Day 6 (Fri July 6, 2007) - Hiking the Grand Canyon

Well, I've put off writing this post long enough! It's time to give you all the details of our intrepid hike into (and out of, thankfully!) the Grand Canyon.

First, allow me to give a brief editorial on the ignoramuses (and I use that term in Christian love) who try to "educate" visitors to this amazing place about its origins. I have been to the Grand Canyon at least four times now in my lifetime, and no matter how many times I see it, I am completely awestruck by its immensity and beauty. Especially now, having been deep inside this glorious work of God, I can only pity those who honestly believe that this wonder of creation was "carved over billions of years" by a lone river - the Colorado. Any Christian reading this blog already knows this fact, but let me state it here unequivocally: THE GRAND CANYON WAS CREATED BY GOD, OVER A PERIOD OF 318 DAYS, VIA THE REMOVAL OF BILLIONS OF TONS OF ROCK BY THE SWELLING AND RETREATING WATERS OF THE GREAT FLOOD, AS RECORDED IN THE BIBLE. Anyone who believes otherwise 1) has never seen this place personally, 2) is woefully deficient in the common sense department, or 3) willingly chooses to believe the lies of the godless evolutionists over the truth of Scripture. "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." (Psalm 14:1 / Psalm 53:1)

Having gotten that small sermon off my chest, back to our hike! We drove from Williams AZ north on AZ-64 / US 180 to Grand Canyon National Park, and arrived at the South Rim of the Canyon at around 8:30am. We knew it was going to be another very hot day, especially in the canyon. The morning temperature at the rim was around 85 degrees, and we knew that the temperature can be 30 degrees higher at the bottom. So we packed a half gallon of water each, and sandwiches and snacks. (More on provisions later.)

It took a while to find a parking place anywhere near Bright Angel Lodge, so by the time we walked to the trailhead of the Bright Angel Trail, it was nearly 9:00am. We took our "before" pictures at the trailhead, visited the necessary room, and started down the trail.

Bright Angel follows an ancient Havasupi Indian trail, and runs approximately 9.5 miles from its head at the South Rim to the Colorado River. Along the way, the elevation change is 4,263 feet (from 6,782 feet at the rim to 2,519 feet at the river). The average grade of the trail is 14%, or a 14 foot drop in elevation for every 100 feet traveled.

Rest houses with water are provided at the 1.5-mile and 3.0-mile points, and there is a campground with water and rest facilities at Indian Gardens, which is 4.5 miles down. We were not sure how far we would be able to make it into the canyon, so we decided to hike down until about 12:30pm, rest for an hour, and begin our hike back up. The reason we ended up deciding on a 3½ hour hike down is that we were told by numerous sources that we would need to ALLOW TWICE AS MUCH TIME TO HIKE UP AS WE TOOK GOING DOWN, so that would make the total trip including rest time of about 11 hours. This bit of advice proved to be very accurate!!!



Within the first mile or so of descent on the trail, we became aware of several things:

• The incredible quiet, except for birds and your (and others') footsteps on the trail
• The intricate beauty and richness of color in the rock formations
• Working of muscles which have not been used in some time!!
• Some discomfort in the toes, from heading downhill and jamming them into the end of your shoes
• A rapid increase in air temperature. And don't buy that "it's a dry heat" stuff!
• There's a good reason that the park rangers strongly recommend packing ½ gallon of water per person! We NEEDED it!

As I'm sure anyone who has visited the canyon will tell you, there is just no way any photo or video can do the slightest bit of justice to the vastness of what you see. Every step, every turn of a switchback brought new sights (or new and interesting angles of sights you may have seen just minutes earlier).

By the time the first rest house (1½ miles down) came into view, it was a VERY welcome sight! We rested for about 15 minutes, replenished our water supply, and enjoyed some rare shade. By now (around 10:00am), the temperature was well into the 90s. Continuing down, we passed through more and more layers of red rock and saw lots of chipmunks and lizards, but thankfully no rattlesnakes!

We rested again at the 3 Mile house, where a volunteer guide hosed us down (and we were grateful for it, as the temperature was now over 100). We chatted with a family from Denmark who were obviously more experienced hikers than we were -- but I think hiking is much more popular in Europe in general.

