Some call it the Mother Road, but to me, Route 66 was an avenue to a second chance. My dad had dropped out of school in fourth grade and became a self-taught tractor mechanic. After the arrival of my younger sister, it was clear Minnesota held little financial future. And so with an overloaded trailer hitched to the old Ford sedan and a weeping mother aboard, we headed into the future.

It was an angry trip. The tires did not hold up well under the load, the summer heat was oppressive, and most of all, I didn't want to leave my friends. Each mile removed me from what I knew and treasured and brought me closer to the unknown. To make matters worse, we didn't have enough money to stop at the numerous roadside attractions. We missed such opportunities as seeing two-headed rattlesnakes and meeting the many last relatives of Sitting Bull. My sister and I contented ourselves with reading Burma Shave signs and punching each other, playing out-of-state license plate tag.

Five days later, the Mother Road had taken us nearly to California. But the countless detours, endless lines of slow moving trucks, and summer heat had left us all exhausted.

The whole family applauded when we crossed the Colorado River and passed the "Welcome to California" sign. Dad felt relieved when he read the large billboard promising work for everyone as Good Humor drivers, and the agriculture inspection station was merely an inconvenience.

We were in Needles at the end of June. At midnight Dad woke us up. The heat was oppressive, even without the sun. You could hear the monotonous sound of electric evaporative coolers coming from every building.

There was an urgency in my father's voice I had never heard before. "We gotta get across the desert before the sun comes up. The tires can't take anymore."

Within a few minutes, we were loaded and looking to rejoin Route 66. Mom, with that intuitive sense every woman seems to have when her children are frightened, told Dad to stop. We had gone nearly 1,200 miles without even an unnecessary pause, and so we were shocked at her command to Dad.

"Pull over at the filling station," she said pointing at a small lump of a store with two gas pumps outside.

Dad complied, and Mom took us both out of the car and into the store. "Two scoops for each of them," she commanded as she pulled a wrinkled dollar bill from her red pocketbook. The air was electric with anticipation as we waited for the man to return with our ice cream.

And then it happened. He reached over the counter and handed us round sugar cones topped with two squares of ice cream -- squares. We tried our best to balance the squares and started nibbling as fast as we could. Within seconds the top square on my sister's cone dropped to the ground and the world stopped for both of us. A treat, and an expensive one, rested on the pavement of Route 66. We became brother and sister at that moment. Neither of us wanting to hurt our mother's feelings, we looked at each other and a bond of silence was made. We were friends, now and forever.

The next evening we were sharing a house with relatives in Culver City. Eight people, two bedrooms, one bath and a whole lot of adventures awaited us.

Route 66 had brought us home.

Time passed and with two children of my own, I felt it was time to expose them to the Mother Road before it was further demolished in the name of progress. My announcement we were going to backtrack Route 66 was greeted with the same emotion as when my dad told me we were moving. Only when I promised they could take an electronic entertainment device and that we would be back that night convinced them of the trip's importance.

Route 66 ends at Santa Monica Boulevard and Ocean, but we started at the Santa Monica Pier anyway. It brought back memories of the first time my family saw the ocean. As the old Ford stopped beneath the arch, Mom jumped out with her trusty Brownie camera and recorded
the moment. Unfortunately, you couldn't see the sign in the photo, but it was better than Dad's photo of the ocean. His picture, taken while leaning over the railing, showed, in black and white, water. For posterity, he wrote "ocean" on the back of the photo with his Paper Mate pen.

I decided there was too much traffic to recreate the photo, so we just parked and walked along the sidewalk, looking at the weird people. Since this was a weekday in April and the place was packed, we wondered if anyone in America was working. We got our answer when we returned to our car, and the ever-efficient Santa Monica parking patrol had left a ticket on our windshield.

After apparently spending more time than allotted at the pier and as the only non-tattooed group in the area, we decided to start our Route 66 tour by singing, "Get Your Kicks on Route 66." The problem was no one remembered any of the lyrics except the chorus.

We traveled from the Santa Monica Pier to Sunset and found the remains of Foothill Boulevard slithering through the hills just above the House of Blues. We abandoned our quest at this point as it became apparent we were lost. We did note all the illegally parked cars would have made any Santa Monica meter officer salivate.

