Route 66

"Get your kicks, on Route 66." To be honest I never really understood that song. Now I've seen a part of the old Route 66 and I'm just as befogged as before. I get the legend, the great transamerican journey made by millions of young explorers going west, just like the pioneers of the past. This is the ultimate car culture and the movies have given me a close enough affinity to sense the romance in a generation of travellers on the endless miles of two lane highway.

Alas, few traces of that romance remain for the young foreign traveller without personal nostalgia to pad out the experience. As the sign below suggests, Route 66 doesn't go as far as it once did.

The only original Route 66 sign I saw was tacked to a motel in a town called Needles.

The motel trades heavily on its Route 66 connection, but is probably hurt by the proximity of those same freight trains that kept me company in Kingman.

Based on the state of the former gas station across the road, it doesn't get a lot of traffic these days. I feel a faint sense of loss, and it's not even my history.

At least some fellow travellers were sharing the Route 66 experience in Needles. We stopped for breakfast with some strange bedfellows.