It was 12:30pm when we arrived at Indian Gardens, the oasis of tall trees and a fresh stream of water, where campers can stay overnight with permits. I stretched out on my back on one of the picnic tables in a pavilion, and rested, while Becky filled our water bottles for the hike back out of the canyon.

Leaving the gardens around 1:30, we had the daunting task of climbing back about 3,000 feet vertically during the hottest part of the day! Even though we returned on the same Bright Angel trail, it seemed that the slope had drastically increased. It soon became evident that although we had plenty of water, we had not packed enough salt and electrolytes for what we were asking our bodies to do. Becky started having tingling down her arms, and we had to stop every few minutes to rest. I started to be concerned that she might be dealing with heat exhaustion.

The 3 Mile stop was REALLY a sight for sore eyes (and legs)! A very kind man offered us some of his beef jerky so that we could get some salt in our systems. That and the rest (legs propped above our heads to relieve lactic acid buildup in our legs) did a world of good for us. Becky seemed to get her second wind, but the further up we climbed, the more my old weak muscles were crying STOP! For the last 1.5 miles up the trail, we literally walked for about 3-minute stretches and rested for 4 or 5. During this last part of the ascent, I found that hyperventilating while I rested actually helped me. I thought of it as supercharging the oxygen supply.

One good thing was that after 4:30pm, much of the trail was in shadow, so we got a small break from the oppressive heat. The downside of this was that we were now racing to get out of the canyon before dusk. The pictures included in the slide show tell the story better than I can here, but you can certainly tell that the climb was as physically demanding to our unfit bodies as running a marathon would be for a fit person.

At around 8:40pm, almost 12 hours after our journey started, we reached the trail head at the South Rim. My first words were "Thank you, Jesus! Hallelujah!" and I meant them with all my being! It was a fantastic experience, but I was VERY thankful that it was behind us.

As crazy as it sounds, I would still like to undertake a trip all the way to the canyon floor someday, with two important caveats... 1) I would want to be back at the fitness level I was in 2004 (i.e., weighing 200 pounds or less, and working out every day), and 2) I would make sure our provisions included plenty of carb and electrolyte replenishers! As long as you prepare properly, a Grand Canyon hike is an experience I would recommend to everybody. You won't regret it, and it will give you an even greater appreciation of God's great creation!

Photo Slide Show

Here is a complete Slide Show of ALL our Route 66 Trip Photos.

To see photo captions, roll your mouse over the photo area to show the slide show navigation bar, and click on the "word balloon" icon - 2nd icon from left in the bar. You can also use the navigation bar to pause the show, or to go back to an earlier photo.

To go to the Photo Album, which includes captions, click on the link below, or double-click on any photo during the show.

ENJOY! (We sure did!)

http://picasaweb.google.com/michiganalice/Route66

Day 8 (Sun July 8, 2007) - San Bernardino to Santa Monica CA

TODAY IS THE DAY! We make our final push to the finish line of our 2,448-mile trip down Route 66. I suppose that it is only fitting that the two ends of the trip are in crowded mega-city environments, representative of the great migration of our country to the west. The pilgrammages of the thousands who drove Route 66 west for new lives during the Depression and "dust bowl" years of the 1930s were brought to my mind during this last day of westbound driving.

After leaving our luxurious "wigwam," we started the day giving thanks and praise to God at Sunday School and Morning Worship services at the Mountain View Baptist Church in Rancho Cucamonga, about 12 miles west of San Bernardino. It was a blessing finding an independent, fundamental, Bible-believing (you get the idea) church in the land of flakes, fruits and nuts!!!! Mountain View meets in what looks like a store front, but they have quite a nice auditorium which seats about 125 or so. The church was between pastors; their previous pastor went to start another work in the greater LA area, now that this one was established. The interim pastor who preached, Chris Strothers, was candidating for the pastorate. We pray that he is called by the congregation, as he is an excellent preacher and Bible expositor. Bro. Strothers preached on Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, and its prophetic connections with the God's sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Another interesting fact about Mountain View is that they support one of Dixie's missionaries - Terry Sharp of the Canary Islands. Pastor Strothers knew of Dr. R. B. Ouellette and First Baptist Church of Bridgeport MI, but was unfamiliar with Dixie. We invited him to stop at the Hiway Pulpit on I-75 anytime he is in our area!

