Gettin' my kicks on ol' Route 66 (56K DEATH)

[homeforsummer]

Right, I've finally got around to making a thread about it. I always catch myself saying things like "when I was in the States" or "when I drove Route 66" so now I finally have a thread that actually backs it up! The short version of the story is that back in 2006 myself and a couple of friends decided we wanted to go on a road trip, and after not a lot of research we decided that we wanted to do THE road trip, and chose Route 66, the "mother road" from Chicago to LA. I'll spare you the history lesson and instead furnish you with the pictures.

I'm a bit of a keen photographer and whilst I was out there I took well over a thousand photographs, but I shall spare you the torture and only post a couple of hundred at the most. Needless to say there'll be a lot of photos and if you're reading this and the page is taking forever to load, I'd recommend you give up sooner rather than later. That said. I'm uploading them all at 640 pixels on the longest side so it shouldn't be too bad. Anyway - on with the photos...

We start with Heathrow airport and then some spectacular views over the glaciers of Greenland - incredible how big everything looks considering we were at 37k feet.

We by the time we got to our motel I was too tired and it was too dark to take photos - so the following morning, this was the view out. Later that day we picked up our car (that's me looking like a dork on the right, my friend Lu on the left who I'll be living with from July) and headed to Chicago.

Into Chicago, and a little taste of Europe... and no trip would be complete without a trip to Hard Rock Cafe. After lunch, a little wander around and passing the Picasso sculpture. That's my other mate Martin, walking across the bottom of the frame in the sculpture pic.

And no trip to Chicago is complete without Sears tower... In the 4th pic - Hard Rock Cafe from rather high up. The view in general - what a way to start a holiday!

The next day, back into Chicago again, and some views from Millennium Park including the spectacular "Cloud Gate" sculpture. Including obligatory reflection picture of the three of us. And I did have to get a photo of the famous sign.

Later that day, on to Springfield IL (past "The Needle", in the first pic), home of Abe Lincoln whose home has been restored in a slightly clinical and creepy way, and a mural on a shop front. We later passed one of the oldest gas stations along the route.

A day later, a trip over the Mississippi marking the entrance into Missouri, and a visit to the spectacular Gateway Arch in St. Louis, also marking our second "high point" on the trip... we later took a brief detour to a car museum/garage - some real classics in there and all were for sale.

I must say, we aren't used to huge lorries overtaking us in the UK... and our arrival at a classic Route 66 motel, the Munger Moss in Lebanon, Missouri.

We didn't take too many photos through the rest of Missouri, but the State did give us a massive rainstorm, though the short stretch of sleepy Kansas offered us more sunshine.

Oklahoma offered us the amusingly named Spunky Creek, and a good deal on camels too. We couldn't do Route 66 without visiting OK's famous round barn either... or at least, they claim it's famous. Regardless, it's pleasant and the people who work there were friendly, so it gets the thumbs up from me.

And that's where I'll leave it for now! 40 pictures in and probably a third the way across the country is enough for any web browser for the time being. I'll add some more later, enjoy! 👍

 

[Flerbizky]

What can I say apart from 👍

 

[boiltheocean]

Some very nice pictures you have. Good descriptions too, sounds like you had a great time 👍

 

[Smallhorses]

Incredible pictures homeforsummer, crystal clear colours and the clarity is excellent. 👍
Looking forward to seeing the rest of them, and seeing how you captured the places we visited on Route 66 in Arizona back in Sept 2006.
Who knows? We might even have been on the same stretch of road at the same time!
There's a photo of our Mazda Miata at the historic gas station at Hackberry in my Miscellaneousness profile album.

 

[homeforsummer]

What I forgot to mention in my original post is that we planned the trip in 2006 and 2007, and did the trip in September 2007 (we flew on September 1st). So we probably weren't on the same bit of road at the same time

I'll check out your Miata photo (EDIT: I've had a look, that's cool And the Monument Valley picture is stunning - we didn't visit that but should have. I'll have to do the trip again... what a shame!) 👍 More photos from the trip to follow.

