Product Description It started in the heartland and originally ended in Los Angeles (not, contrary to myth, at the ocean). It carried truckers crossing the country, Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl, vacationers seeking the sun. It was America’s Main Street, the Mother Road, the Will Rogers Highway, and, at its dangerous curves, Bloody 66. Get your kicks on Route 66 with this wonderfully illustrated tribute to the best-loved highway in this car-loving nation. Michael Witzel shares his expertise and wealth of personal, archive, collector, and contributing photographer images in these pages, offering a nostalgic tour of the charms and oddities of this road through American cultural history.
Starting in Chicago and running to Santa Monica, this book highlights the sights along the highway with historic and current photos in then-and-now pairings, and includes Route 66 postcards, road signs, trinkets, maps, brochures, and advertisements. Here we see Route 66 as it was in its heyday and as it is now, the neon glamour of yesterday versus the ghost towns of today. Witzel and his wife, Gyvel Young-Witzel, recount the highway’s history, its role in popular culture, and its demise, as well as the individual stories of famous sights. Several profiles of those with close ties to the Mother Road, including the woman who played Ruthie Joad in the The Grapes of Wrath film, are included.
It still has the charisma for drivers offering a carefree drive by just passing along its 2,450-mile from Illinois-to-California. I am talking about the legendary Route 66 or known as the Mother Road. For three decades before and after World War II, Route 66 earned the title “Main Street of America” because it wound through small towns across the Midwest and Southwest, lined by hundreds of cafés, motels, gas stations, and tourist attractions. Driving along this route is not as much scenic as you can imagine, rather it gives the lightest feeling almost probably the feeling you get when you drive through the Blue Ridge Highway. This makes a great time of driving without a DVD. Very pleasant and good enough to be paralleled to a wonderful trip. I’m not implying that there’s nothing to see in Route 66, both natural and man made creations give their own participation. Both make and made Route 66 an unforgettable experience. Some say that taking the route reminds you of what America has been and now. Few drivers say it makes you a retro driver. Rolling down your window to relax your arm while the other one lightly maneuvers, your head with shades on held high. I say this is the great time of driving in United States.If you want a more relax drive plan for this trip, best doing it in spring or early summer. This means days of driving as it is really long. Along the way you’ll pass through restaurants, accommodations, campgrounds and great stops. This is also perfect for your RV rental USA. Enjoy!
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Known as the Main Street of America and the Mother Road, U.S. Route 66 is the nation’s best known highway. Once the microcosm of a culture increasingly connected by automobiles, its sights and attractions are now a fascinating reflection of a nation on the move. Travel this iconic highway through the heart of America with Route 66 Backroads as your guide. This lavishly illustrated book steers you from Chicago to Los Angeles, traveling through the lowlands of the American Plains and the high plateaus of New Mexico and Arizona, from the Great Lakes to the mighty Pacific Ocean, and through major metropolises and remote country towns.
Branch away from the Mother Road, and you encounter gems hidden beyond today’s standard motels and tourist traps—the quaint frontier communities that date back to the nation’s westward expansion; the legacy of ancient native cultures; and the awe-inspiring natural wonders that have graced these lands since time immemorial. State parks, wildlife refuges, museums, historic sites, literary landmarks, and much more are there to be explored within a few hours’ drive from the path of Route 66. The fifty trips included here offer new travel opportunities for the thousands of road-trippers who follow this legendary route, looking for something more.
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description Next year will mark the 75th anniversary of America’s most legendary highway, Route 66. This 2,400-mile stretch of interstate runs across eight states and straight through the American psyche. John Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, and carloads of nuclear families from the 1920s to the 1960s threaded their way through the heartland, and the unique restaurants that blossomed along Route 66 are justly celebrated. There are other successful road guides, but Marian Clark’s The Route 66 Cookbook is the only culinary guide to what Steinbeck dubbed “The Mother Road.” It includes over 250 delicious, time-tested recipes from places like the U Drop Inn, the Covered Wagon Trading Post, the Pig Hip, and the Bungalow Inn. It is also a nostalgic recreation of the Route 66 of the past, with stories from the waitresses and cooks who poured the coffee and baked the pie. With 105 b&w illustrations–as well as a new 16-page color section–this is a gem of Americana, and a treasury of comforting dishes from a time when the flavors along the road changed as dramatically as the landscape and accents as you sped across the heartland.
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description America’s Main Street is celebration, Michael Wallis hit the road again, revisiting people and places that made the Mother Road on American icon, and uncovering new treasures. A love letter and a tribute, Route 66: The Mother Road takes us on an unforgettable journey through the secret corners and hidden towns of America’s most famous and beloved highway.
