DRIVING ROUTE 66
SEPT 3 - 19, 2017
The group of OCTC members driving Route 66 in September consisted of 6 couples shipping their cars, by truck, to Chicago: Tony & Eve Dilores (57 T-Bird), Bruce Eardley & Vickie Willson (57 T-Bird), Michael & Cathie Ball (56 T-Bird), Larry & Emily Muir (04 T-Bird), Les & Cynthia Willman (71 Dodge Challenger), Ron Karr & Barb Collins (94 Plymouth Voyager Van) - our emergency back seat and trunk. Chuck Birch drove his 64 Ford Falcon Convertible from Issaquah to Countryside, Illinois to meet up with the group, stopping to play golf along the way at various courses.
The cars were delivered on Aug 28th to “The Last Detail” shop in North Chicago. They agreed to accept, inspect, and store the cars until we arrived to pick them up, at no charge. The main group flew to Chicago on Sunday, Sept 3rd, with plans to pick up the cars on Tuesday, Sept 5th.
Monday the 4th was Labor Day and a free day to relax and enjoy the Chicago area. Our van driver, Juan, took us on a tour of the city including a stop at the sign that signifies the official start of Route 66, an amazing park in the middle of the city called Millennium Park, a panoramic view of the city from the shore of Lake Michigan, and lunch and shopping on the Navy Pier.
Tuesday morning we toured “The Last Detail” and presented them with a “thank you” plaque and smoked salmon for taking care of our cars. It was shortly after returning to the hotel that Larry Muir discovered the set of keys he’d left at the shop were missing. A search of the facility and a golf cart ride along the freeway finally located the keys - flattened by traffic but still functional. And so the journey of both fun and mishaps began!
After a quick set of photos to memorialize the over-stuffed trunks, we headed out to Willowbrook, Illinois, to spend the night and meet up with Chuck to begin our adventure. Unfortunately, Chuck had transmission problems with his car and decided to return home to get it fixed and could not continue on with us. That same day Larry and Emily took their car into the Ford dealership and ended up with a big bill to replace two broken coils. Dinner that evening was at Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket, famous for their fried chicken. This was our first actual Route 66 stop and gave us our first opportunity to buy the endless list of Route 66 souvenirs - pop bottles labeled as “Route 66 soda”. It was also in Willowbrook that the first two members of our group caught cold, and we spent the rest of the month passing that cold from person to person.
On Sept 6th we left Willowbrook heading to our first night’s destination of the Route 66 Hotel and Convention Center in Springfield, Illinois. Along the way we stopped to take pictures with the “Gemini Giant” a space man more than 20’ tall in front of the now-closed Launch Pad drive-in, a horse drawn street car turned into a 50’s diner and a wonderful Route 66 museum in Pontiac. This was when we also ran into our first frustration of sites with no listed address and sites that had closed since the Puget Sound tour which we were using as our guide.
The following morning, in Springfield, we toured the Lincoln Museum and Lincoln’s presidential home and then continued our drive, ending the day in Collinsville, Illinois. Vickie shared her cold with Bruce.
The following day we split into two groups with three couples touring the famous arch in St Louis and the Meramec Caverns while the other three couples headed directly to the caverns and opted not to tour them due to continuing issues with colds (Bruce) and the extreme dust/musty air in the caves. Instead the second group stopped at the Route 66 Motors in Dillion and we all met up for the night at an original 60’s motel called the Munger Moss in Lebanon, Missouri. This was when Bruce and Vickie ended up with a dead battery after a full day of driving.
Who would have guessed that the following day, when tracking down murals that were on our “must see” list, we’d end up driving into the middle of a car show. They seemed a bit disappointed that we couldn’t stay but we had places to go and many more sites to see before we ended up in Miami (pronounced Mi-am-AH) Oklahoma for the night. We were warned that the locals don’t like it when you pronounce it like the city in Florida. The highlights of this day was a tour of the Route 66 Auto Museum in Springfield (Missouri) and the Fantastic Caverns - the only cavern site in which you’re driven through the caves in a jeep-drawn wagon. This was also night two of Bruce’s dead battery saga with a lot of battery testing and scratched heads, and no resolution.