 

[Syntax error]

Enjoyable story, keep them coming. I always think about doing threads like this but I usually end up forgetting to do nice little documentary styled shots and only end up taking a few "artsy" photos to the great annoyance of my wife.

 

[homeforsummer]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH. I hate hitting buttons accidentally. I've just spent the last half hour writing up the next section... and then I lost it all. Ah well, a few deep breaths and start again...

So, more pics then. Starting where I left off, the round barn. Complete with weird acoustic effects that allow you to hear someone whispering across the other side of the barn, but make it more difficult to hear the person next to you. After that we have Fort Reno just before the Texan border, and The World's Biggest Cross, which I think now isn't actually the biggest any more. Come on Texas!

Next, the Big Texan Steak Ranch, home of the world famous 72oz. steak that you get for free if you can eat it and all the sides they give you in under an hour. Yes, we ate at the restaurant and no, we weren't mental enough to have the massive steak. The ones we did have though were absolutely perfect and undoubtably the best steaks we've ever had. Texas definitely redeemed itself for not having the biggest cross with those steaks. The colourful buildings are a motel near the ranch. You might recognise the interestingly arranged cars as Cadillac Ranch, a sort of automotive (and vastly more interesting) Stonehenge.

Gettin' our kicks on... oh, bugger. Apparently, Route 66 ends here, and we should have taken that last freeway exit. Luckily, we'd only done a mile or so on the closed section.

The Last Motel In Texas. Unless you're coming from the other direction, when it's The First Motel In Texas (no joke, the sign is different depending on your direction...). I'm not sure it's been a motel of any sort for a while now though. The rooms looked a bit draughty, that's for sure.

Ladies and Gentlemen - welcome to the middle of freakin' nowhere. This dirt track actually passes as a bit of the official Route as you leave Texas and enter New Mexico.

That's all for now, more tomorrow when I can be bothered to upload more photos!

 

[DaddyVDUB]

Wow Awesome! You've seen more of the US than me and I live here. Nice pics Thanks.

 

[homeforsummer]

Ironically, I've just done exactly as I did last time I posted, clicked a link which lost all my text. Luckily, I'd only been typing for about five minutes...

Anyway, I realised I hadn't got very far with the photos for a while so here's another update. You join us in Santa Rosa NM. We'd crossed into NM last time from the Texas Panhandle, entering the State on about 20 or more miles of dirt road as opposed to the speed and smoothness of the Interstate. Our guidebook recommended Santa Rosa as there was a classic car museum there, which turned out to be only about two minutes from the motel we were staying in the night we got to NM. Here's a small selection of the pictures I took there:

Back on the road, we decided to take the well-trodden detour (still on the Route but on a different section) towards Santa Fe. There are two options on the Route - one goes straight to Alberquerque, and the other up to Santa Fe. The latter seemed too interesting to miss. We got into Santa Fe to a little disappointment, as we initially struggled to find the center (awful signposting) and got lost around the depressing, characterless fast-food-filled outskirts that every town in the US seems to have. Eventually though, after a trip to a cultural museum, we found the centre. The weather improved too,the bleak skies and rain showers replaced by brilliant sunshine.

We parked near the church of St. Francis of Assisi. I'm not remotely religious but architecturally I still love churches and the church of St. Francis was beautiful.

We meandered into town and discovered our timing had been perfect, as Santa Fe were having some sort of festival that day so the square in the centre of the town was filled with people eating, drinking and generally being merry. We had a walk around for a few hours, admiring the adobe architecture, the racks of chillis and the mysteriously-named shops.

We headed off again, towards Albequerque (I'll probably end up spelling this several different ways as I'm too lazy to find the correct spelling...) and stayed at a motel for the night. Where we failed to find alchohol in the local Wal-Mart ("because there's a school nearby", we were told... though naturally, they sold guns instead) and instead purchased our drinks from a gas station (which is a much better place to sell achohol, right?).