After services, we stopped for lunch at Marie Callender's in Claremont CA (this is a great restaurant chain I wish we had in Michigan). Then, after all the dust and dirt accumulated on the car, I just had to pull into a car wash with hand-detail drying and vacuuming to "freshen up" our tired vehicle, and as thanks for her faithful service in conveying us across the country. Having our chariot properly spiffed up, we were now ready to cruise into LA and to the end of the line!

The Los Angeles metro area is so vast that even after passing through the communities of Claremont, La Verne, Glendora, Azusa and Pasadena, we STILL had about 50 miles to go, on boulevards with traffic lights on every block, and nearly none of them timed!!! You'd think with all of Southern California's griping about pollution and destroying our resources, they would figure out how much fuel is wasted idling at lights, and do everything to keep traffic moving.

Route 66 goes by several names in this area: Foothill Boulevard, Huntington Drive, Colorado Boulevard, Arroyo Boulevard, Pasadena Freeway, Sunset Boulevard, and finally...FINALLY, Santa Monica Boulevard, which makes the final trip straight west to the Pacific Ocean. Most of this stretch could have been substituted with any four-lane or five-lane boulevard in suburbia, but there were some areas, such as this bit of Colorado Boulevard, that were gorgeous with the huge trees lining both sides of the road. In addition, mixed in with the modern fast food joints and strip malls, there were occasional reminders of what this road used to be: old-style motels with their interesting signs; buildings which you could tell had once been service stations; and tourist stops like the Pottery Ranch in Monrovia CA, which are still operating (based on the "Liquidation" sign, however, perhaps not for long).

After passing through Pasadena, we proceeded through some rather seedy-looking sections of Hollywood (ugh), West Hollywood (even ugh-er), and Beverly Hills (very beautiful, but the residents... ugh!). With increasingly dense traffic the farther west we drove, there were not too many opportunities to get out of the car to take pictures, but I did snap this shot of the "humble" headquarters of the Beverly Hills Police. Almost makes me want to consider a career change to law enforcement...nahhh!

The community of Santa Monica is the last town on the route, and the final 25 numbered cross streets (26th Street, 25th Street, etc. to Ocean Avenue at the terminus) were pure torture, as the LA traffic moved at a crawl between each block. It gave us plenty of time for people-watching (always entertaining in LA), and we rolled down the windows and opened the sunroof to let in the ever-closer ocean air. Temperatures at the coast were also a very pleasant 87 degrees; over 30 degrees cooler than just the day before!

It was with an incredible sense of accomplishment that we finally reached the end of Route 66. Here is the view (taken through the sunroof just before I had to make my turn) of the intersection where the Mother Road ends. You can see the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

I have to say that I was a bit disappointed that there was no "END HISTORICAL ROUTE 66" sign at the corner where Santa Monica dead ends at Ocean; however, across the street in the park that parallels Ocean, there is a bronze marker with the following inscription:

WILL ROGERS HIGHWAY

Dedicated 1952

to

WILL ROGERS

Humorist - World Traveler - Good Neighbor

This Main Street of America

HIGHWAY 66

was the first road he traveled in

a career that led him straight to

the hearts of his countrymen

Becky and I parked a couple of blocks down from the end of Route 66 at Santa Monica Pier, took our shoes off, and walked to the Pacific to dip our toes in. (The water was surprisingly cold for the middle of July!).

Then we walked up and down the pier, viewing the shops, smelling the churros and funnel cakes, and watching the various street entertainers trying to make a buck. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had to start right back on our return trip, as we had a reservation at a (3 guesses, and the first two don't count) KOA Sunday night in Victorville CA. If we were going to return on eastbound Route 66, we might not have arrived until midnight, but we decided to utilize the borrrrring Interstate system coming back. Interstates are certainly many times faster than roads like Route 66, but you certainly don't get to experience America that way... you just whiz right by it.

