Get your kicks on Route 66

I'm not sure how familiar Route 66 is to our non-American readers, but in the American lexicon it has now achieved almost mythical status. Although it is no longer officially a US Route, it has now been revived as a National Scenic Byway and many parts of the old route have revived the Route 66 branding. Old Route 66 went from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California and was instrumental in the early part of the 20th century to opening up the West Coast to new settlers. Eventually it was mostly replaced by quicker, wider, better maintained interstate highways and fell into disuse and was decommissioned in 1985. A lot of the towns on the route became ghost towns, as they were no longer stopping points along people's itineraries. The recent Disney/Pixar movie "Cars", is based in one of these ghost towns that fell into decline when the interstate opened up a few miles away from the old route. The town in the movie is representative of many of the towns along the route that met the same fate.

When driving through New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, we covered a decent amount of Route 66, including some of it that runs with Interstate 40. Santa Fe and Albuquerque are both on Route 66, along with Amarillo, Texas, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and many other places we passed through. We did visit the eastern end of Route 66 in Chicago when we were there. Here are some pictures from the route.

A sign in Santa Fe.



We don't have pictures from around Albuquerque, but when you are driving out of that city, there is a vast store of old Route 66 hotels, shops, restaurants, etc. That was actually the best part of Albuquerque - 1) driving out of there and 2) seeing all the old hotels from the mid-20th century. Definitely felt like we were in a time warp.

Here are pictures from Tucumcari, New Mexico, on the old route and just off the interstate. Definitely has lost most of its former glory. Very close to being a ghost town.





Here you can see all the empty signposts from closed down businesses. We stopped in Tucumcari to get some ice cream in the 105 degree Fahrenheit heat.



And then we came to Amarillo, Texas. Our British readers will remember the Peter Kay remake of Tony Christie's song "Is this the way to Amarillo".



Here are some local cattle brands etched into the sidewalk.



If you can eat the 72 ounce (four and a half pounds) steak in less than an hour, it's yours for free. In Memphis, Tennessee, we ate at a restaurant called the Big Foot Lodge that had the same deal for a 72 ounce hamburger with bun and all the fixin's called The Sasquatch. In Memphis, over 700 people had tried it in 2 years and failed, until a professional competitive eater (yes, there is such a thing, just check out this website), came along and polished one off in less than 12 minutes. He didn't have the 18 scoop ice cream sundae for dessert. If you're looking for other similar deals across America (or want to be appalled by gluttony that's encouraged), check out this website.



Karen looks mighty small next to this heifer.



Oh yeah, Texans love everything about Texas, including replicating the shape of their state and/or putting their state flag on everything. Even better if you can mix the two.



This sign is true. Everything also includes the people.







Karen's new family. I think Karen might be able to put away 72 ounces of steak - in an entire month.





Some more Route 66 kitsch:





In Elk City, Oklahoma, we spent a night and had some "American Chinese" food (Karen asked a customer in the parking lot if there were real Chinese people working there. She was later impressed to see the Chinese cook driving a Harley motorcycle.). Next door to the restaurant was the National Route 66 Museum (here's the sign lit up by a brilliant sunset). There are actually quite a number of Route 66 museums spread out along the route, so I have no idea which ones are actually good. You can check out a list of the museums here: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/66-museums.html