love this Milk Bottle Grocery; the store was built…
Route 66 Day 12: Small Towns Big Hearts
Today was another brilliant blue skied day in Oklahoma. We left the windy city of Weatherford, serenaded by wind farms that created a landscape of such uniqueness, our cameras really could not do it justice. We passed through several small towns today. The one similarity they shared, is they all seemed to have once vibrant…
Route 66 Day 13: Who Knew?
Today we left Shamrock, heading to Amarillo Texas. The temperatures were a welcome 70 degrees and we relished it for a few hours until it climbed back into the 90’s. We passed some beautiful fields…I’m pretty sure this is the photo that goes under the definition: “Amber Waves of Grain”. The artwork on the side…
Route 66 Day 14: I’ll Meet You Halfway
Today was a milestone for our trip. It is day 14 and we arrived at the halfway point of our Route 66 adventure. Here is a photo of us in Adrian, Texas. Moving on from the halfway point, we travelled through the rest of the Texas panhandle. The wind farms faded into the horizon and…
Route 66 Day 15: Vegas Baby!
After a restful nights sleep at the Blue Swallow, we set up the GPS and headed out to travel the pre 1937 alignment of Route 66. That meant…..we are going to Vegas!!!! Las Vegas, New Mexico that is. This is not your Nevada Vegas. Let’s compare some of the characteristics of traveling to Nevada LV…
Route 66 Day 16: The Wild Life
We started our travel this morning with a trip to the Las Vegas New Mexico National Wildlife Refuge. We found it to be a beautiful and strikingly different environment than what we are used to on the East Coast. As we walked out to an observation platform, a blue heron flew by. These are one…
Route 66 Day 17: Taking the High Road
A cool clear morning greeted us as we left Santa Fe heading for……well, we weren’t sure! We planned for today to be a short travel day as either of our destinations were only an hour or so away. We saw Cibola National Forest was not far from our route, and we decided to drive the…
Route 66 Day 18: Wait….What?
Today we left Albuquerque and headed west continuing our Route 66 Trip through New Mexico. The landscape shifted outside the window between grassland, shrubs, trees, lava fields…… Wait, what? Lava Fields? Yup, we drove by the McCarty lava field today- it was striking. Apparently, these are the youngest and longest lava flows on the continent. Some of…
Route 66 Day 19: Say Ah…..
For the first time since Illinois, back when we first started off on our journey, we had rain last night. We didn’t hear it, but this morning the misty clouds hung low and covered the horizon. It was quite pretty, and a nice change to the usual clear blue skies. We stepped outside in the…
Route 66 Day 20: Takin’ It Easy
We enjoyed the Petrified Forest National Park so much, we decided to get up early this morning and be at the park when it opened, to catch early morning star shine on the rock formations. The difference of the early morning light, with coolness in the air, truly did make the colors pop and we…
Route 66 Day 21: The Grand De-Tour
We left Winslow, Arizona and decided it was time to change up the itinerary and make some De-Tours. Well, not any De-Tour would do, these needed to be on the order of monumental, magnificent, even grand! What better way to start off the De-Tour than to go to a nearby Meteor Crater. The meteor was…
Route 66 Day 22: Grand Designs
We have enjoyed being near the Grand Canyon so much we decided to make it a 2 day de-tour! We woke early before sunturning and travelled to a spot to capture the morning rays. There was a beautiful light yellow/orange glow to the horizon. There was also a wonderful silence- I’ll call it Canyon quiet-…
Route 66 Day 23: Thank You, Thank You Very Much
We returned to our Route 66 travels this morning as we said goodbye and thank you to the Grand Canyon. We enjoyed our time in the wilderness so very much. We never quite know what the flavor of the day’s travel will be. Today’s flavor seemed to be fun. What’s more fun than acres and…
Route 66 Day 24: A Close Shave!
We were greeted on the route today with beautiful billowy clouds that looked like exclamation points over the scenic rock formations. We also enjoyed a long stretch of Route 66 peppered with Burma-Shave signs! Art and I quickly coordinated capturing the signs- Art keeping the car at a constant speed while I photographed the signs…
Route 66 Day 25: California or Bust
We woke early this morning to talk further with the rental car agency after our rental car stranded us last night (See our Route 66 Day 24: A Close Shave blog post). The agency was again very helpful, and made arrangements for us to visit the local rental agency office in Kingman. In fact, it was just…
Route 66 Day 26: Roses in the Desert
We were excited for today as we planned to drive the part of Route 66 that traverses the Mojave Desert. Art travelled through this area as a teenager, but didn’t recall much of it, and it was novel for me! As we started our day’s travels from Needles, California, we passed this bouquet of palm…
Route 66 Day 27: Eureka!
With our driving through the desert complete, we headed off to make our way further into California. There was a palpable difference in many ways to our travels today. We had lots of company. The small towns we passed through were more populated, and suddenly there were many more cars on the road with seemingly…
Route 66 Day 28: It Was A Journey, Not A Destination
We began our travels today after a great sleep in the wig wam. It was quiet and peaceful, even being in the heart of the city. Today we set a course for Santa Monica-where Route 66 ends. As we drive on towards the end of the route, we have been reflecting on the beginning when…
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