Route 66 Travel Guide
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Route 66: We travel America

PHOTOS RUTA66: UNAI ONA

The highway connects any place with the rest of the world. It has always been like this. As soon as a place has been crossed by any type of path, the movement of people and goods has changed the face of the site. It happened with the Silk Road, the roads that always led to Rome, the large caravans bound for Timbuktu… Throughout history, any more or less signposted path has been synonymous with openness to the outside.

However, these routes have not always been international in nature. Although of course, when we talk about a country with continental proportions dumped into two oceans ... It is not necessary to leave it to link very different worlds. That is the case of the Main Street of America: Route 66. Built during the Happy 20s, its almost 4000 kilometers they were intended to link the industrial region of the Great Lakes with the ever-promising California.

Its early years witnessed the feverish development of the country, driven by a wave-shaped economic bubble with no signs of ever breaking. Your pavement connected two of the main growth centers in North America, giving backbone to territories closed in on themselves like Kansas, Texas or Arizona. Suddenly, in those places where nothing ever happened ... You only had to look at Route 66 to guess that at the end of the path everything was more vibrant.

Route 66 travel guide

However, when you get to the top you have to be careful. Falls from the top are never good, especially if they are not planned. That is why in 1929 many of the apostles of financial goodness ended up jumping from their offices, hitting their brains on the asphalt. The stock market crash was like turning on the lights in a disco at six in the morning. What in the dark seemed the promise of the best night of your life, under the inclement light of the spotlights it turned into a warlike mass of "Blood, effort, tears and sweat".

That was when Route66 welcomed entire families of outcasts. The road was no longer the promise of a more fun world, but simply the only option for survival. Thousands of peasants threw on their trucks what little they managed to hide from creditors. One more time, the myth of the west fed the course of the North American epic. Only this time it was not starring settlers in wagons slaughtering bison, but standing on the back of vans asking for a chance in the California fruit trees.

Fleeing unemployment and misery ok They paraded along Route 66, which did not finish asphalt until well into the 30s. Until then, gravel was mixed with asphalt and compacted earth on a road that he earned the nickname of "Bloody 66". However, little by little the improvement works widened the width of the same and made some of the fearsome curves more pleasant.

The hard days of the Great Depression were behind us. Slowly Route66 regained an air of joy, equipping itself with new shops that structured the development of the areas through which it passed. In another moment of national crossroads, this route served for the transport of arms from the industries of Michigan and Illinois to the ports of the Pacific. But don't worry, then only one more army would arrive.

AN ARMY OF TRAVELERS TOWARD THE WEST

Some other contingent with millions of peasants in their bones? Another regiment of cheeky boys from Kansas ready to sing you an atomic Enola gay the kamikazes of the Rising Sun? Nothing of that. This time the invasion was not wearing a military boot, but a white sock and flip-flop. Route 66 became the theme park of American iconography packaged for the tourist. Highway, motors, great plains, the Grand Canyon, the old Indian territories and all of it as a preview of sparkling Las Vegas and the dazzling ocean off the coast of California.

During the 50s and 60s, the Route welcomed families in search of a summer trip and pilgrims from the counterculture to San Francisco and Los Angeles. While some read a Captain America comic in the motel after eating a hot dog, others became characters from Fear and Loath in Las Vegas after venting an acid. The contradictions of the most vigorous country in our recent history communed in the same scenario: the highway.

Contradictions that were also manifested in the destination of Ruta66. And it is that although for those years she was living her moment of greatest symbolism ... Just at that moment was when a storm was stirring that would end up condemning her to the gutter of History: the Interstate Highways Act.

After World War II, the United States was the undisputed power. Although the Soviet Union made enormous efforts to get ahead in space and industrial matters ... The truth is that Russia was walking with the water up to its neck in terms of hegemony. After the debacle of the British Empire, the great smoking gun was still being held by English-speaking people, but this time it was the boys from the old colony who were holding on to the trigger. The United States of America was in the midst of the imperial phase.

And like all empires it needed a modern communications network. Route 66 was already outdated and its layout was supplemented by new routes adapted to heavier goods and faster cars. A system of ring roads and highways copied, paradoxically, from Hitler's Autobahnen.