What a wonderful trip down "The Main Street of America" this has been. I hope I've been able to give the tiniest taste of what we experienced. Who knows? Maybe next time we'll make the trip on a Harley! (Not you, Pastor Snode.)

Good night, and God Bless.

John and Becky Critzer

Newly-knighted "roadies" (the name for nuts like us who have gotten our kicks on the entire length of Route 66)

Day 7 (Sat July 7, 2007) - Williams AZ to San Bernardino CA

Now that our calf muscles, quads, hamstrings and glutes had been wrecked by the Grand Canyon's Bright Angel Trail, it was back on the road! (Everytime we stopped and got out of the car on this day, we looked like a couple of hobbling 100-year-olds!)

From the 6500 foot elevation of Williams, we proceeded down (over many miles) into the great Mojave desert region of western Arizona and eastern California. About 35 miles west of Williams, we took a short side trip onto a very worn and rough early alignment of Route 66, for an interesting photo op - a large tree growing through the road surface on the west end of a small bridge crossing Partridge Creek. Yet another reminder of how the Mother Road has been abandoned to nature in many places.

Next was Seligman, which was one of the coolest towns on the trip. Here is an example of a town which was bypassed by the interstate, but is still kicking due to Route 66 nostalgia. When John Lassiter, the director of Cars, was doing research for the movie, he noted that Seligman was the closest thing to a real-life version of Radiator Springs, because of the spirit of the people. At the Route 66 Museum in town, we spoke with one of those special people: Mirna Delgadillo. Mirna's father, Angel, was one of the first people to petition for "Historic Route 66" signage, and enlisted Mom and Pop shop owners from many other towns in Arizona to do the same. This movement spread to other states where towns had suffered from lack of traffic. Much of the resurgence of Route 66's popularity and economic health is due to Angel and Mirna. Another thing we really liked about them: they only sold souvenir items made in the USA (difficult to do today!). So, we gave them some business and bought our official "trip shirts."

Our other main stops for the day were Kingman and Oatman AZ, before crossing into California.
At Kingman, we stopped for lunch at the very 50s Mr. D'z Diner. The exterior and interior of this restaurant was period correct, right down to the black and white linoleum tile floor and the turquoise vinyl-covered bar stools. The burgers and fries were great, too!

In contrast, Oatman AZ is a real trip back to the mid-to-late 1800s. After descending for many miles through gold mining country, over tight switchbacks in very hot, very dusty conditions, Oatman appeared out of nowhere like a western movie set. Burros are roaming the streets (we bought a bag of carrots for $1.00 to feed them, as did hundreds of others).

The last town in Arizona westbound was Topock, then we crossed the Colorado River into Needles, CA. After Needles, the scene was rather desolate, with many miles of flat road in 120-degree heat of the Mojave. Towns like Goffs, Amboy, Bagdad, and Ludlow have barely any indication that businesses ever existed there, except for long-empty shells of gas stations and motels; and the infrequent appearance of a tree or two!

Barstow CA brought a sigh of relief - this is an another example of a town that is still vibrant in spite of the Interstate! We stopped at the beautiful Santa Fe Depot which now houses yet another Route 66 Museum. About 32 miles west was Victorville, which was also a mining town, but nowadays looks more like typical suburbia. At long last, we emerged from the desert to parallel the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains, and green grass, flowers and lush trees reappeared.

As the sun was almost ready to set, we arrived at our sleeping spot for the night - the OTHER existing Wigwam Motel! Like the one in Holbrook AZ, this one has been well cared for and updated (Internet, cable and a fridge in a wigwam... go figure!). We'll never forget our night in Wigwam #117. It really made us feel like Route 66 "roadies."

In case you were wondering, this is what the inside of a wigwam looks like! I never realized that Native Americans had TVs, refrigerators, and WiFi in their humble lodgings, but seeing was believing! You could just imagine kids pleading to their parents from the back of the station wagon in the 50s, "Dad, PLEEEASE let's stay in a wigwam tonight!" This property, and its sister back in Holbrook AZ, have both been nicely maintained and updated. Due to the barrel shape of the room, the bath area was rather tight quarters, with a stand up shower. After a long day of traveling in the Mojave, our wigs were warm (ha ha), and we were more than ready for a rest in our "native dwelling."