We'd heard the New Mexico state fair was on so (again, great timing) so we headed into the centre to find out where in a tourist info office. Here's our view onto the city and an impressive complex right in the middle:

We were given directions to the fair, which was an enjoyable way to spend four or five hours out in the sun.

Still, time waits for no man (nor does it wait for the solitary lady in the group), and by the early afternoon we headed on once more, for the border into Arizona. Mountains and expanses of nothingness soon followed...

We took mainly to the I-40 as sections of the original route were few and far between around here and the weather was getting pretty stormy, not the best conditions for getting lost or peering at road signs. Thanks to the protected Najavo areas, there was virtually nowhere to stop all the way until Holbrook. We'd passed signs for the painted desert and petrified forest national parks about 50 miles previous but Holbrook was the first place we were able to stay for the night. It was literally just that, with Holbrook being a commercial strip, in the middle of nowhere with nothing in particular to do. So we went to another Wal-Mart to buy provisions and a Johnny Cash CD. As you can see though, we back-tracked the next day to the beautiful national parks, to which my photos don't do justice (and they also can't explain quite how hot it was out there either...). The last image is of 10,000 year-old Petroglyphs in a rocky section of the park.

That night, we stopped in Flagstaff, which I loved. Once again, a nightmare to get into but the tourist info office were helpful, we found a brilliant little restaurant called "Mountain Oasis" (Woop, they have a website) where after having gorged ourselves to bursting point, the evil waiter came along and offered us the most delicious looking cakes by actually showing us the damn things, meaning we were unable to refuse. I think we almost exploded that night. We also battered a motel down to giving us a massive room (well, technically two joined together at the front of the building) for not a lot of money. Result.

...And that's where I'm leaving you again. More shall follow at a later date... any guesses where we headed next?...

 

[FoolKiller]

This is awesome. My wife and I are visiting friends in St.Louis this coming weekend and I think that on Sunday we are deviting most of thye day to driving down Route 66 for as lolng as we feel like and then heading back.

Is there anything in the St. Louis area you suggest I check out on Route 66?

I don't need any tips in St. Louis itself as we will have locals as guides, but they aren't the type to enjoy a good drive down Route 66. If my wife likes it then I am going to attempt to plan a week-long vacation just driving it as far as we can.

 

[Syntax error]

👍 enjoying the story and photos so far... keep them coming.

 

[Aldo]

Some quite awe-inspiring pictures homeforsummer 👍 (especially the one with the petroglyphs)
Keep posting

 

[homeforsummer]

Thanks for the comments all 👍

This is awesome. My wife and I are visiting friends in St.Louis this coming weekend and I think that on Sunday we are deviting most of thye day to driving down Route 66 for as lolng as we feel like and then heading back.

Is there anything in the St. Louis area you suggest I check out on Route 66?

I don't need any tips in St. Louis itself as we will have locals as guides, but they aren't the type to enjoy a good drive down Route 66. If my wife likes it then I am going to attempt to plan a week-long vacation just driving it as far as we can.

I'm assuming you're already going to do the Gateway Arch, town hall and stuff in the centre of St. Louis. As for Route 66 stuff... well I think we only took a small detour to do that car museum/garage further up - I expect it'll be looking very different now as all the "exhibits" were for sale and most have likely changed hands. Even so, there were some beautiful cars in there.

You could try going to the Chain of Rocks bridge. We couldn't actually find it (I don't think our guidebook was brilliant with directions and we didn't actually have a map at this point...) but it's a major tourist attraction on the Route.

Unfortunately, Missouri as a whole wasn't that entertaining as far as Route 66 stuff. Even the gift shops we came across had more Oklahoma stuff than Missiouri stuff! And the Route is very badly signposted in MI. As in, barely signposted at all. We mostly took to the Interstate as it was too difficult with too little reward to try and find the original Route.