Sites the next day included the world famous Blue Whale in Catoosa, a giant Coke bottle, and a visit with Jerry McClanahan, creator of the Route 66 EZ Guide that we used heavily on our trip to locate stops. Jerry autographed everyone’s books and even noted changes such as areas where the original road was now closed. We spent the night in Stroud, Oklahoma, with Bruce convinced that the issue was with his newly installed alternator. Eve started feeling the effects of the cold we were all sharing.
Breakfast at the hotel was extremely fruitful as one of the locals, seeing our “old cars” T-shirts, shared with us a picture of his newly repainted hot rod and when asked was able to recommend a local truck shop that would help find an alternator and get it installed to get us back on the road. After an hour of testing and diagnosis, the group went on without Bruce & Vickie. After about 7 hours, and 4 different alternators, Bruce and Vickie finally were back on the road to catch up with the rest of the group in Clinton, Oklahoma. The five couples were able to see the “Round Barn”, a famous Route 66 landmark, where Barb shared a few dances with a 90+ gentleman. Bruce and Vickie, playing catch-up, checked out Pop’s along the way - a small diner and gift shop with two glass walls highly decorated by shelf after shelf of pop bottles filled with brightly colored, authentic types of pop from around the US.
On our way to another original 60’s hotel in Shamrock, Texas, we stopped at a great Route 66 Museum which chronicled many of the sites we’d seen so far and many that still awaited us. Shamrock is famous for it’s neon signs that light up the town at night and the now-closed U Drop Inn and water tower. By now the days were starting to all blend into one. Thank heaven for phones that label the dates on which pictures were taken - they became invaluable when trying to piece together the many places we’d been and things we’d seen. By evening Eve’s temperature climbed to 104 and she ended up in the ER. Some strong antibiotics and she was back on the road with us the following day.
That day we toured the famous Barb Wire Museum in McLean, a leaning water tower done purposely as a tourist attraction, the Big Texas Roadhouse and the world famous Cadillac Ranch, home of ten full-sized Cadillacs each front end buried into the dirt in the middle of a corn field all at the exact same depth, same distance from each other, and each at the same precise angles of the sides of the Great Pyramids. The air was heavy with spray paint, as people were encouraged to “leave their mark” on the cars and a local was there happily selling spray paint and necklaces made from old layers of paint chipped away from the cars. That evening was spent in Tucumcari, New Mexico. This was also the day that we passed the official “half way” point in our trip in Adrian Texas - 1139 miles behind us from Chicago and 1139 miles forward to Santa Monica.
The following day we toured the Teepee Curios gift shop, drove past the now closed Blue Swallow Motel with it’s well known neon sign, another car Museum in Santa Rosa, and “the Blue Hole”, a mysterious pool of deep blue water 81 feet deep and 60 feet in diameter with a constant water temperature of 61 degrees. Scuba divers can register at the visitor center and dive here. We were told there was a helicopter or plane sunken at the bottom? We stayed that night in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
On day number 10 we drove over the Continental Divide, stopped at another gift shop (this was a popular activity that we did as often as possible), stopped in at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup for many pictures, and crossed over into Arizona. Bruce and Vickie, suffering with overheating, drove straight to the hotel in Holbrook while the rest of the group toured the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.
Day eleven will always have great memories for all of us as we left Holbrook and went to Winslow, Arizona. Like many before us we stood on the corner, took tons of pictures, and left our contributions to the local economy with our purchases. Not only was there a life-size statue of Glenn Frye, but also a red flatbed Ford sitting in a parking space near the corner. Geronimo’s Trading Post was another stop that will always be remembered, especially by Cathy Ball who purchased a large squash-blossom necklace. After lunch in Flagstaff we spotted a white ‘57 Ford Station Wagon and we all thought of it as Frank and Cathy being with us “in spirit”. That evening was spent in Seligman, Arizona where we again contributed to the local economy.
