Trip Peek #90
Trip #134
Jefferson Highway Conference 2016

This picture is from my 2016 trip to the Jefferson Highway Association Conference in Carthage, Missouri. Conference presentations were in a center across the road from Red Oak II and wrapped up early enough that attendees could cross over for a look. This was my second visit to the whimsical town but my first time meeting its creator, Lowell Davis. After graciously posing for the photo at right, Lowell treated me and Mike and Sharon Curtis to a tour of his home and a look at some of his classic artwork. The next day was bus tour day but I skipped it for something more important. Route 66 icon Laurel Kane had died the previous January and friends and family gathered at her beloved Afton Station this day to celebrate her life.  

I drove some Jefferson Highway, of course, but I also drove some Historic Route 66, US-60, US-62, and even a little Dixie Highway. The range of stops was about as wide as any trip I’ve taken. They included Apple Valley Toyland, Gary Turner’s (reopened by his daughter) Gay Parita, the Woody Guthrie Center, an Ian Moore concert in Tulsa, Monte Ne,  Eureka Springs, Branson (really just a drive-by), Cairo (IL), the Everly Brothers Museum, and Bill Monroe’ birthplace. Yeah, I can’t guess what the theme was either.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today…

…that I got the first trip underway. This blog typically uses Wednesdays for reviews or nothing at all. Calling this post a review is a stretch. It does not evaluate a book or CD that you might consider buying or a movie or concert you might consider attending. It’s a look back at a road trip that not you, nor I, nor anyone else can ever recreate. Calling it a re-view (as in view again) allows me to publish it on a Wednesday without breaking any rules which means it appears on the twentieth anniversary of the first day of travel of the very first of my documented road trips.

4600 Miles to Bowling Green (a.k.a. Rt66in99) is how this website began. August 21, 1999, wasn’t the first date something had been posted to the site. Besides the trip’s cover page, some auxiliary pages had been created to provide a little background and context. To be entirely honest, the August 21st posting wasn’t even the first daily journal to appear. Circumstances kept the trip from starting on the 20th as scheduled but I called it Day 0 and still made a journal entry. In addition, there had been practice entries for Day -33 and Day-202. (The only way to reach these pages is to click “Prev” on Day 0.) But August 21, 1999, was the day I departed Cincinnati, drove to Chicago, and snapped a picture of the intersection of Adams and Michigan to appear in my first from-the-road journal entry.

A lot of things about the site have changed over the years but some things begun with that first trip have stuck. The concept of a page for each day with access to the next and previous day has been in place since the beginning as has a cover page with direct access to individual days. The idea of using the daily “Next’ and “Prev” button to (usually) represent the vehicle being used also goes back to that first trip. An animated GIF showing progress has been used on a few subsequent trips but it requires knowing the full route in advance and that’s often not the case. Besides, it’s a fair amount of work.

The organization of trip cover pages and of the site’s home page have changed over the years as features have come and gone and the number of completed trips has increased, but it’s still a clunky 1999 website. At my age and the site’s age, that isn’t likely to change. I’ve done some rework to accommodate things like small screen mobile devices and I’ve incorporated a few third-party tools to support a blog, mailing lists, and RSS feeds but the site is basically good ol’ HTML with the dated appearance and other characteristics that come with it.

Advancements in technology have brought improvements to the site but even more to the road trips documented here. A series of blog articles, My Gear, documents the various hardware used on the trips while another, My Apps, documents the software. The first three My Gear chapters describe the camera, computer, and GPS receiver used on the first trip. Of these, only the camera had a direct effect on the appearance of the website. That camera was a 350 kilopixel Agfa ePhoto 780c. It may be hard to believe there were once digital cameras with sub-megapixel resolution but easy to understand how a camera upgrade could really improve the website. The sluggish (by today’s standards) Toshiba Libretto and dial-up internet left no lasting marks on the website beyond limiting the amount of data uploadable during an overnight stop. The GPS provided some statistics I used on the site but otherwise had nothing to do with it. My Apps – Chapter 1 talks about the website and image editing software used on the first trip. Maybe better image software could have made those 1024×768 (extrapolated) images look better but I have serious doubts. FrontPage Express, the web editing software I initially used, did have lasting impact. The textured beige background that is used on almost all journal pages came from its built-in inventory. My Apps – Chapter 2 is about the software I used to produce printed route instructions which the GPS sort of helped me follow.

The pictures at right aren’t about advances in equipment but a comparison of equipment I had on that first trip. The picture on the left is one of the few unedited pictures I still have from the Agfa. I also carried a 35mm Nikon pocket camera which took the picture on the right. I have no idea what that proves but there it is.

