getting our kicks on route 66

Sunday morning I went to church with my cousin Jason and his wife Katie and met my two little first cousins-once-removed (I think,) Maggie and Charlie. Afterwards we went out to Portillo's, who make the best hot dogs in the world, hands down. I think I've had Portillo's on every trip to Wheaton so far.

After lunch, I went back to Brie's and Mr. and Mrs. Van Conant accomplished the virtually impossible task of packing up Isaac with two suitcases, two carry-ons, various handbags and camera cases, several boxes of books and scripts, a guitar, and a cello. And we can still use the rearview mirror. I never thought a well-packed car could be such a thing of beauty.

After saying good-bye, we were off!


And then I remembered that I didn't have Route 66 directions, so after going back in, and taking about an hour to print out directions that would later turn out to be wildly incomplete, we were off!


First of all, a little history. Come on, you knew this was coming. Route 66 was established in the late 20s as an official US highway, using existing roads that jagged across the country linking rural communities. By 1938, it was "continuously paved" from Chicago to Los Angeles. When the Depression hit, over 200,000 people migrated to California from the Dust Bowl Midwest via Route 66 to have another chance at the American Dream.

Highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66 - the long concrete path across the country, waving gently up and down on the map, from Mississippi to Bakersfield - over the red lands and the gray lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the Divide and down into the bright and terrible desert, and across the desert to the mountains again, and into the rich Californian valleys.

66 is the path of people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert's slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.

~ from "The Grapes of Wrath"
by John Steinbeck

As the country came out of the Depression and more and more people owned cars, motoring became a hobby, and Route 66 represented freedom and adventure. But if you've seen the movie Cars, you know how it ends. Interstates were built in smooth long lines near Route 66, and the Mother Road became less and less traveled, becoming officially decommissioned in the 1980s.

Route 66 technically begins in downtown Chicago, so the first leg of our trip was east into the city. The official beginning of Route 66:


Then we drove around downtown and got a little lost, and ended up on I-55, which wasn't exactly correct, but was sort of the general right idea. We finally got straightened out by Willowbrook, and got off the Interstate and found Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket, which opened in the 1930's as a gas station lunch counter on Route 66.


The hilarious thing about this was that we had packed the cars hours ago at this point, and the sun was starting to go down, and we were 18 miles from Brie's house. It was like leaving Los Angeles on a road trip and stopping for the night in Burbank.

We did push on a little further that night... to Springfield.

Along the way...

Joliet, Illinois:




Wilmington, Illinois:



The next day we drove into Springfield, which was described in something I read as "the culmination of the state's obsession with Abraham Lincoln." Lincoln lived in Springfield from the age of 28 until he was elected president. The street where his home was was closed, but we walked past his law offices, where he wrote his inaugural address, and the Old Capitol building, where he argued cases as a lawyer in Springfield, and where he laid in state after his assassination so the people of Springfield could pay their respects.

Then we forgot where we parked and got caught in the rain, and ran into a coffeeshop to get breakfast and wait out the weather.

Sky View Drive-In Theater in Litchfield, Illinois (I was hoping to make it to a screening here but we were too late the night before to make it):


Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive, Illinois:



Restored gas station in Mt. Olive:


Staunton, Illinois. In 1923, this high school lost a football match to Gillespie High School, 233 to 0:


Granite City, Illinois. Supposedly, Al Capone used to frequent this cafe. Brie and I sat in the parking lot for a few minutes trying to decide whether to go in, before deciding just to go in and then finding that it was closed:


Collinsville, Illinois:



St. Louis, Missouri:


We stopped for frozen custard:


And then drove back to the Gateway Arch, but it was too late to ride the elevator-tram-thing to the top, so we just went to the Museum underneath the arch:


And walked around outside:



I called ahead to get a motel room at a mom-and-pop place called the Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba, Missouri. Here was our conversation.

Man: Hello?
Me: Hi, do you have any rooms available for tonight?
Man: Yeah. I have one left.
Me: Great, could I reserve that?
Man: (Pause.) Well, what time will you get here?
Me: How late can I get there?
Man: What time will you get here?
Me: Well... I'm in St. Louis...
Man: Well, that's... eight... nine... yeah. OK. I guess that's ok.
Me: Oh, ok, good.
Man: Just make sure you're on your way. (Click.)

We drove through the pouring rain and a beautiful sunset, taking the interstate because I didn't want to make the man wait up late.

We knocked on the door to the office, and the man, who I took to be in his mid-80s, opened the door and let us into his office, which was also his living room. He had stacks of cash laid out on the desk. He handed me a little card to fill out with my name and address and phone number, and then took the card back and wrote "Room 11 - 20.00" on it. I was watching him and thinking, is this really going to be twenty dollars? And it was. I gave him a twenty dollar bill, and he told us he would meet us over in Room 11. So we drove over and parked by the room, and he scooted over in his golf cart, checked the room, and left us the key. The room was so 1930s classic. Kind of dank, and yet awesome. I felt like Ma Joad. Or maybe Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night. Only Brie wasn't Clark Gable.

I walked up to the front where the old neon sign was, but he had turned off the power, so I had it get it in the morning when it wasn't lit up:


Our room:

Well if you ever plan to motor west,
Travel my way, take the highway that's the best.
Get your kicks on Route 66.

Well it winds from Chicago to LA
More than two-thousand miles all the way.
Get your kicks on Route 66.

Well it goes through St. Louie, Joplin Missouri,
Oklahoma City looks oh so pretty.
You'll see Amarillo, Gallup New Mexico
Flagstaff Arizona, don't forget Winona,
Kingsman, Barstow, San Bernardino.

Won't you get hip to this timely tip
And take that California trip.
Get your kicks on Route 66.

~ "Route 66"
Lyrics by Bobby Troup