Another day and another several hundred miles and we landed in the small town of Ludlow, California. The town was so small we counted only 7-8 buildings and we checked into our hotel, which only had seven rooms, at the Chevron gas station across the street. Talking with the waitress at dinner we learned that this was a dry town because the couple that purchased the town (yes, you read that correctly) got tired of sending out a tow truck weekly to pull one specific person out of the ditch so they passed a law declaring “their town” to be dry. This was the day that we crossed into California, our final state.
Excitement was building as we neared our final destination. The next day we stopped at the Bottle Tree Ranch in Helendale, where the owner has collected odds and ends he found in the dessert and welded metal bars into large metal trees and filled each limb with a glass bottle. That day we also toured the Route 66 Museum in Victorville which preserved the history that California played in Route 66 preservation, and also housed information about Roy Roger’s career and his local ranch. Our last night on the road was spent in Rialto, at the famous Wigwam Hotel. Each room is in an individually built concrete wigwam. The rooms looked so small from the outside, but inside were large enough for two double beds and a bathroom complete with walk-in shower. This was another wonderful evening we’ll all remember.
After 15 days and thousands of miles, we drove onto the pier in Santa Monica on September 19th. We started out with 13 people; four couples made it all the way to our final destination. Chuck drove all the way to Chicago simply to turn around and head home before every getting to drive a single mile with us. Les and Cynthia Willman split off on day #10 as Cynthia needed to return to work. Ron Karr and Barb Collins split off a day later. We hope that next year they’ll pick up where they left off and have their final completion. Tony and Eve, Larry and Emily, Mike and Cathie and Bruce and Vickie all received certificates on the pier and celebrated with lunch. One last mishap from the trip - Vickie caught a woman sitting on their hood, posing for pictures. As we left the pier we discovered that the car’s antenna had been broken off - most likely by the woman as she hopped off the hood and rushed away.
Many thanks to all of those who supported us along the way and to Gordon Thorne for providing us with his detailed write-up of the highlights and sites they planned to visit on their trip.
The cars were delivered on Aug 28th to “The Last Detail” shop in North Chicago. They agreed to accept, inspect, and store the cars until we arrived to pick them up, at no charge. The main group flew to Chicago on Sunday, Sept 3rd, with plans to pick up the cars on Tuesday, Sept 5th.
Monday the 4th was Labor Day and a free day to relax and enjoy the Chicago area. Our van driver, Juan, took us on a tour of the city including a stop at the sign that signifies the official start of Route 66, an amazing park in the middle of the city called Millennium Park, a panoramic view of the city from the shore of Lake Michigan, and lunch and shopping on the Navy Pier.
Tuesday morning we toured “The Last Detail” and presented them with a “thank you” plaque and smoked salmon for taking care of our cars. It was shortly after returning to the hotel that Larry Muir discovered the set of keys he’d left at the shop were missing. A search of the facility and a golf cart ride along the freeway finally located the keys - flattened by traffic but still functional. And so the journey of both fun and mishaps began!
After a quick set of photos to memorialize the over-stuffed trunks, we headed out to Willowbrook, Illinois, to spend the night and meet up with Chuck to begin our adventure. Unfortunately, Chuck had transmission problems with his car and decided to return home to get it fixed and could not continue on with us. That same day Larry and Emily took their car into the Ford dealership and ended up with a big bill to replace two broken coils. Dinner that evening was at Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket, famous for their fried chicken. This was our first actual Route 66 stop and gave us our first opportunity to buy the endless list of Route 66 souvenirs - pop bottles labeled as “Route 66 soda”. It was also in Willowbrook that the first two members of our group caught cold, and we spent the rest of the month passing that cold from person to person.
