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Planning a road trip for the fall from Chicago to LA to follow as much of the original Route 66 as possible. I have done some short sections over the years and know that it is difficult in many places to follow or sometimes even find the historic route. I came across the following guide searching on line and thought I would ask if anyone has any knowledge of it or any other guide to help find the old route. AAA will prepare a trip text for me but they admit that it is incomplete in several areas. What have fellow forum members used when trying to follow the old route?? Any help would be appreciated.
Any of the books are good for planning. OK has a book at http://www.travelok.com/route_66
I grew up in MO and that section is hard to travel as I-44 is it in much of state. We did rt.66 a few years ago with NCRS group to CA. There are sections that are dead ends.
Ill has some good sections, Stay at Blue Swallow motel in Tucumcari, NM. Gallup, NM has old hotel downtown where the movie stars stayed. Holbrook and Winslow, AZ have attractions to see. We stayed in Kingman, AZ and took rt 66 to Oatman in mtns. Just depends on how much time you have.
Planning a road trip for the fall from Chicago to LA to follow as much of the original Route 66 as possible. I have done some short sections over the years and know that it is difficult in many places to follow or sometimes even find the historic route. I came across the following guide searching on line and thought I would ask if anyone has any knowledge of it or any other guide to help find the old route. AAA will prepare a trip text for me but they admit that it is incomplete in several areas. What have fellow forum members used when trying to follow the old route?? Any help would be appreciated.
I bought that book for my trip from the Museum back to the Bay Area. It was quite helpful in picking out the sites we wanted to see and the turn by turn info.
Plan for a long drive as there are many traffic lights on certain sections, etc. Some really bumpy (unmaintained) roads, but all in all imagining what they had to go through before the interstates to go West is quite interesting.
If my wife didn't take notes in it, it's yours if you want it, just PM me your info.
I just drove 7500 miles from PA to Spring Mountain and back with a trip up CA 1 on the Fourth of July weekend. My trip to SM took me thru Bowling Green, Nashville, Memphis, etc. I picked up 66 in Tulsa and made my way to NV via Route 40. 66 and 40 intertwine like two snakes having sex. You will see the small brown 66 signs on the exits along 40. Jump off and on as you please. Lots of great sites including TONS of old gas stations and ghost towns. I took it to Kingman, AZ then headed up towards Vegas. My second leg took me thru Death Valley to Santa Monica where I picked up CA 1 thru the beach towns, Monterrey, then 101 to Napa.
I bought that book for my trip from the Museum back to the Bay Area. It was quite helpful in picking out the sites we wanted to see and the turn by turn info.
Plan for a long drive as there are many traffic lights on certain sections, etc. Some really bumpy (unmaintained) roads, but all in all imagining what they had to go through before the interstates to go West is quite interesting.
If my wife didn't take notes in it, it's yours if you want it, just PM me your info.
I lived just 1 mile off Route 66 and Madison St. in Hinsdale, Il. That area has now been renamed Willowbrook. Many of the Old Route 66 trails Interstate 55 south to I-40 out of St. Louis. Tulsa to OK City to Amarillo to Albuquerque, NM
In Willowbrook (southwest) of Chicago you will find an historic Route 66 restaurant called Del Rhea Chicken Basket which still stands and is operational. It's just a few blocks of Interstate 55 and Route 83. It's on the original Route 66....just one or blocks from Route 66 and Madison St.
Right across the street from Del Rhea Chicken Basket used to be an old airport for small planes, which is no more.
Good luck planning your trip, wherever you go on the old Route 66 you will have a blast. We were fortunate enough to drive many sections of it in Texas and New Mexico many years ago as the lead car for a 1999 Corvette
HDTV commercial, what a four day blast we had! Enjoy your trip and post pictures.
Route 66 is an awesome trip; most of the old museum type spots have books for sale. You'll find many that will give you mile by mile turns and points of interest. Have fun
Don't forget to stop here;
and here to eat, Litchfield Illinois;
Stop to see Bob and all his gas station signs in Cuba;
Once you get to Cali, stop in at the Victorville Route 66 Museum. I was a director there for several years. Its a great place and the volunteers there are great. Lots of stuff to see in there!
Harvey house hotel, train station, in Winslow was a nice place to stay. Then about a hour west, meteor crater.
Kingman has a pretty good Mexican restaurant on 66 in old Kingman. El Palacio next to the old Beale hotel in which Pam Anderson was arrested for public nudity doing a playboy shoot.
More restaurants on N. Stockton hill rd. I wasn't impressed with the Hot Rod Cafe there.
There are some good hotels in Kingman to stay for the night. 150 miles from Flagstaff, 330 from Gallup.