Day 5 (Thurs July 5, 2007) - Albuquerque NM to Williams AZ

Sorry for the delay in posting, but we have been suffering from "WDS" - Wireless Deprivation Syndrome! And because of the slow connection I have today, I will have to wait to post more photos, but please be patient! When we get home, we will post LOTS of pictures....!

As we left the Albuquerque KOA, we went back into downtown and picked up 4th Street, turning south out of town. We decided to take a pre-1937 alignment through Los Lunas (I realize the gender of the article doesn't match that of the noun, but that's the name of the town!).

A side note here: As is the case with many cities through which the Mother Road ran, there came to be mulitple alignments of the road. The route changed over the years to accommodate the growth of cities; there would be "City 66" routes and "Alt 66" routes to bypass downtown. Sometimes, even the "Alts" would have later bypasses, as what used to be country became swallowed up by growing metro areas.

The Los Lunas route climbed slowly out of the valley, giving a beautiful view in the rear view mirror. We jumped briefly onto I-40 where the old road was dirt, then exited for an absolutely gorgeous side trip on the old road from Mesita to Laguna, NM. The two-lane wound tightly around red rock buttes and mesas, and down a steep grade, before coming back close to I-40 as a frontage road.

In Budville NM (Bud Ling - this one's for YOU!), we stopped for a photo of an old gas station, and noticed that the silver AC Cobra parked there looked very familiar. It was the same couple of guys we had seen back in Stroud, OK at the Rock Cafe!! Funny how Route 66 created "family" of fellow travelers we saw at different points of the journey.

Driving across the high desert and paralleling I-40 (sometimes at quite a distance, but still in sight), we passed through many dying towns and some still kicking: Grants and Gallup, for example. Gallup has a beautiful hotel called El Rancho, which became known as "Home of the Movie Stars" while they filmed old-time westerns.

After crossing the Arizona state line, more of the same. We bypassed Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, but every Navajo nation trading post was selling petrified wood, so we didn't miss much! We encountered a plethora of Indian gift shops and trading posts throughout New Mexico and Arizona. One can be seen in the background of this shot taken at the Continental Divide.

Holbrook AZ is home to the Roadrunner Gift Shop (one of the better ones on Route 66), and one of only two existing Wigwam Motels, where you can "sleep in a wigwam" (each room unit looks like a giant wigwam!) The Cozy Cone Motel in the Pixar movie Cars was modeled after the Wigwam. More on this later....

At Jackrabbit, AZ, we just HAD to stop at the tiny but quaint gift shop with the giant billboard outside screaming HERE IT IS - a true Route 66 classic. On through Winslow, Twin Arrows, Winona, and Walnut Canyon before coming to Grand Canyon country... Flagstaff and Williams. The look and smell of the beautiful Ponderosa Pine forest was a welcome change from the barren desert!

We LOVED Williams. It had been a long time since I was last here, and I'd forgotten how charming the downtown was. We took Pastor & Mrs. Vanaman's advice and ate at the Pine Country Restaurant, and yes - the pie was amazing!!! We stayed right in town at the Westerner Motel, one of the "Old 66" type motels, but updated and very clean. It was great to be able to walk up and down Main Street (which is Route 66) and browse the shops, hear the outdoor musicians, etc. The picture shown is of the Cruiser's Cafe on Main Street.
Day 6 was our trip inside the Grand Canyon (lots more to come on that trip in another post). We'll continue our Route 66 odyssey with Day 7.

Day 4 (Wed July 4, 2007) - Amarillo TX to Albuquerque NM

Happy Independence Day! It was very fitting that we celebrated the birth of our nation by enjoying the God-given freedom we have to travel across this vast, beautiful country on a road so rich with history - Route 66. In other words, another day, another 400 miles or so!