On Sept 6th we left Willowbrook heading to our first night’s destination of the Route 66 Hotel and Convention Center in Springfield, Illinois. Along the way we stopped to take pictures with the “Gemini Giant” a space man more than 20’ tall in front of the now-closed Launch Pad drive-in, a horse drawn street car turned into a 50’s diner and a wonderful Route 66 museum in Pontiac. This was when we also ran into our first frustration of sites with no listed address and sites that had closed since the Puget Sound tour which we were using as our guide.
The following morning, in Springfield, we toured the Lincoln Museum and Lincoln’s presidential home and then continued our drive, ending the day in Collinsville, Illinois. Vickie shared her cold with Bruce.
The following day we split into two groups with three couples touring the famous arch in St Louis and the Meramec Caverns while the other three couples headed directly to the caverns and opted not to tour them due to continuing issues with colds (Bruce) and the extreme dust/musty air in the caves. Instead the second group stopped at the Route 66 Motors in Dillion and we all met up for the night at an original 60’s motel called the Munger Moss in Lebanon, Missouri. This was when Bruce and Vickie ended up with a dead battery after a full day of driving.
Who would have guessed that the following day, when tracking down murals that were on our “must see” list, we’d end up driving into the middle of a car show. They seemed a bit disappointed that we couldn’t stay but we had places to go and many more sites to see before we ended up in Miami (pronounced Mi-am-AH) Oklahoma for the night. We were warned that the locals don’t like it when you pronounce it like the city in Florida. The highlights of this day was a tour of the Route 66 Auto Museum in Springfield (Missouri) and the Fantastic Caverns - the only cavern site in which you’re driven through the caves in a jeep-drawn wagon. This was also night two of Bruce’s dead battery saga with a lot of battery testing and scratched heads, and no resolution.
Sites the next day included the world famous Blue Whale in Catoosa, a giant Coke bottle, and a visit with Jerry McClanahan, creator of the Route 66 EZ Guide that we used heavily on our trip to locate stops. Jerry autographed everyone’s books and even noted changes such as areas where the original road was now closed. We spent the night in Stroud, Oklahoma, with Bruce convinced that the issue was with his newly installed alternator. Eve started feeling the effects of the cold we were all sharing.
Breakfast at the hotel was extremely fruitful as one of the locals, seeing our “old cars” T-shirts, shared with us a picture of his newly repainted hot rod and when asked was able to recommend a local truck shop that would help find an alternator and get it installed to get us back on the road. After an hour of testing and diagnosis, the group went on without Bruce & Vickie. After about 7 hours, and 4 different alternators, Bruce and Vickie finally were back on the road to catch up with the rest of the group in Clinton, Oklahoma. The five couples were able to see the “Round Barn”, a famous Route 66 landmark, where Barb shared a few dances with a 90+ gentleman. Bruce and Vickie, playing catch-up, checked out Pop’s along the way - a small diner and gift shop with two glass walls highly decorated by shelf after shelf of pop bottles filled with brightly colored, authentic types of pop from around the US.
On our way to another original 60’s hotel in Shamrock, Texas, we stopped at a great Route 66 Museum which chronicled many of the sites we’d seen so far and many that still awaited us. Shamrock is famous for it’s neon signs that light up the town at night and the now-closed U Drop Inn and water tower. By now the days were starting to all blend into one. Thank heaven for phones that label the dates on which pictures were taken - they became invaluable when trying to piece together the many places we’d been and things we’d seen. By evening Eve’s temperature climbed to 104 and she ended up in the ER. Some strong antibiotics and she was back on the road with us the following day.