The final cover page for that trip talks about it being temporary. As I said at the time, I expected it to go away because “I’ll need the space or retiring it will just seem right.” Web space became increasingly cheap and apparently retiring it never seemed right. Two decades later that first trip journal is still online and I’ve added 155 more. There is a clickable index of them all as well as a clickable collage. The collage, composed of one image from each of the trips, is a big favorite of mine. Visually skimming over it is a great reminder of what I’ve done with my gas money over the last twenty years. Pausing on any one of those images will always trigger a flood of memories which I can delve into deeper with just a click.

I’m spending this twentieth anniversary at home. I was on the road when the tenth anniversary rolled around. The 1999 trip consisted of following Historic Route 66 to Los Angeles to join a caravan to the Corvette Museum in Kentucky. The 2009 trip was quite similar with the westbound portion being the Lincoln Highway to San Francisco to again caravan to the museum. That was before this blog existed or I might have done a post similar to this one. Instead, I included a brief summary of the day ten years prior in the appropriate daily journals. I began those summaries with the first posting rather than the first day of travel so they begin on the latter trip’s sixth day, August 20, 2009. The summary of the final day of the first trip ended with these words: “It’s really hard for me to imagine a twentieth anniversary for this website but it’s no easier imagining an end. Watch this space.” I’m really happy that some of you are still watching.

Trip Peek #81
Trip #119
Route 66 Festival 2014

This picture is from my 2014 Route 66 Festival trip. The trip title is accurate, the Route 66 festival in Kingman, AZ, was the target, but it hides the fact that a major component of the trip was a full length drive of the Old Spanish Trail. Not only did I clinch that historic auto trail, I did it in a Mazda Miata which qualifies as the smallest car I’ve ever driven coast-to-coast. The photo is of the trip’s only disappointment. When I reached San Diego with plans to photograph the OST terminus marker, I was shocked to find the park containing it closed and being refurbished. The photo was taken through the surrounding barricades. The disappointment was soon forgotten in a visit with my younger son who lives in a suburb of San Diego. I had visited his older brother in New Orleans on the way out making this one of those rare trips where I am able to see both of my boys.

After a few days in San Diego, I headed north to finally connect with the road in the title. I picked up Historic Route 66 at its symbolic end at the Santa Monica Pier and followed it to the festival in Kingman. The festival was a good one that included a Road Crew concert and the first (to my knowledge) conference element along with the party. My path home was on Sixty-Six all the way to St. Louis, and included a stop in Santa Fe and an international rock concert at Afton Station.

Just in case anyone is concerned about the mental anguish caused by the missing marker, there is good news. A little more than two years later, I made it back to the reopened park and had a happy meeting with the returned stone.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #79
Trip #97
Lincoln Highway Conference 2011

This picture is from my 2011 Lincoln Highway Conference trip. It’s a trip that was in doubt almost to the day it started. Dad’s health was not good and I worried about traveling for any length of time. I apparently decided I could probably at least dash to and from the conference and sent in my registration just ahead of the deadline. Dad’s health took a bad turn near the end of May and I cut short a St. Louis trip to hurry back. He improved a bit but never really recovered. He died on June 2. When I eventually returned to thinking about the trip, my initial thoughts were to cancel it. Then I realized there was no reason. There was nothing for me to do after the funeral and long solo drives sounded much more useful than sitting at home.

With no reason to dash, I may have gone overboard. I left home on June 9 and drove the full length of US-36. I camped — in a tent! — in Rocky Mountain NP for a couple of nights.I picked up the Lincoln Highway in Utah and drove the unpaved stretch around Dugway to Ibapah. I met a group in Fallon, NV, for a pre-conference caravan. I hooked up with two groups for two different post-conference outings. One was my first visit to Donner Summit and the second an aborted attempt to drive Kings Canyon. Of course there was the conference in Tahoe with a bus tour west into California and another east into Nevada. When all that was over, I followed the Pioneer Trail alignment of the Lincoln Highway on to San Francisco and a visit with my oldest son. Then it was down the coast on the Pacific Coast Highway to Los Angeles. I’d have gone on to visit my younger son in San Diego but I knew he was at sea with his Navy buddies. I had actually visited him and his family in January. I headed home from LA but took in assorted pieces of Route 66 on the way. I reached home on July 3.

And the picture? It’s from the California conference tour. At our stop in Clarksville, a group of local Ford Model A owners provided rides on the 1914 Lincoln Highway Pavement. The picture was taken from inside a 1928 “leather back”.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Magazine Review
ROUTE Magazine

The premier issue of ROUTE Magazine reached my neighborhood last week. Online chatter — from the publisher, some contributors, and quite a few anxious readers — had been building over the last few months. By the time I held a copy in my hands I’d seen the front cover and had a pretty good overview of the contents. Flipping casually through my purchase verified that this was a quality product with lots of photographs nicely reproduced on semi-gloss pages and plenty of inviting text. It also verified something that I was a little slow in realizing: ROUTE Magazine, or at least this issue, is 100% devoted to Route 66. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The name of author Michael Wallis occupies a prominent spot on the cover. Inside he is the subject of a far ranging interview. Wallis and Route 66 have been tightly tied together since his book, Route 66: The Mother Road, was published in 1990. On one hand, there’s an awful lot of “us too” in spotlighting him like this. On the other, there’s probably a fair amount of credibility to be gained from the interview.