I'd love to be able to recommend more but in all honesty there wasn't a great deal on the Route at this point. There's much more going further towards Chicago in some of the little villages, and more once you get out of Missouri but both these options are probably too far out of your way. If you do feel like going further then Illinois is a better bet than heading further into Missouri. If you can stretch as far as Springfield IL there's Lincoln's house and I could direct you to a lovely little cafe! The Route is fairly well signposted in Illinois.

 

[dougiemeats]

Excellent photos (the Sears Tower and rows of cars at the Cadillac Ranch in particular) and a good read. Thanks for sharing! 👍

 

[Roo]

How on earth did I miss this thread?

Looking good thus far, shall keep an eye out for the next episode. However, I'm going to have to introduce you to the wonderful world of thumbnails at the weekend (Photobucket even does all the formatting for you!)

 

[homeforsummer]

Thumbnails are overrated I'm only posting at 640x480 and it allows people to see all the photos I'd like them to see at a reasonable enough resolution without taking yonks to load.

So anyway, we finished on the road before... heading North from Flagstaff, towards...

This:

Absolutely, totally, mind-blowingly staggering to behold. This is the one thing I've ever photographed that absolutely isn't done justice by simply looking at photos. It's so big that the other side, at this point around eight miles or more away, looks simply like a painting. The Colorado river below looks like a stream. As you can see from the second-last pic above, we wandered down into the Canyon a hundred meters or so, and then wheezed our way back up in thinner oxygen than we're used to. The Colorado pic is taken with my 200mm lens and still looks tiny.

Taking a break from the Canyon, we took a guided tour around some 1000+ year-old Puebloan ruins hidden in the woods, with an interesting and enthusiastic tour guide whose name escapes me and I didn't write down. We then headed back to the Canyon ridge for more gawping, heading steadily Eastwards until we reached the Desert View Watchtower, originally a 1930s gift shop.

Back on the straight and narrow...

That night we stayed in Kingman, not far from the border with California. Another middle-of-nowhere place and temperatures were reaching 90 degrees F even after sunset. The next morning we got up very early indeed (my journal says 4am, holy crap...), well before sunrise to try and find the well-known new curved glass platform ("Skywalk", my journal says again) further West on the Canyon. After 15 miles of effectively rally stage to get there, we'd arrived 40 minutes before it opened, and it turned out to be more than we were prepared to pay anyway so we rallied our way back to the highway, but not before some atmospheric photos... Where were we headed? Let's just say that Nevada wasn't too much of a detour...

 

[Wardy 944]

Wow the photo with Lu is stunning 👍

 

[Touring Mars]

Awesome stuff, don't know how I missed this thread!

 

[ExigeEvan]

Epic road trip.

If you don't mind me asking, what's a ball park figure for how much this trip cost?

 

[homeforsummer]

Again, thanks for the comments everyone 👍

Epic road trip.

If you don't mind me asking, what's a ball park figure for how much this trip cost?

Just as well you asked ball park as I've never counted exactly how much it cost me! The holiday was 4 weeks. Ball park - £2000. That includes flights at around £500-600, I seem to remember. Car hire came to about £500 each I think, maybe a bit more, and then in the last week of the trip after Martin left (he could only get three weeks off work) Lu and I hired another car and that came to about £150 each. That means my spending money was roughly between £600-850, which went on petrol, motels, food, activities, and general other stuff.

Luckily, I had quite a bit in savings at that time as I was living at home, despite having done a degree for the previous three years. It'll be a long time before I can afford to do a similar trip again

I'll get to the last week later on because it was very different to the first thre weeks of the holiday for numerous reasons.

More photos - I ended last time heading North from the Grand Canyon West rim - up into Nevada. You've probably guessed where we were headed, and to get there we had to cross the Hoover Dam. From where we approached it, it didn't look particularly impressive, though I'm sure from the other side it's a little more spectacular.