That day we toured the famous Barb Wire Museum in McLean, a leaning water tower done purposely as a tourist attraction, the Big Texas Roadhouse and the world famous Cadillac Ranch, home of ten full-sized Cadillacs each front end buried into the dirt in the middle of a corn field all at the exact same depth, same distance from each other, and each at the same precise angles of the sides of the Great Pyramids. The air was heavy with spray paint, as people were encouraged to “leave their mark” on the cars and a local was there happily selling spray paint and necklaces made from old layers of paint chipped away from the cars. That evening was spent in Tucumcari, New Mexico. This was also the day that we passed the official “half way” point in our trip in Adrian Texas - 1139 miles behind us from Chicago and 1139 miles forward to Santa Monica.
The following day we toured the Teepee Curios gift shop, drove past the now closed Blue Swallow Motel with it’s well known neon sign, another car Museum in Santa Rosa, and “the Blue Hole”, a mysterious pool of deep blue water 81 feet deep and 60 feet in diameter with a constant water temperature of 61 degrees. Scuba divers can register at the visitor center and dive here. We were told there was a helicopter or plane sunken at the bottom? We stayed that night in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
On day number 10 we drove over the Continental Divide, stopped at another gift shop (this was a popular activity that we did as often as possible), stopped in at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup for many pictures, and crossed over into Arizona. Bruce and Vickie, suffering with overheating, drove straight to the hotel in Holbrook while the rest of the group toured the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.
Day eleven will always have great memories for all of us as we left Holbrook and went to Winslow, Arizona. Like many before us we stood on the corner, took tons of pictures, and left our contributions to the local economy with our purchases. Not only was there a life-size statue of Glenn Frye, but also a red flatbed Ford sitting in a parking space near the corner. Geronimo’s Trading Post was another stop that will always be remembered, especially by Cathy Ball who purchased a large squash-blossom necklace. After lunch in Flagstaff we spotted a white ‘57 Ford Station Wagon and we all thought of it as Frank and Cathy being with us “in spirit”. That evening was spent in Seligman, Arizona where we again contributed to the local economy.
Another day and another several hundred miles and we landed in the small town of Ludlow, California. The town was so small we counted only 7-8 buildings and we checked into our hotel, which only had seven rooms, at the Chevron gas station across the street. Talking with the waitress at dinner we learned that this was a dry town because the couple that purchased the town (yes, you read that correctly) got tired of sending out a tow truck weekly to pull one specific person out of the ditch so they passed a law declaring “their town” to be dry. This was the day that we crossed into California, our final state.
Excitement was building as we neared our final destination. The next day we stopped at the Bottle Tree Ranch in Helendale, where the owner has collected odds and ends he found in the dessert and welded metal bars into large metal trees and filled each limb with a glass bottle. That day we also toured the Route 66 Museum in Victorville which preserved the history that California played in Route 66 preservation, and also housed information about Roy Roger’s career and his local ranch. Our last night on the road was spent in Rialto, at the famous Wigwam Hotel. Each room is in an individually built concrete wigwam. The rooms looked so small from the outside, but inside were large enough for two double beds and a bathroom complete with walk-in shower. This was another wonderful evening we’ll all remember.
After 15 days and thousands of miles, we drove onto the pier in Santa Monica on September 19th. We started out with 13 people; four couples made it all the way to our final destination. Chuck drove all the way to Chicago simply to turn around and head home before every getting to drive a single mile with us. Les and Cynthia Willman split off on day #10 as Cynthia needed to return to work. Ron Karr and Barb Collins split off a day later. We hope that next year they’ll pick up where they left off and have their final completion. Tony and Eve, Larry and Emily, Mike and Cathie and Bruce and Vickie all received certificates on the pier and celebrated with lunch. One last mishap from the trip - Vickie caught a woman sitting on their hood, posing for pictures. As we left the pier we discovered that the car’s antenna had been broken off - most likely by the woman as she hopped off the hood and rushed away.
Many thanks to all of those who supported us along the way and to Gordon Thorne for providing us with his detailed write-up of the highlights and sites they planned to visit on their trip.