An interview with restaurateur Albert Okura is also listed on the cover along with a set of photographs from David Schwartz and some reminiscing by Jim Hinckley. Okura founded the highly successful Juan Pollo chain and has put his own money into saving bits of Route 66 including the town of Amboy, California. The basic story is well known in the Route 66 community but the interview shines some light on the man behind the story. David Schwartz is an extremely talented photographer living in the no-where-near-Route-66 town of Cleveland, Ohio, who is rapidly getting a reputation for capturing his love for the road in his photos. Author Jim Hinckley is responsible for the best writing in this issue with his memories of six decades of personal experience with Route 66. Some were familiar but some — especially those of Ed’s Camp proprietor Ed Edgerton — were fresh and fun to read.

In addition, the magazine contains a few nuggets from Ron Warnick’s Route66News.com, a “Women on the Route” article, a piece on route-side lodging, and a short form interview with former Midpoint owner Fran Houser. “Women on the Route”, written by Katharine McLaughlin, talks about Katrina Parks’ documentary project and draws information from it. There are some historic mom-and-pops (e.g., Wagon Wheel, Boots) included in the lodgings article but there are also some fairly upscale boutique establishments that don’t often appear in Route 66 listings. The Fran Houser interview appears on the end page under a “Parting Shot” label so I suspect something similar will be a regular feature.

I mentioned that I was slow coming to the realization that this is essentially a Route 66 focused publication. Posts on the magazine’s Facebook page made in the lead-up to publication included at least one Lincoln Highway and one US-50 reference and they apparently caught my eye more than they should have. Looking a little closer, I now see that 90+% of the posts were Route 66 references and all of the magazine’s posts not on its own page were in Route 66 oriented groups. Again I say there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m personally a little less interested than I would have been otherwise but there seems to be significant interest from others and the first issue does look good.

Distribution is currently through Barnes and Noble stores although it appears that not every store is carrying the magazine. Of the two closest to me, one is and one isn’t. Subscription details are still being worked out but are to be available soon at the magazine’s website,          www.routemagazine.us. That website is not yet operational making the aforementioned Facebook page (facebook.com/ROUTEMagazine) the place to check for status and news for the time being.

UPDATE 21-Feb-18: Only a few hours after this review was published, ROUTE Magazine announced on Facebook that the website at www.routemagazine.us had gone live. The site includes a page supporting subscriptions.

Trip Peek #66
Trip #137
Sixty-Six and More

This picture is from my 2016 Sixty-Six and More trip. It was my fourth and most recent end-to-end drive of Historic Route 66 although it wasn’t conceived as such. This trip just kept growing from first seed until I got home. In the beginning there was a decision to attend the Route 66 Conference in Los Angeles with a visit to my son in San Diego tacked on. I could fly to that but didn’t want to. A decision to drive was accompanied by a decision to follow Sixty-Six all the way. Before long I’d added a 5K walk in Tulsa and a Dirk Hamilton concert in San Pedro. Logistics for the concert gave me a chance to stay on the Queen Mary for a night. My route home was mostly on US-50 which allowed me to visit a cousin in Colorado and stop at the two Madonna of the Trail Monuments I hadn’t seen previously. Throw in a Super Moon and the LA protests following the presidential election and the justification for “More” in the title quickly becomes apparent. The picture is of the Palace Theater in the middle of what was the most western block of the original US-66 alignment. Trip Peeks really are selected randomly and it is pure coincidence that the 66th Peek involves Route 66.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #64
Trip #40
Memphis & MO

This picture is from my 2005 Memphis and MO trip. This was an outing cobbled together to fill the time between Christmas and New Year’s but which ended up extending a couple of days into 2006. The picture is of Billy Tripp’s Mind Field in Brownsville, Tennessee, which I was seeing for the first time. I have seen it several times since then and watched it continue to grow. This was also the first time I met fellow road fan Alex Burr in person. He still lived in Maine at the time but was visiting Memphis when I passed through. From Memphis, I followed US-61 to Saint Louis and spent New Year’s Eve with Route 66 friends in Rolla, Missouri, at a motel/restaurant that is no longer with us. Even sadder, one of those friends is no longer with us, either. Another first for me was a stop at John’s Modern Cabins on the way home.