During the 70s, the decline of Route 66 was already definitive, causing the closure of numerous stores and workshops that grew up in the heat of its ditches. A decadence that It had its finishing touch when it left the US Highway Network in 1985., leaving not a few sections without any utility under the consideration of "Historical route". Anyway, every change of time leaves dead on the way.

Fortunately at La Escudería we have our own “archaeologist". unai ona He has traveled this spine of America with his camera on his shoulder, presenting us with a report that we will go through chapter by chapter. It's first thing in the morning in Chicago, so let's fill our fingers with the sugar from some donuts. We still have thousands of miles to California. We started!

CHICAGO - WILMINGTON. START TO THE RHYTHM OF BLUES

Chicago is a city doomed to be energetic. When migrants from the Mississippi cotton fields came here they fought for the chance to be themselves, to have a new beginning. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 abolished slavery in the US, but the KKK still hung their trees from the trees. "Strange fruits". When they came here they verified that not everything that shines is gold, but also that, as was said in the Middle Ages, "The air of the city will set you free".

On the streets of asphalt and steel they electrified their guitars. Suddenly Blues, that old music that exorcised daily miseries - and in the South there were many - acquired a claw never seen before. It sounded like metal. Scraped. It had both hesitation and power. And he also looked very sexy. Something similar to what had happened shortly before in nearby Detroit ... But with the wagons.

Suddenly the four-wheelers had become motorized, and serial production of models such as the Ford T made the benefits of a new era available to millions from 1908 on. America was living in fascinating times. The music of the slaves jumped from sorrows to "Move move" and the old clatter of the peasant carts was transformed into the automobile of the urban classes.

America was like a huge Frankenstein. Made from waves of emigrants from places as diverse as Ireland or China, this mass of severed limbs was brought to life by the spark of electricity. Transportation, music ... Everything was electrified and motorized in an amalgam of elements that ended up defining national myths such as Ruta66.

Of all this we continue to have many testimonies in Chicago. The city that serves as the start of Route66 has museums of classics such as the Chicago Vintage Carriage, Gateway Classic Cars or Klairmont Collections. Visiting them can take you a couple of days, and if at night you also want to follow in the footsteps of Muddy Waters or Buddy Guy ... You may not be on time for your appointment at the Adams Street sign.

There is the post that starts the Route 66. Very close to the mythical Lou Mitchell's coffee shop. Opened in 1923, it is a reference for the delicacy that characterizes a caloric American-style breakfast. If the night before you did like John Lee Hooker and you spent with that "One bourbon, one scotch, one beer"… I am sure you can use their pancakes.

FARMS AT FULL RATE

If you like Blues, fine. And if you don't like it, then too. Why? Because you are on Route 66 and here is part of what it sounds like. The spark that gave life to guitars was the same spark that gave life to enginesAnd if there is a movie - with Easy Rider's permission - that brings both things together at the same time ... That's The Blues Brothers. A film that begins at one of the first stops on Route 66: the joliet penitentiary where Elwood picked up his brother Jake after a three-year sentence.

On the back of his '74 Dodge Monaco, the first thing Joe Belushi says to Dan Aykroyd is "Where is the Cadillac". Seconds later Dodge jumps over a drawbridge like it's nothing. Someone stops remembering the old man "Cadi"... Anyway, if you do remember those big old men, you will see several of them very close to the prison. They are actually all over the place. The roadside ditches are a graveyard of old American classics accumulating rust. A kind of "barnfind”Open bar mode.

By the way, to get here leaving Chicago we can go by Interstate 55 or by Old Route66. As always, the classic option is slower although it has more mythological flavor. Too bad the Romeoville museum has closed. The exhibition of Ford A and T that put a perfect starting pistol to the automobile workshops and collections that we will find in the next few days.

THE OVAL OF DESTRUCTION

Just 200 meters from the bluesera prison - which no longer houses prisoners but does host tourists - we have a very special place for lovers of grease and rust. Its about Ashley's U-Pick-A-Part located at 1102 Collins Street. Very near the door appears a guy with a mask and a torch surrounded by masses of irons to the "Mad Max”. Seen coldly, all this seems to come from the mind of a maniac, but in reality it is a workshop that prepares cars for the races of destruction that take place in the oval circuit of the city.