Thankfully, we were driving a Pontiac Bonneville with OnStar service, and the advisor guided us to Pasadena where the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which opened in 1940, greets travelers with its open arches. It was easy to find Route 66 in Pasadena, but traffic was too heavy to concentrate on landmarks.

Than we entered Azusa and saw the Foothill Drive-In. Good grief, what memories the undulating grounds of this drive-in brought back. Using the trunk to sneak in buddies, playing on the unsupervised playground in front, spotlight tag, intermissions, standing in line for colon-defying food, getting the only parking place with a defective speaker, and of course, missing most of the movie because of fogged-up windows are remembrances probably better left untold.

It was a different time, a Main-Street-America time, and I miss it. But my children were enjoying their handheld electronic games, so I knew this cultural outing was not being wasted.

When we entered Rancho Cucamonga, just Cucamonga back then, we saw the oldest winery in the state at the intersection of Vineyard and Foothill. It is now a restaurant, but well worth slowing down for. About 10 miles down the road, we hit the Orange. Sitting next to Bono's restaurant, this orange-shaped and orange-colored building was interesting. We almost stopped.

The next highlight was San Bernardino's Wigwam Motel. It opened in 1950, and it deserves an actual pull-over-and-stare salute. True to its title, the units looked like wigwams. The McDonald's/Route 66 Museum is located close by and is the site of the first McDonald's Restaurant. It was worth a look, but we were in a hurry, and no one needed to go to the bathroom.

Next, we journeyed up Cajon Pass where you can see portions of the old Route 66 by taking the Cleghorn Exit off I-15. We took the Warthout Canyon Road and visited the remains of an old federal camp where Dust Bowl refugees stayed. A historical marker stands at the Blue Cut Rest Area just down the road from the camp.

Victorville was next. It has a museum dedicated to Route 66, where they sell an interesting poster with all the postal marks of cities along the Route. Ahead in Barstow was the California Route 66 Museum that occupies an original Harvey House.

We missed the California Inspection Station mentioned in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. It is located further up the highway in Daggett, as well as Amboy and Roy's Café. I didn't have the heart to revisit Needles. Even today the mention of it brings back memories of the heat and the wonder of square ice cream.

Filled with nostalgia, I turned homeward, and we traveled in silence. Something was missing from our travel back in time; there just wasn't closure. And then it came to me. When we got home, I hurried into the house, melted ice cream in the microwave, placed it in the empty (as always) ice cube tray and made ice cream squares. I wasn't going to deprive my children of the joy of fitting square ice cream into a round cone.

Route 66 sites to see
Use these links to make the study of Route 66 and highways more interesting. It is especially interesting for teachers who enjoy traveling and for students in elementary school, where this study can be integrated with history, geography, music, art, math and culture.

Link sites for the traveller

Historic Route 66

Route 66: Critical Resources

Preservation Organizations

California Route 66 Preservation Foundation

Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program

Route 66 - The Mainstreet of America

Route 66 Associations

California Historic Route 66 Association

Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona

National Historic Route 66 Federation

Route 66 Association of New Mexico

Oklahoma Route 66 Association

Illinois Route 66 Association

Route 66 Association of Missouri

Route 66 Cities with Weather Sites

Texas Old Route 66 Association

Route 66 study and information

Barstow Route 66 "Mother Road" Museum

California Route 66 Museum

Comparing Route 40
An interesting site where students look at the differences between the Lincoln Highway, Route 40, and Route 66, it's an ideal way to get students to see what real research can reveal.

DOT Civil Rights

Dust Bowl Days
Lesson plan mainly about the exodus rather than about Route 66

The Great American Footrace
The most famous race ever -- from Los Angeles to New York

Kaibab National Forest
United States Forest Service in Arizona has this short story about the highway and how it got its number.

Route 66 Lyrics
What else, the words to the famous Route 66 theme song

Route 66 Magazine
Mostly commercial, but has some handy event guides.

Route 66 Special Resource Study
Updated government study -- only for upper grades

Route 66: The Television Series

San Bernardino Route 66 Museum

U.S. Highways: From US 1 to (US 830)
From the data here, you can compare and contrast both time periods and highways.