Finding and Celebrating Route 66

Interstate Highways accomplished their purpose: make travel easier, safer, and quicker.

Another result: interstate highways across NM, AZ, TX, and OK are without persona, pizazz, and without the stuff the Mother Road once promised and delivered. It’s up to the locals to preserve and celebrate the Route 66 ambiance.

It’s been an adult desire of mine to follow as many miles of Route 66 as I could. We’ve done that throughout the Southwest. No places have been more iconic than Arizona, New Mexico, Texas,and Oklahoma, at least in the roadside advertising, the signs which announce Historic Route 66.

One town has attemped to save what time and progress have by-passed. The town of Williams in Arizona has done a super job of capturing the spirited essence of old Route 66. Other towns have not been as creative. Private individuals or companies have made valiant attempts to draw tourists such as myself to the former glory of the Mother Road. The Main Street of America meanders through old downtown areas, dotted on either side with neon that invites sleepy drivers to overnight at motels such as Blue Swallow Motel.

In Gallup and Tucumcarie, NM, all has gone to seed, even the Blue Swallow, TeePee Curios and the so-called Welcome Center, all of which appear to be flea-traps and not one was open: hour posted show they close at 1PM.

We passed the Cadillac Ranch and saw about 10 cars pulled to the side of the road, people walking from the site where about 10 wow-painted Cadillacs are buried half-way in the ground. There is no charge to gaze at them.

We over-nighted in Shamrock, TX, which made no map I was holding, but the town has been a stop-over on Route 66. The lobby of our hotel screamed “Route 66.” A photo of the U-Drop Inn is framed and the once famous motel beacons with green neon spires.

We stopped at Clinton, OK, because ROAD TRIP USA promised the World Famous, Best of the Best, Route 66 museums – and a gift shop! It is, indeed, a phenomenal tribute to the Mother Road – Main Street USA. The museum is fun, interactive, colorful, and educational.

As long as there are people who refuse to let their little towns die, as long as there are preservationists who treasure the work of a bygone era, as long as neon flashes brightly, setting the darkness aglow, there will be the glory of Route 66 and those who love it.