Last weekend found me in Springfield, IL for a
medical conference. It conveniently
happened to be scheduled the same weekend as their Route 66 Festival so Sophie came along for a fun daddy- daughter
road trip.
If you get hip to this kind of trip, I strongly
recommend it. The otherwise unremarkable
small downtown area was transformed into a classic car show. We were both enamored with the hundreds of
antique cars laid out row upon row upon row.
There was classic rock throughout the air. And there was food, glorious fair food!
Sophie was intensely curious about this road;
what is all this fuss about? I
explained it the only way a 6 year old can relate to: with Disney. As I finished presenting at my conference,
Sophie watched Cars on my iPad, finally appreciating the backstory of the
decline of Radiator Springs. (click to see the clip from Cars)
Route 66 was created in 1926 and in 1938 became
the first US highway to be paved from end to end. But it was not the first highway and was
never trans-continental. That honor
Yet it is Route 66 that remains the more famous
of these early roads, carrying the moniker “The Mother Road” as penned by John
Steinbeck. Why has it captured our
imagination so? Because a hit song first
recorded by Nat King Cole reminds of the cities is passes through? Because there was a TV show about it? Or because it holds an indelible place in
American demography; migrants headed to California from the dust bowl traveled
its path. And, following World War II,
the growth of industry in Southern California drew more families from Chicago
and the Southeast.
Mostly, I believe it is nostalgia that the road
evokes for many of us. Its path through
the Southwest is mostly paralleled by Interstate 40. This brings it along a multitude of classic
summer vacation sights, including the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. Everyone has a memory of some summer with the
family driving the route dotted with jackalope statues and Indian Trading Posts
When we finally left Springfield, Sophie was
hooked; she kept looking out the window at passing side roads and asking,
"is that Route 66?" So when
we got near Chicago I made a detour to drive its path for a few miles. By pure luck, we were passing a few miles
east of Joliet, just south of Naperville when we hit this unassuming intersection:
Not impressed?
That’s ok.
It wouldn’t know it if you weren't looking for it, but this just happens to
be the only place in the country where Route 66 and the Lincoln Highway
cross! See, they put a marker nearby:
I thought it was pretty cool. So did Sophie!
Fight On,
Hans
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