If you ever plan to motor west, Travel my way, take the highway that’s the best.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.
It winds from chicago to la,
More than two thousand miles all the way.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six. (Nat King Cole, Route 66, YouTube)
That was
us! We planned to motor west; we were
looking for some kicks, so we decided on Route 66.
We got to
Chicago on May 6th, grabbed our Tahoe rental and headed out. Our only time commitment stretched 13 days
away, at 7 am May 18th when our flight for home left LAX. Such freedom!
A few months
of prep work got us a three ring binder that held The Route 66 Map Series, a list of Route 66 attractions as
well as a few “off-route” ones, and of course an enticing list of “foodie”
stops. It was great fun when we stumbled
across Billy Connolly's Route
66, a British
documentary television series, consisting of four episodes, shot between April
and June 2011. His unique take on the
route and British accent made the episodes (found on YouTube) an entertaining preview
of the trip to come.
Other than
following the route, we had no agenda and no reservations. Lucky for us, the past thirty years together
have held many road trips, so the prospect of spending the better part of two
weeks in a car together didn’t scare us.
We quickly settled into a routine of changing hotels each night and a
balance of road time, attraction time and down time.
It took a
bit, but we deciphered the flow and instructions of the maps which were a
little quirky and with basically no mileage markers, or lengths of travel but
more landmarks and route turns. It was a
mix of constant vigilance and a willingness to miss a turn or two and just keep
on going. We would make a rough plan of
the next leg of the journey either the night before in the hotel room or over a
leisurely breakfast.
Somewhere
around mid-afternoon we’d decide on our stopping point for the night and call
ahead to make a reservation. Traveling
in the off-season made this possible and we didn’t run into any issues until
our very last reservation, but we were in LA by then, truly back to
civilization and it made for an interesting twist!
So what was the REALITY of spending two weeks together, rolling
over two thousand miles in 13 days?
Well, it WAS a lot of time ~ and when all was said and done, on the last
night over dinner, I asked Steve if he was ready to go home. He replied, “I could keep going…” And I could
have too. So, maybe the trip will hold
more than memories for us. It could be
an initiation into more cross country trips like it or it could be a glimpse into
our retirement lifestyle. Then again, it
may just be another fond memory of the vacation we took for our thirtieth
anniversary.
In any form, it was great and the blog series is where I plan
to write and share some of the highlights of the sites and places we visited, meals that
ranged from awesome steaks to dashboard reheats, a roadway that seemed to come
as go as it pleased (even into a dry riverbed) and a little friend we picked up
along the way.
Join me, won’t you?
