The Route 66 Chick

Today was the first day of the Route 66 Authors, Artists, Collectors,  and Associations Exhibition in the Beale Celebrations Events Center, featuring about two dozen display booths. After getting our display set up early this morning, my co-author Joe Sonderman and I zipped over to the museum reading room inside the Powerhouse Visitors Center for a little research. Then it was back to the Beale Center before 11:00 a.m. exhibition opening time. For a Friday it was quite a good crowd and we expect it to be full on Saturday. Some photos from our day in the Beale Center: The Sonderman-Jett display after set-up. L to R authors Michael Wallis, Jim Ross, Jerry McClanahan. L to R collectors Steve Rider, Sharon and Mike Ward Center, Japanese author Akio Takeuchi and his lovely family Author Anne Maro Slanina Dora Meroney, Old Route 66 Association of Texas, and Diane and Larry Clontz, U-Drop Inn At exhibition closing time, acclaimed author, photographer, tour gui...

Yesterday the excitement began to build in Kingman as more and more people from a variety of states and countries arrived. The historic downtown along Beale Street and Andy Devine Boulevard/Route 66 was a beehive of activity as preparations for the event were completed. In Locomotive Park, vendors were setting up and the last-minute tweaks to the entertainment stage were being made. I stopped in Beale Celebrations, an event space where the exposition of authors, collectors, and artists will be held Friday and Saturday. There I found collectors extraordinaire Steve Rider and Mike and Sharon Ward putting the finishing touches on their displays. A block away, in the historic B.P.O.E. Elks building, a slate of Route 66 films were being shown. In the evening the festival kicked off in Locomotive Park with a band and vendors. A couple blocks away, a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Kingman Walk of Fame was held at Mr. D's Diner. The ceremony honored legendary historical figures, ...

Arrived Kingman last night as the last pink-tinged bit of western sky slipped down behind a silhouette of purple mountains, with the lights of the city spread out down below. If you just started following my blog, I'm here for the International Route 66 Crossroads Past and Future Festival. All roads lead to Kingman for this weekend's event! For us hard-core Route 66 devotees, we've been waiting for this weekend ever since Jim Hinckley announced the event a year ago at the closing festivities of last year's International Route 66 Festival in Joplin, Missouri. With a mini-conference, an exposition of collectors and authors (including me), a Route 66 film festival, side trips and attractions, and the Road Crew band, no one is going to run out of fun this weekend. Facebook posts, photos, comments, and greetings have been flying the past few days as everyone nears their destination. At the closing festivities here on Saturday evening, I will be privileged to make ...

Monday and Tuesday I had to rack up the miles to stay on schedule for Kingman. This meant driving way more interstate than I'd prefer. On Monday I strayed into El Reno, Oklahoma, for a good share of the day. Today I stayed on I-40 except to pop onto 66 a few times for food, photos, and a little feel of the old road. El Reno, Oklahoma, is a Route 66 city west of Oklahoma City, born of the late 1800s land rush and survivor of the May 2013 widest tornado in recorded history. Murals adorn many of the older buildings in town and the "Heritage Express Trolley" runs about a mile loop through the downtown. Two terrific Route 66 Museums stand ready for visitors just 28 miles apart, in Clinton and Elk City in western Oklahoma. Both have great displays and nice gift shops.  Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma Route 66 Museum sign in Elk City, Oklahoma A high point of a Route 66 trip is the midpoint. Yes, in Adrian, Texas, it's been calculated that you are at...

The interstate system bypassed cities and towns in seven Route 66 states, but the interstate bypassed the whole state of Kansas! Good old Route 66 meanders through the very corner of southeastern Kansas – 13 miles in all. It's 13 miles full of interesting sights and stops and one of my favorite stretches. But before I left Joplin, Missouri, this morning, I drove by the apartment on Oak Ridge Drive where the famous shootout occurred in 1933 between the Barrow gang and the Joplin police. Brothers Clyde and Buck Barrow were seriously wounded, but they managed to get away. Two police officers were killed. I'd never gone by the apartment before, and I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this lovely neighborhood. The street that the main house faces is lined with bungalows, Ozark Giraffe, stone cottages, and pretty lawns. The place is on a corner lot, and the apartment with garage faces 34th Street. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places ...

Today was a gray-skied, soupy-aired, yellow-air-quality kind of Midwestern day, the kind of day that makes it seem like you're looking at everything through a slightly out-of-focus lens. And I'm back in Missouri, giving this Route 66 trip another try.  First stop today was Stanton, Missouri, for a visit to the Jesse James Wax Museum. Personally, I think wax museums are creepy but I can't resist them. And in Missouri you have to check out the Jesse James history! The museum has a 10-minute video, mainly presenting Rudy Turilli's (of Meramec Caverns fame) evidence that Jesse James lived on as Frank Dalton until the ripe old age of 102, vignettes with wax figures, and a big room of firearms on display. All for the price of $7.42. You know, Missouri has Jesse James, like Illinois has Al Capone. They each slept, ate, robbed, carried on, virtually everywhere, each in his own respective state, at least according to local lore. In fact, one restaurant in northern Illinois act...

Sunday morning I headed out from Edwardsville, which is only about 15 miles from the Missouri state line. And since I got my usual late start, I skipped on around St. Louis on I-270. St. Louis is a maze of myriad old 66 routes and heavy traffic on its contemporary arteries. But once you're out of St. Louis, you start finding long stretches of rolling highway and quaint towns. Missouri is full of curving, hilly highways and an abundance of vegetation and humidity. My first stop was at the Route 66 State Park Visitors Center in the former Bridgehead Inn just east of the Meramec River Bridge. This old Route 66 bridge is now closed, cutting off the visitors center from the rest of the state park. The park is the former site of Times Beach, originally a resort community, abandoned because of dioxin contamination from oiling the streets in the 1970s. It's safe to visit now. Some great vintage roadside signs, including those from the Pennant Hotel and the Sylvan Beach Restaurant, ...