Shortly after leaving the KOA in Amarillo, we came upon what has become a modern landmark for folks driving the Mother Road: Cadillac Ranch. Stanley Marsh 3 (yes, 3) and an art collective called the Ant Farm half-buried ten Cadillacs of select years from '49 to '63, at an angle (supposedly) the same as the sides of the pyramids at Cheops. Over the years, countless layers of spray paint have been added by visiting "artists." An interesting and fun stop, but it does make one wonder: Why?? Perhaps Stanley just wanted to create a wacky tribute to the love of cars and the open road - in that, I think he succeeded.

From there, Route 66 hugs closely to I-40 as a "frontage road" (see yesterday's post). It veers off slightly to enter small (often derelict) towns with names like Bushland, Vega, and Adrian. Adrian was significant because it had a marker designating the halfway point on Route 66 between Chicago and Santa Monica. The classic Midpoint Cafe is right across the road from the marker.

West of Adrian, several things happened: 1) we left the Texas panhandle and entered New Mexico; 2) we changed from Central Time to Mountain Time; and 3) most strikingly, the terrain seemed to change instantly to a look you'd associate with Westerns - large, flat buttes jutting out from expansive flat plains with scrubby and sparse foliage. It was so amazing how quickly the landscape changed. We took a brief side trip to an older alignment of 66, at a ghost town named Glenario. There was also a very rough dirt road spur, but since we weren't driving a 4x4, we did not want to chance it.

Next came Tucumcari NM, which is another postcard favorite of Route 66 lore. Dozens of old-style motels and gas stations are here. We stopped to look at the restored Blue Swallow Motel ("100% Refrigerated Air!"). These old motor lodges included garage spaces for your vehicle, with a door connecting to your room - I suppose this was done so that old Betsy wouldn't get so lonely!!

While in Tucumcari, we stopped at Teepee Curios for some souvenir shopping. We talked for a while with the owner, Mike. He had just come back from a Route 66 trip of his own - to Tulsa OK, to see the unveiling of a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere which had been buried in a time capsule for 50 years. As a freelance photographer, he took shots of the car as it emerged. The car came out very rusty, but Mike said that Chrysler may end up buying it and restoring it for the Walter P. Chrysler Museum - right in our backyard, in Auburn Hills, MI!

After passing through several more small towns, we took a BIG side trip (adding over 160 miles to our day) on the pre-1937 alignment of Route 66. This route took us north and then west through the beautiful Pecos Pueblo country, through Santa Fe, and finally to Albuquerque.

Pecos National Historical Park had beautiful examples of adobe construction in the Pueblo ruins, and in the huge Spanish mission which was built on the site when the Spaniards arrived to evangelize the Indians. If you are ever in this part of the country, I strongly recommend a visit.

Santa Fe is a beautiful, artsy city with seemingly hundreds of art galleries, boutiques and gift shops, all with the Pueblo style architecture. Unfortunately, we could only see it from our car windows as the rain finally caught up to us in torrential fashion. Maybe next trip...

All ended well, though, as we arrived in Albuquerque at yet another KOA (we should own stock!). As I'm typing this I'm watching fireworks in the distance, reminding me again of how blessed we are as a nation to live in freedom! GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Day 3 (Tues July 3, 2007) - Tulsa OK to Amarillo TX

I'm at the end of Day 3, sitting in a "rustic" log cabin at the KOA Kampground in Amarillo Texas, but enjoying the air conditioning and blogging via the WiFi Internet connection! (Camping just ain't what it used to be, folks... and I for one am grateful!)

Today's drive was fairly long again (400 miles), but we saw an amazing variety of terrains, towns and road types as Route 66 stretched out from rolling hills across the great plains. Oklahoma and Texas have had so much rain, but God blessed us with another beautiful day - some overcast skies in the morning gave way to sunshine, blue skies and huge cumulus clouds (Google that, meteorology fans!). The other benefit of the rain is that the grass, trees and fields all were beautifully green.

Just west of Tulsa, in a little town called Sepulpa, there was a "frozen-in-time" stretch of Route 66 that made us feel like it was 1935. Check out the historic Rock Creek bridge.

The town of Depew OK looked like a movie set with its western-style facades and rock buildings, but they still thought enough of Route 66ers to paint the logo on Main Street, and roads leading into and out of it.

In Davenport and Chandler OK we stopped to photograph classic examples of Texaco and Phillips 66 service stations (the Phillips station was undergoing restoration).

