Route 66 Mapping

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The Mother Road: Historic Route 66 – a great information website has “Turn by Turn” maps that identify where Route 66 is, since some of the original road is no longer, and most of it isn’t marked with highway markers anymore.

Turn by Turn Route 66 in Google Maps – Some kind Google Earth enthusiast has taken the maps from the site above and plotted them out using Google Earth/Maps. Awesome!

Photographic Interests in Illinois along Route 66 – Someone else marked famous landmarks in Illinois via Google Earth. Nice, handy.

However, if you just want to follow along with the song – there’s a google earth map for that, too.

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Get Your Kicks on Route 66

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At the end of June, Stephanie and I are going to take her new Beetle, Phoebe, on the annual road trip caravan to Roswell, New Mexico – Roswell 2k. This year there’s a Route 66 version of the trip, which we’ll be joining in Chicago, along with several of Stephanie’s Beetle-owning friends. So we’ll drive with around 30 other Beetles, all the way out to California on Route 66 (the Mother Road, Main Street of America, the Great Diagonal Way), with a few days in Roswell for the car show, and a trip to the Grand Canyon along the way. Should be an amazing trip, and I plan to photo/blog the whole thing. It appears that Stephanie’s friend Lisa, who webcam documented entire previous trips, will have the live cams up and running again this year. Should be a blast.

What’s cool is that in 1998, almost 10 years ago now, I helped a couple friends move out to Arizona, and we traveled part of Route 66 then. The photo below is of that trip. The U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas has since been renovated and is open as some sort of attraction; when we were there it was closed and boarded up.

We’re doing some reading to prepare for the trip; we’ve got a few books here and there, and I picked up a DVD from the library at lunch. I also bought a copy of Kerouac’s On The Road for the trip; I figured that would be appropriate reading. I think I’ll pass on reading the Grapes of Wrath, though.

I’m also putting together a Route 66 Music Mix for the trip, too.

Our Route 66 Itinerary [Google Mapped]

U Drop Inn Cafe

Continue ReadingGet Your Kicks on Route 66