Anyway, you guessed it:

The trip would have been incomplete without a visit to Vegas. We got there late morning, so had a wander up the strip in the heat, which was probably the most uncomfortable climate so far - even the "breeze" was like someone pointing a hairdryer in your face. We went into the Miracle Mile for lunch and later in the afternoon returned to the Motel for a few hours, before going to the Vegas Hard Rock Cafe for dinner (no photos, unfortunately).

Martin wasn't enjoying the heat but I wanted to take some photos, so Lu and I left him back in the motel while we walked around the strip for an hour or so taking photos. After we got back we all then went out to hit the casinos for a few hours (we did New York New York, MGM and the Bellagio), and got back at midnight.

Interesting trivia for you folks: The very night we were out in Vegas was the night that OJ Simpson and his cronies were comitting that robbery

The next day, we headed out of Vegas. No trip would be complete though without the obligatory flash cars. If I ever go back I'm gonna hire a Prowler

A milestone was approaching - reaching California. Surprisingly, only 14 days into the trip, though we'd been rushing our progress a little so we were into Cali in enough time for Martin to enjoy it before he flew home. But before that, we deviated off the I-40 onto the original Route again and found ourselves going through a trip back in time (or a tacky merchandise opportunity, either way...) otherwise known as Oatman. The place was full of a) Donkeys roaming the streets and b) shops with risqué names. Presumably, to do exactly what we did - stop, and have a wander around.

Incidentally, Oatman was in the middle of a quite enjoyable twisty road, which is probably even better in a little sports car or performance saloon/hatch, rather than a small SUV. Shortly after, we re-joined the I-40 and into California, our 9th and final State of the journey. Cali initially gave us lots of absolutely nothing save for desert road, and later the next day, forest fires.

We stayed in Barstow overnight. Isn't there a Vin Diesel line in F&F "I'm not going back to Barstow!"? The next day we hit Los Angeles, and then hit the back of a car in Beverly Hills. Smooth. Wasn't me driving, by the way. The guy in front stopped suddenly and we went into the back of him. There was a Police car right next to us and he helped both parties with everything and it all went swimmingly, but it meant we had to spend the morning of the next day at LAX's car rental place getting a new car (protip - luckily we'd signed a damage waiver) and after being threatened with a Ford Focus to haul all our stuff, they instead gave us the keys to a Chevy Impala LS, which coped admirably with all our kit. While we were waiting, I took the time to snap photos of the aircraft coming in to land:

We decided to head out of LA up towards Santa Barbara. We got there in the evening and eventually found a motel with a room, apparently the first Super 8 in the country and it also happened to be run by a Brit, so we had a chat with him for a bit! Santa Barbara is gorgeous and I could quite easily see myself living there one day. The last photo is on our way back from our meal that night.

And that's it for now! More to follow.

 

[Watchman]

Awesome update.. The last three pictures are my favourites.. Just breathtaking.. 👍

 

[Wardy 944]

I really like the Vegas night shots 👍

I got married there in 2001 and we're planning a return in 2011, just to see how much it's changed. If it's changed as much as the wife, it'll be unrecognizable.

 

[homeforsummer]

Thanks for the continuing comments Those last three pictures look better in a smaller size than they do enlarged, unfortunately, as all were taken hand-held and are therefore a bit blurry. Obviously, I need to go back there sometime to get the photos properly done

And the best night shot is yet to come later in the story...

 

[semilife]

Very nice work, I love travel and especially these sorts of interesting travelogue type trips. Nice to see you have very colourful set of pictures to show for it. During your trip how much of the actual photography/driving did you do and I dont want to hear you say 100% driving and 100% photography (thats kind of dangerous).

I went to the states back in 2000 visited Dallas & Los Angeles (not a road trip unfortunately). Well keep em coming look forward to some more.

 

[homeforsummer]

My friend Martin did the majority of the driving in the Mitsubishi (as technically only his name was down on the contract) and all the driving in the Impala was him, and after he left, I did all the driving (in yet another hire car), obviously. I did all the photography you see too, though my friends did take some shots on their own cameras. I took maybe 1500 photos or so, I think.