Pop bottle enthusiasts, like the object of their affection, are composed of some volatile ingredients. The main element is nostalgia with a passionate effervescence as the driving force. Add some dynamic intensity as a stimulant and a pinch of fanaticism to give it some fizz and you’ve got yourself a true soda pop bedlamite.
Besides the occasional convention and the next big bottle show, there were few places to exhilerate and excite such a person. There is now a new third choice. A place appropriately called “Pops”.
I first discovered Pops by accident while acting upon a lifelong desire to drive the infamous Route 66. It was the early evening of day three of my journey when I entered the unruffled Deep Fork River valley in Arcadia, Oklahoma. The glorious sunset had already finished as I drove westward on the Mother Road. The horizon now hid the sun which left the sky stained a beautiful crimson as dusk began to fall. My rented Audi hummed through the peaceful farmland that seemed to be endless. Words cannot begin to describe the freedom one feels while driving this iconic roadway. Thanks to cruise control and the virtually empty road, my eyes were free to wander and take in all the serenity that this stretch has to offer.
Then, suddenly something happened. The far reaches of the landscape were interrupted by something completely foreign to anything I’d expected to see in the flat outlands of Arcadia. “Is that a pop bottle?” I wondered out loud. It was and no, it wasn’t lying in the road. It was off in the distance glowing with lights and over sixty feet tall. Many times on my trip I felt as if I were dreaming but this time I pinched myself. I couldn’t be sure if this was real or not. For lack of a better description, it was out of this world.
As I drew closer another object began to come into view. Next to the towering bottle was another object. I rubbed my eyes and tried to refocus. It appeared to be something from outer space. Some sort of craft was just hovering there. At first, I thought maybe space aliens have as much interest in this giant bottle as I do. Then I noticed there are cars parked beneath this thing. People were pumping gas. This was a gas station. I looked at my fuel gauge. My tank was three-quarters full. I didn’t need gasoline but I definately needed to stop and check this out.
I parked the Audi and stepped out of the car. I was in awe and staring with my mouth gaping open. The strange “spaceship” turned out to actually be a cantilever looming out from a comparatively tiny building. Criss-crossed steel beams seemed to levitate over the futuristic gas pumps. Looking at it, you would think the giant hundred foot awning would topple under its own weight and uproot the smaller building that anchored it. This is an architectural miracle, truly divine.
I closed my mouth and headed toward Pops. The front of the building is primarily made of glass, like one huge window. It was an enormous showcase displaying a gigantic colorful palette of soda pops, more than 7,500 of them. I could hear angels singing as I entered through the gates of soda pop heaven.
Once inside, I met numerous others that had apparently died and came to this place just like me. Some were sitting at the counter of a 50′s-style soda fountain sipping their malts, floats and surreal-colored sodas through crooked straws. Others were consuming a variety of savory burgers, obviously the preferred cuisine in pop paradise. I quickly found an open seat at the counter and asked the angel working behind it for a soda. She informed me that the menu consisted of over four- hundred choices; everything from Austrian Cola to Hawaii’s Waialuan Pineapple. I figured since this was heaven I should order appropriately, so I ordered “Amazing Grapes” (with a crooked straw, of course).
During my visit I was able to gather some interesting facts about Pops. That giant bottle out front is exactly sixty-six feet tall to commemorate the historic route. Named Bubbles, it is twenty feet in diameter, covered top to bottom with LED lights able to offer a dazzling light show and, of course, the tallest pop bottle in the world.
Pops opened its doors in July 2007, about one year after groundbreaking and offers a full menu that includes breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as homestyle and gourmet catering for reunions, picnics and other events. Weather permitting, you may choose to dine outdoors in the Deep Fork Tree Farm courtyard adjacent to the well manicured orchard of 66 Red Bud trees. Don’t forget to visit the gift shop where you can purchase souvenirs or pick up a little something for your own special soda freak.
The visionary responsible for the creation of this bubbling nirvana is not a diety but Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy. It all started with a need for another gas station, but just another gas station seemed dull. McClendon realized it should be something splendid so he brought Rand Elliott, Oklahoma’s favorite architect aboard. Together, they have managed to build a true attraction with a very unique blend of the past and the future, which will certainly prove to be draw whether you’re a pop nut or not. Marilyn Murril, mayor of Arcadia said this about Pops; “This is such a magnificent attraction, a destination for tourism [that] will bring more people to Arcadia.”
For those still doubtful about whether I was truly in heaven or not, recently the cast and crew of one of TNT’s hit TV shows dropped in for a brunch buffet and to sample some fizz. Which show? Saving Grace.
Get your kicks on Route 66! Driving Down Route 66, “the Mother Road,” Between Kingman and Seligman, Arizona.
A jazzy travelogue, a song of the highway. “Route 66″ by The Manhattan Transfer.
ROUTE 66 BETWEEN SELIGMAN AND KINGMAN, AZ