DO you ever wish you were back in the Fifties, cruising across the Wild West of America to find the California sun?
It’s not such wishful thinking... because you can do it for real in the 21st Century. Well, almost.
Route 66, just like the song says, winds from Chicago to LA, more than 2,000 miles all the way. And you can still find classic rock ’n’ roll blasting from Wurlitzer jukeboxes in neon-lit diners, drive-ins and roadhouses.
The Mother Road, as John Steinbeck called the highway in his novel The Grapes of Wrath, is the ultimate road trip, made by everyone from poor Oklahomans in the Great Depression to free-loving hippies in VW campers and bikers on souped-up Harleys.
But we got our kicks on Route 66 by letting someone else do the driving – taking our seats on a Cosmos Tourama coach. Fellow adventurers on this trip of a lifetime included a car-obsessed couple from Norwich, and 80-year-old Winnie from Wolverhampton, and we all found good times and nostalgia galore.
In just 14 days we travelled through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. We saw cowboys driving steers across wide-open plains, Red Indians in a 1,000-year-old “sky city”. We found Jesse James’ hideout and saw mile-long freight trains trundling along at a tortoise’s pace, along with vast deserts, breathtaking canyons, the flashing lights of Las Vegas and the famous pavement stars of Hollywood.
And with the dollar at more than two to the pound our cash went a long way.
But Route 66 itself is now history. Its slow death began in the Fifties when the first of America’s interstate highways were built. By the mid-1980s, it had been bypassed and decommissioned out of existence. So it’s impossible to travel the whole original route nowadays – parts of it have been obliterated and other stretches are in such a bad state you’d need a 4x4.
But in the last decade or so the people who live along this lost highway – determined to keep the dream alive and stop their dusty settlements turning into ghost towns – have campaigned to revive interest and to preserve what was still standing. And on the traffic jam-free interstates there are plenty of places to turn off and find yourself in a time-warp, surrounded by the legendary icons of Americana.
Among the skyscrapers and modern sculpture of Chicago, the USA’s third biggest city, Route 66 seems forgotten apart from the sign on State Street marking the start of the world’s most famous highway.
At O’Hare airport our friendly Cosmos tour director, Tammy, wasn’t hard to spot with her bright orange bouffant, and she got us smoothly transferred to a central hotel just one block from the city’s biggest and glitziest shops in the “Magnificent Mile”.
The great stone lion outside the Chicago Art Center is meant to roar when a virgin walks by. Not a peep. But it’s easy to see why Sinatra sang that Chicago was his kind of town.
Next morning we left the city behind, cruising through the cornfields and prairies of rural Illinois. We left the interstate at Wilmington to see the first of many Route 66 curiosities at the roadside – the Gemini Giant. He’s a 20ft tall fibreglass rocket man who once advertised car exhaust mufflers.
Then we moved on on to Springfield, state capital of Illinois, to see the tomb of Abe Lincoln, rubbing the brass nose of his statue outside for luck. We also checked out the revered president’s humble home near the centre of the city, a block away from the old Route 66.
There are a dozen or so Route 66 museums along the highway, but Springfield’s Gas Station Museum is one of the most eccentric. With silly signs such as “entrepreneurs should mind their own business”, a shack full of rusty oil cans, car parts and gas pumps plus the oldest gas station in the state – it dates from 1910 and was transplanted here wholesale – it’s a crazy stop-off.
Later, with local tunes Meet Me In St Louis, St Louis Blues and Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer ringing in our ears, we crossed the Mississippi River into St Louis. This fine old city is dominated by a 630ft-high steel arch called Monument To A Dream, built in the 1960s to mark the gateway to the American West. Next morning, we nervously stepped into a claustrophobic carriage which clanked its way inside the arch right up to the top. The view was staggering... or it would have been on a clear day.
Route 66 went right by the St Louis cathedral, which rivals some of the finest in Europe in splendour. The inside is decorated with the largest mosaic in the world – 41.5 million pieces of pink, gold, green and red glass.
The state of Missouri seems to be one great forest, so it’s not surprising this was where all the best outlaws, such as Frank and Jesse James, plied their trade.
We were heading for the town of Branson, some way south of Route 66. This is Showbiz Nostalgia Central – like a modern-day lawless frontier town with an unplanned, narrow road system and motels and theatres simply everywhere.
You can catch shows for breakfast, lunch and dinner – Andy Williams’ Moon River Grill, the Osmond Family Theatre and more than 100 other venues.
At Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, a temple of Fifties kitsch, we were shown around an immaculate showroom full of mint-condition, gleaming 1957 automobiles, and watched a slickly-produced show starring veteran crooners Fabian, Bobby Vee, The Chiffons and Brian Hyland.
Neighbouring Oklahoma is Cherokee country, but Totem Pole Park near the town of Foyil was established by Nathan “Ed” Galloway, an Irish-American self-taught artist who decided to build what’s claimed to be the world’s tallest totem pole – it’s 90ft tall – out of colourfully-painted concrete in 1948. He just wanted to give people something to look at.
Moving on to Claremore, we learned at a museum dedicated to Will Rogers that the star of countless Westerns was a real-life lasso ace who toured the world with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show at the turn of the century. He was also one-quarter Cherokee, and very proud of it. His epitaph was “I never met a man I didn’t like”, and he seemed a nice enough fella himself.
We learned lots more about the Old West in Oklahoma City at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. There’s a recreated Wild West town at dusk, a room dedicated to Samuel Colt, who invented the revolver, and another featuring, incredibly, 1,300 types of barbed wire.
Though the museum celebrates Hollywood legends such as John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and singing cowboy Gene Autry, it doesn’t shy away from recounting the massive injustices done to Native Americans. And I never knew before that cowboys originated in Ireland, circa 1000AD.
As the vast pastures of Oklahoma gave way to the endless plains of the Texas Panhandle, endless signs showed us the way to Amarillo – our stop for the night. Next morning we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch, where a dozen old cars are plunged upright into the ground, and we were issued with spray-paint cans and urged to go crazy with graffiti. There didn’t seem to be a lot else to do in these parts.
The next day we passed Route 66’s mid-point, marked with a diner serving great apple cobbler – that’s a type of pie – and crossed from Texas to New Mexico.
Jagged ridges start rising from the pancake-flat plains at Tucumcari, a Comanche word for ambush, and that’s the town to cruise through at night to see Route 66 in its full neon glory. The Blue Swallow and Apache motels are iconic sights at night, but sadly our timing was out and we saw them in daylight.
Albuquerque’s old town is 300 years old, and the restored buildings are made of mud bricks. It also houses some great Mexican restaurants, notably Casa de Fiesta. We got a two-day break here, and boredom wasn’t an option – particularly with the Rattlesnake Museum and buzzing nightlife of Downtown.
Next stop was Akoma Sky City, so called because it balances on a sheer 500ft mesa (rock bluff). It also claims to be America’s oldest continuously-inhabited settlement, dating back 1000 years.
Soon we reached Gallup, location for countless old Western movies. The Hotel El Rancho is where everyone from Errol Flynn and Burt Lancaster to Mae West and Doris Day stayed, and it has been lovingly restored with signed photographs of the stars lining the walls. The Cosmos tour makes an irresistible diversion from the old Route 66 to take in the Grand Canyon in Arizona – just as spectacular as it appears in all the photographs and films.
The tour also takes in Las Vegas, Nevada, where even if you’re not a gambler, you can’t fail to be dazzled by all the light shows and water and firework spectaculars along the Strip. There were even roller-coaster thrills and spills at our hotel, the Stratosphere. At 1,149ft it’s the tallest building in Vegas and the three rides on its roof are the highest in the world.
Gambling’s a loser’s game, of course, but even I managed to be $10 up at the end of the night. We also saw a lavish Moulin Rouge-style show called Jubilee, at Bally’s along the Strip.
Leaving Las Vegas, we crossed the Mojave Desert and San Bernadino mountains of California to eventually arrive at Santa Monica, now part of the sprawl of Los Angeles. Inexplicably, the old Route 66 ended eight blocks away from the coast, but Santa Monica’s 1902 pier is its spiritual finishing point, and close to the Hotel California of The Eagles fame. Sadly, our first view of the Pacific was enveloped by a real pea-souper smog.
As our epic adventure came to an end the stars were waiting for us – as they are for everyone on Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame. More than 2,000 golden stars are set into the pavement with a movie giant under every footstep.
Yes, we got our kicks on Route 66... big time.
WHAT'S THE DEAL?
We travelled with Cosmos Tourama, booking the 14-night Route 66 tour with escorted touring specialists Archers Direct. The tour costs £1,185pp including flights from up to eight UK airports, accommodation and a wide range of included excursions. Booking two extra nights in Los Angeles costs from an extra £99pp, and three extra nights in San Francisco from £139pp. See www.archersdirect.co.uk, or call 0871 423 8508 for a brochure and 0871 622 4519 for reservations.
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