Well, the truth is that knowing what this is about ... We continue to bet on the mind of a maniac. Still the site is fascinating, and after all very representative of that car culture given to explosions, impossible jumps, crushing ... We are in the homeland of action movies, and it shows.

Along Route66 we will find quite a few places like this. And if you have a certain reporter spirit, you can have a great time engaging in conversation with the mechanics and enthusiasts who work on them. Of course, remember that exercising curiosity in the United States has to be accompanied by a certain prudence. This is a country where acquiring a gun is almost as easy as buying a bottle of Jack Daniel's. And some combine the two ... So be careful.

On the outskirts of Joliet we found the Chicagoland Speedway. Site where many of the cars that we have just seen will end their days shattered. An installation with oval circuit -You know that for the Americans this is the dream track- and a mile of acceleration for dragsters. It is certainly a shock to the way we think about motor racing in Europe. But at the level of power and fun… Not bad at all.

Topping off the visit to Joliet we have the Dick's Towing workshop -911 Broadway Street- and the Dodge replica of the Blues Brothers strung on a post of Route 66 Food and Fuel -2401 Chicago Street-. It's time to do like them and get out of here at full speed. "We are on a mission!"

WILLMINGTON: A RETURN TO 50

Elvis, Marylin, James Dean… It seems that Americans have a certain preference for popular culture icons with a bad ending. Boys and girls with great individual talent, capable of generating some discomfort in the "status quo" of its time before ending up crashed into a pole, a bottle or some barbiturates. At the entrance of the restaurant Lauching Pad Drive-In -810 E Baltimore Street- you have statues of all of them.

This is one of the first type of fast food outlets "Golden-years-of-rockabilly" that assault us on Route 66. A place where for 7 cents you can choose the song you want on your jukebox. You can sit there, with your big soda, listen 10 times in loop mode to the Chain Gang by Sam Cooke -it's next to hits by Fast Domino or The Everly Brothers-, get a look of general pissed off, and then drive off in your Cadillac. Things like that justify not just the day, but the week.

At the exit you have one of the many advertising giants that we will see on Route 66. Its about Gemini Giant. Made of fiberglass, it reaches almost 8 meters in height and perfectly sums up the spatial obsession that was also reflected in the cars of the fifties. By the way, very close you have a museum with several of them: the Midwest Classics On 66 -706 W Baltimore Street-.

One thing, if cafes are important to satisfy the hunger of the traveler ... Even more so are the gas stations to feed the suffering cars. Advancing to Dwight we find the oldest of all those that dot the 66. It is the Ambler's Texaco, which was in service for 66 years until 1999. Imagine the stories these walls could tell… Luckily today it is a visitor center worth stopping at.

A sample of how the heritage of industrial heritage is valued in the USA, even more so if we talk about the Calle Mayor de América. In fact, a few kilometers later - in Odell - we came across another service station recovered by the same residents of the town, who bought it some 20 years ago, thus saving this building built in 1932 from the most certain ruin.

GRASS AGAINST ASPHALT. HEADING TO PONTIAC AND ATLANTA

Workshops, garages, scrap yards ... As we move along Route66, all are constant references to the motor world. Even the names of the cities that we are passing. It is the case of Pontiac, a small town still in Illinois where his would be to ride a Firebird. Before we arrive we can find original sections of the 66 already almost invaded by grass.

Many will think that riding these sections is a mere nostalgic display, but the truth is that putting the car in one of them is a must for every good traveler on Route66. The truth is that Following the original route is like tracing the ruins of a Roman road today: it intermingles with current roads, it goes parallel on other occasions, nature has devoured it on others ... For something we qualified as “archaeologist”To our photographer at the beginning of the article, right?

We continue to Atlanta. Not Georgia, of course, but the small town of less than 2000 inhabitants where we find Streets in the style of the Bonnie & Clyde-type gunslinger movies. With its small bank, its library, its workshop ... It is not difficult to imagine the climate of intriguing passing people that could be breathed here in the 30s. And it is that, during the Great Depression, not only desperate families were thrown onto the roads , but also what would be one of the two generations of most recognized bank robbers of the XNUMXth century. The other acted without firing a single shot during the previous decade.