 

[Smallhorses]

Santa Barbara is gorgeous and I could quite easily see myself living there one day.

I hope you're a fireproof multi-multi-millionaire.
Santa Barbara is indeed gorgeous, but it's one of the priciest places in the country to live because of that. It's proximity to LA means that a lot of celebs have places there, indeed it's where Douglas Adams (R.I.P.) left the planet, though sadly not on the back of a Sub-etha thumb.

Once again excellent pics, and a good account of all the places you stopped. 👍

 

[homeforsummer]

I hope you're a fireproof multi-multi-millionaire.

Well, now that you mention it...

Santa Barbara is indeed gorgeous, but it's one of the priciest places in the country to live because of that. It's proximity to LA means that a lot of celebs have places there, indeed it's where Douglas Adams (R.I.P.) left the planet, though sadly not on the back of a Sub-etha thumb.

Yeah, I had heard that it was very expensive. Still, it's something to aim for isn't it! I could always rent...

Once again excellent pics, and a good account of all the places you stopped. 👍

Thanks 👍 And on that note, having realised I hadn't updated in a while...

My last pictures were from my first night in Santa Barbara. The next day, we decided to find something to occupy us for the day. A walk to SB's tourist info office and we found a map showing us the location of a dozen or so vinyards and wineries in the area, so we pretty much picked one at random and made our way there. We chose the Gainey Vineyard. The tour was great and the staff there informative, and we had a good chat with the girl working behind the bar there whilst we tasted their wines. Shots from the tour:

The next day, Santa Barbara zoo tempted us.

Another day, another day out - we finally drove back down to LA, and into Hollywood. Which I didn't really like, if I'm honest. The area around the Walk of Fame was just... hideously tacky. I'm not really keen on tourist traps. But still, I got one photo...

Santa Monica was much nicer. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th pics are all taken at the very end of Route 66, where Santa Monica Boulevard and Ocean Avenue meet. At this point is a plaque dedicated to Will Rogers.

We took a walk down the Pier too:

And to round off this update, a trip to the Hollywood Hard Rock Cafe, the third we'd visited on the trip after Chicago and Las Vegas:

 

[Watchman]

Yay! All shots are superb, especially the animal ones 👍 Keep it up!

 

[boiltheocean]

I love this story so far, really enjoyable to read 👍 Very nice photographs too!

 

[homeforsummer]

So! Another update, as I haven't done one in a while. The last photos were from the Hard Rock Cafe at Hollywood. After that we were going to go to Universal Studios so we wandered towards the park, but the queues were a bit big, we were tired and full of food, and it looked expensive, so I took photos instead, including a trip into the Buell/HD shop.

This was our last full day with Martin, and after staying in Santa Barbara that night, we went to the airport the next day, dropped off the Impala, and Lucy and I went on the hunt for another car. Given the choice of a Dodge Caravan, Dodge Caliber and Chrysler PT we took the PT and headed South. Our first main stop along the way was Huntingdon Beach which is big on the surfing thing. While we were there I saw a McLaren Can-Am sort of thing but I can't remember if I took a photo - if I did I no longer have it (it may have been lost when I put the photos onto a dodgy memory stick a while back as I lost a lot of data then, mercifully most of the R66 trip photos survived).

We stopped in San Diego for the night and the next day. It was actually the Air Race weekend that weekend though we didn't catch much of the racing. I did catch this wonderful SD skyline though, which is one of my favourite photos I've ever taken. The next day we went to San Diego zoo, which is enormous and even after spending about four hours there I'm pretty sure we missed stuff.

Don't shoot!

SD zoo:

Facepalm...

More zoo:

We also enjoyed some lunch in the Gaslight quarter. After struggling to find somewhere to sleep that night (thanks, Air Race), we made our way back up Route One the next day, and made a brief stop at Laguna Beach.

And that is where I leave you again...