My dear Wifey, and I have made three Route 66 runs, and planning on our forth in September. The best guide out there is the "EZ 66 Guide" by Jerry McClanahan (we don't leave home without it, and you can get it on Amazon)). I call it "Route 66 for Dummies". It's very well laid out, with simple turn by turn instructions with a lot of good info for each area of Route 66. The old road can be tricky, but several states now have good signage to help you along the way. However, the problem is idiots think stealing a Route 66 sign is OK, and some may be missing. For our first trip we planned by reading the EZ Guide, and following the turns on "Google Earth". That helped make sense of some areas that can be a bit tricky. The only area I suggest you skip is the St. Louis section of 66 as it is not considered safe. We did it, once, and won't do it again. Just take the highway around that area, and pick up 66 a just below St. Louis proper.
And by all means stay at the Blue Swallow in Tucumcari, NM. Kevin, and Nancy are great folks and have done a wonderful job at bringing the old motel back to life. If you want to stay with them take my advise, and call them today ASAP. They book up quick even into the fall. Remember, getting lost is part of the journey. Have a great time, and be safe.
If you drive through Litchfield, Il and stop at the Ariston to eat.....head just a little further south on 66 and look for the helicopter just south of the Deere Dealer. My place of employment is in Litchfield on 66, and it's great sitting out watching all the travelers making their way by.
My wife and I did the Route 66 road trip (West to East) 2 weeks ago from Santa Monica, Ca. to my home town of Springfield, Mo. It was one of our best trips ever. You definitely have to take your time as it is all about the people you meet along the way. It's about the journey, and not so much the destination. I created an Excel spread sheet with about 200 "Points of Interest" GPS locations to pin point the things we wanted to see. If you like, I could send you the file. You can always resort the longitude data column for East to West for your trip. Our objective was to stay off of I-40 and 1-44 and stay on Route 66 as much as possible. It turns out that was a difficult task. We would be on I-40 is areas where Route 66 did not exists, look over to the right and all of a sudden, there is the old road. We would get on Route 66 for awhile and then be forced to get back on I-40. See one of the photos below to see what can happen since Route 66 has been decommissioned and is not discontinuous. We had 2 GPS systems, 2 Route 66 maps and all of the state maps. Sometimes Route 66 was not the state maps. Sometimes there would be signs for "Historic Route 66" but most of the time, no. Another thing that can make traveling Route 66 difficult, is that when going through some of the small towns, over the years, Route 66 has had as many as 3 different placements. So depending on the year in history, you my have choices on which route you choose. If fact on one town there was a Route 66 and Route 66 intersection, due to 2 different placements over time. In general, we would enter the next POI GPS data into the Nav and then tell the Nav to "Avoid Interstate". It did not always work, so just keep you eyes open for the old road.
One of the map series we used was ordered from Amazon.com called "Here It is! The Route 66 Map Series". These maps were very helpful. There is a map for each state for Route 66 that show attractions as well as driving instructions. We also used the "Route 66 Adventure Handbook" (Drew Knowles) also ordered from Amazon. While some of the information not always current, it was still helpful in our trip planning and learning some history of some of the attractions. Also from Amazon, check out "Route 66 - Marathon Tour (Chicago to L.A.)" -- a 5-DVD set that comes in a tin case showing various attractions (with Corvettes) including interviews of people along the way who share some of the Route 66 history.
Do not forget to check out this amazing U Drop Inn Art Deco Conoco station in Shamrock, Tx.
The Mother Road
This what can happen when traveling Route 66
Holbrook AZ
Groom TX
Arcadia OK
Riverton KS
Catgoosa OK
Tucumcari NM
Amarillo TX
Hydro OK
Last edited by calemasters; 08-09-2015 at 12:41 PM.
We did the route last fall and met Jerry as well at his studio. Great guy and he gave us some additional pointers that were not in the book. If you get the chance attend the balloon fiesta in Albuquerque if you can. It was magnificent. Spend some time in the Missouri stretch and meet the characters. We lost Gary Turner of Gay Parita he was wonderful person and it is a site worth visiting and Scot Cameron of Route 66 Sodas. There are so many little neat places, ghost towns etc. that you have to look for that are easy to miss. At Spencer Oklahoma there is still a stretch of the original hand laid highway that you can drive on. It was hand troweled in 1926. Be sure to stop in and visit Fran's curio shop at midpoint Texas. The character Flo in cars was based on her. She has a wonderful story about that. Some days we only drove 30 miles or so through the Missouri sections as there is so much to see there. They allowed us to park right in front of the Big Driller at the Oklahoma State Fair for a photo op! You will get a lot of comments on your C7 and meet a lot of great people. Our favorite stop was the Blue Swallow in Tucumcari, N. M. We had the Tow Mater room as the Lightning McQueen room was already booked. Be sure to stop at Russell's Truck Stop and check out the museum. There is a 1955 mint Corvette with less than 400 miles on it. All original. One of the best vacations we have ever taken and we intend to do it again. We crossed back and forth over the boring Interstate in order to drive the original route whenever possible. It really is a sort of Corvette Heaven.
08-07-2015, 03:27 PM
Historic Route 66 Turn by Turn Directions?