Oklahoma City has the distinction of being the only city along Route 66 with a state capitol building on the road. And an impressive capitol it is!

For many, many miles, Old Route 66 ran right alongside the Interstate, now as a "frontage road" or service drive. This was true for both I-44 and I-40. The interesting thing about the drive was that the old highway followed the ups and downs and turns of the terrain much more closely. On many occasions, the road would dead end on the south side of the Interstate, so we would cross over to pick up the frontage road on the north side, and vice versa. The road did this so many times we lost count!

Somewhere between El Reno and Hydro OK, the old highway crossed the Canadian River via a 38-pony bridge. (A "pony," we learned, is the term for one trussed arch unit of a bridge. This bridge, at nearly 4,000 feet long, had 38 ponies strung together! Quite impressive.)

Shortly after we crossed the Texas border, we drove through Shamrock, which is the home to a Route 66 icon - the Art Deco-designed Conoco tower service station, with its attached "U-Drop-Inn" restaurant. The design elements of this station were featured in the Disney/Pixar movie Cars as Ramone's House of Body Art.

At last, around 7:30pm local time, we arrived at the KOA, Becky made a dee-licious dinner of grilled chicken breast, peas and cole slaw, we took a nice walk around the campground, and I settled in for some blogging! God is good, and the Mother Road is a blast! Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds... until then, nighty night!

Day 2 (Mon July 2, 2007) - St. Louis MO to Tulsa OK

Today's "getting our kicks" started from our kozy (sorry) Kamping Kabin at KOA in Eureka MO.

As we rolled through towns with names like Sullivan, Bourbon, Cuba, Rolla and Doolittle, we enjoyed many faces of Old Route 66. There were some areas where an older alignment of the road were still visible (but not drivable).

Other areas of the road went through quaint little downtowns, and sometimes by shabby boarded-up remnants of what were once vibrant burgs, now virtually ghost towns due to the advent of the Interstate.

I really loved a long section where we paralleled train tracks, and paced with a freight train. Not too many miles later, the road surface was described by signs saying "Fresh Oil / Loose Gravel." I can still hear the thousands of little rocks hitting the wheelwells and underbelly of the car, and wondering "how many more miles of this do we have?"

And it was sad to see the Mother Road so little used in some spots that grass was growing in the cracks of the pavement. But then we'd drive a few more miles and see cool things like Route 66 Motors in Rolla, with '56 Lincoln Mark IIs and '67 Cougars, and so many nostalgic signs.

We started the day in Missouri, went through a 13-mile corner piece of Kansas, and ended up in Oklahoma. Not bad for a day's drive!

Day 1 (Sun July 1, 2007) - Chicago IL to St. Louis MO

On Sunday morning, we joined Tim and Colleen at their Church, New Life Community Church. The Pastor, Al Garcia, gave an excellent message from Matthew 5 (Sermon on the Mount) about Jesus as a "revolutionary" in condemning sins of the heart, compared to the Pharisees and scribes who only looked at the external.

By the time we had lunch with them and said our goodbyes, it was after 3:00pm, so we had a lot of miles to drive in not a lot of time!

Entering downtown Chicago was fun with all the traffic; this was compounded by the Taste of Chicago event which drew tens of thousands of people to within blocks of where we needed to be!

Finally we reached the "official" starting point of Route 66, the corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street. (Historically, the start was at the corner of Lake Shore Drive and Jackson Avenue, but the streets were made one way and the start point westbound moved.)

What a change in scenery during the afternoon, as we went from city streets and skyscrapers, to older city neighborhoods, to suburbs, to small towns and rural landscapes in central Illinois.

We loved the "tacky" roadside stuff, like the Gemini Giant at the Launching Pad Drive-In in Wilmington IL. There were also beautifully restored old service stations like the Texaco and Standard Oil stations in Dwight IL.

Due to time constraints, we did not get to visit Lincoln's home and gravesite in Springfield IL, but hope to catch it on the return trip. We were very late arriving at our KOA Kampground in Eureka MO (just west of St. Louis), but we had a wonderful day of driving and sightseeing.