By coincidence, this Trip Peek was randomly selected for publication just days after another visit to Billy Tripp’s Mindfield. The journal for the most recent visit is here.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Book Review
2 for $6 on Route 66
Debra Whittington

I wish I had $6 or even 6¢ for every time I’ve stood by an old motel or diner and wished that the aging walls could talk. There are no talking walls here but 2 for $6 on Route 66 does contain the memories of someone who spent a whole lot of time with some very interesting walls. Author Debra Whittington married into the motel business; The man she married was born into it.

In 1954 Mark Whittington’s parents built a motel on the west side of Tucumcari, New Mexico. They sold it after a few years, but before the decade was over they were building another one on the east side of town. Mark went off to college, met Debra, and the two were married just about the time he graduated. Another motel came up for sale just a few days before the wedding and Mark’s dad, thinking it would be a good business for the young couple, bought it. With little notice and less input, Debra found herself more or less in charge of a motel where she would interact with travelers on Historic Route 66 for nearly thirty years.

2 for $6… is divided into two main parts. Whittington calls the first part “History of the Area”. The subject area is centered on Tucumcari and the history includes that of Tumcumcari’s main drag, US-66. Some of what’s written here will be familiar to anyone who has looked at all into the history of Sixty-Six and other early highways but it is necessary background for the local details that Whitting relates. Many of those details she gathered from people who lived in Tucumcari long before she arrived. I personally enjoyed references to the town’s two Ozark Trails markers and descriptions of early cars and campgrounds.

Things get more personal in the book’s second part, “One Family, 50 Years in the Motel Business”. The first few chapters of this section give the history of the Whittington family’s motel experience before Debra arrived. It starts with that first motel, the Golden W, they built in 1954. Then on to the second, the Sahara Sands, built in 1959. The motel’s name and giant sign came from a motel in Amarillo, Texas, that was turning into a Holiday Inn.

The book’s name comes from the Sahara Sands period. A rash of motel construction in the mid-1960s resulted in Tucumcari having more rooms than tourists. During a 1965 price war, a hand-painted “2 for $6” sign went up in front of the Sahara Sands. A photo of the sign, which still exists, is in the book.

The motel that was purchased in 1978 was the Pony Soldier. It was built in 1964. Once Debra has described the extensive work that went into getting it ready to reopen, she proceeds to share lots of stories of her time there. What results is a picture, painted from the inside, of operating an independent motel in one of Historic 66’s hot spots. It’s funny, sad, scary, and heart-warming. It might be similar to pictures that could be painted of many other motels but it’s Debra’s picture and it’s unique. And it exists. the inside story of most of those other motels haven’t been recorded and probably won’t be.

2 for $6 on Route 66, Debra Whittington, 2015, 8.6 x 5.5 inches, 140 pages

I believe the book is available in several shops in Tucumcari. I bought my copy in the coffee shop at the Historic Route 66 Motel. According to a review at Route 66 News, the book is available direct from the author  “by sending $10 plus $3 shipping in the U.S. in check or money order to Debra Whittington, Debra Whittington, 923 S. Hawthorne St., Tucumcari, NM 88401″

Trip Peek #62
Trip #51
2007 National Route 66 Festival

This picture is from my 2007 National Route 66 Festival trip. The festival was in Clinton, Oklahoma. It was the centennial year for the state of Oklahoma which was a factor in holding the festival there and it also meant there were other things going on. One of those was the opening of a time capsule in which a brand new 1957 Plymouth had been buried. This was a fly-and-drive trip and I arranged my flights to be in Tulsa for the Plymouth resurrection then cover a little Route 66 before the festival. The capsule had leaked and the Plymouth pretty much ruined but it was still a cool event. My time on Route 66 was enough to get me to my first overnight at the Blue Swallow in Tucumcari, New Mexico, and a look at two almost but not quite ready to open new businesses on the Route: Boothill Restaurant in Vega, Texas, and Pops in Arcadia, Oklahoma. Among the things making the festival itself memorable was the one and only appearance of Route 66 e-group founder Greg Laxton and the first of many appearances of the now legendary Road Crew.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #47
Trip #15
Hot Rods and Lincoln

pv7This picture is from my 2003 Springfield Route 66 Festival trip. The name “Hot Rods & Lincoln” was used for the trip in a few places. It was just my fifteenth trip to be documented on the web and many conventions (like consistent names) had yet to appear. The festival was my first contact with what I now think of as the “Route 66 community” despite the fact that I had already driven Route 66 end-to-end twice. Of course, the community had already existed for many years but it took the internet for it to spread beyond the route’s physical reach. It was a three day trip with the first day spent reaching and crossing the Chain of Rocks Bridge then moving on to the festival. The second day was spent at the festival meeting a lot of people and looking at a lot of cars. I saw the pictured Rat-Mobile several times as it cruised the streets. I drove home on the third day and caught a few more interesting sights along the way.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.