Also in Atlanta we can find the second advertising giant of our trip, at 112 SW Arch Street.

WILLIAMSVILLE AND SPRINGFIELD. REMAINS OF THE ROUTE AND GHOST STATIONS

For very little we will no longer be able to see another of the original stations of the route. We are talking about the Hilarious Route 66. An establishment closed in 2016 and of which little remains after its dismantling. However, and in the same place -107 S Elm Street-, a recreation has been created that includes classic cars. Although if you want to see them in quantity ... Theirs is that you go to the nearby Route66 Dream Car Museum.

A delicious pile of American classics along with all kinds of paraphernalia from the route, such as pumps, posters, vending machines ... Another of the many improvised museums where 66 fans store the irons that we like the most.

Arrived in Springfield we have the same case as before, but with another station. It is the Shea's Gas Station Museum located at 207 Peoria Road. Don't be too busy looking for it because it's gone, although we can see two Jaguars gathering dust instead. What are two Jaguars doing here? It does not match much with the American mythology of Route66, but in short, traveling is precisely being surprised.

Some of the elements of the gas station went to the nearby Fulgenzi's Pizza & Pasta -1168 Salgamon Ave-, although the normal thing at this point of the route is to recharge in the Cozy Dog Drive. In it, the hot dogs covered in corn dough are the star, and from what we are seeing, it is normal to finish the route with a few extra kilograms. By the way, to rest we find the Route 66 & Conference Center. Holyday In's first hotel. opened on 66 and that today accumulates in several corridors all kinds of automotive memorabilia.

CLASSICS WITH PATINA, TORNADOS AND LOTS OF BRUSHES

When you discover an abandoned site, in the style of some lost ruins or an almost wild waterfall ... You would not like to see it musealized. And it is a contradiction. Because his thing is that the heritage is well cared for, and accessible to the enjoyment of everyone, whatever its ease to enter through roads and brambles. But nevertheless… That little itch that makes us feel like a kind of Sunday Indiana Jones can affect many of us.

If you are like this, Route66 offers you places to go on this plan. One of them is the Dave´s Classic Cars by Glenarm, at 75 Dickey Rd. A kind of huge scrapyard and place for buying and selling classics that is accessed through a dirt road between wheat fields. Once there, the pile of ancient Americans is spectacular, not to mention those who are about to be devoured by an unforgiving nature.

It is promised as a perfect place to have a good time among oxides trying to find some recoverable jewel from the 50, 60 or 70. We cannot give you more information because we found it closed since it was Sunday, but casting our imagination to fly we visualize the owner of the fence surrounded by empty Budweiser cans, with a Whitaker-style eyelid and a shotgun leaning on the rocking chair. Yes, the clichés are horrible. But… They are visually so plastic that we cannot contain our minds.

We leave there and head to Mt Olive, where we will find one of the best-preserved service stations in this entire stretch of Highway 66. The Soulsby Service Station It was built in 1926 and was in operation until 1991. It is unfenced and with the Shell pumps in perfect condition. Come on, the ideal place to take some funny photos following the trail of the Budweiser type.

Very close to here, in the town of Hamel, we finished our first section of Route 66. This has just begun and there are still more than a few surprises. To make you curious about the second section, we will tell you that the first thing to visit is going to be what they say is the largest center for buying and selling classics on the entire Route66. In 2017 a fire destroyed about 140 cars. Months later, in early 2018, a tornado blew up a similar amount. And yet they continue to unload entire trucks full of classics every day ...

Anyway, this is the Calle Mayor de América. The place where everything is done in a big way. We will continue in a few days!

Read the 2nd part by clicking here!

What do you think?

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Written by Miguel Sánchez

Through the news from La Escudería, we will travel the winding roads of Maranello listening to the roar of the Italian V12; We will travel Route66 in search of the power of the great American engines; we will get lost in the narrow English lanes tracking the elegance of their sports cars; We will speed up the braking in the curves of the Monte Carlo Rally and we will even get dusty in a garage while rescuing lost jewels.

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