Betcha y’all didn’t know 280

[953 nut 69,201]

October 7, 1960, the first episode of the one-hour television drama "Route 66" airs on CBS. The program had a simple premise: It followed two young men, Buz Murdock (George Maharis) and Tod Stiles (Martin Milner), as they drove across the country in an inherited Corvette (Chevrolet was one of the show’s sponsors), doing odd jobs and looking for adventure.

 

“Route 66″was different from every other show on television. For one thing, it was shot on location all over the United States instead of in a studio. By the time its run was up in 1964, the show’s cast and crew had traveled from Maine to Florida and from Los Angeles to Toronto: In all, they taped 116 episodes in 25 states.  The show was a serious drama with social-realist pretensions, but its nomadic premise meant that it could tackle a new issue—war, mental illness, religion, murder, drug addiction, drought—every week.

[ri702bill 13,016]

Funny, I do not recall that car ever breaking down.....

[953 nut 69,201]

2 minutes ago, ri702bill said:

Funny, I do not recall that car ever breaking down.....

Considering the fact that Chevrolet sponsored the show I doubt that a car problem was ever considered.             

[rmaynard 17,582]

My wife and I got to do part of our bucket list and drove a section of Route 66 last year. I wish we'd had the time to do the whole road while it was still complete. But that takes me back to my dad. In the mid 1930's, he was asked by his foster mother and father, who had just gotten a brand new Packard, to drive them out to Los Angeles. So they went to Chicago, picked up Route 66 and drove all the way to L.A. and back. I wish there were pictures. That trip could have been a movie, "Driving Mr. & Mrs. Daisy".

[Handy Don 17,469]

59 minutes ago, rmaynard said:

went to Chicago, picked up Route 66 and drove all the way to L.A. and back

Wow, that must been quite the trip, indeed!

I can remember during my childhood my parents’ excitement when new sections of turnpike or interstate were completed or a new bridges got built to let us travel more quickly. They were more about the destination than the journey having limited money and a car full of sometimes fractious young children!

[ri702bill 13,016]

1 hour ago, Handy Don said:

excitement when new sections of turnpike or interstate were completed or a new bridges got built 

I recall the building of RT 95 thru Providence as a kid. It took several years and many detours to be completed. I mention detours - my aunt lived on the other side of 95 and it was always an adventure to get there and back on our weekly visit.

A tidbit - the infamous Thurbers Avenue curve was not part of the intended road path. A straighter route more inland was intended - but that got redesigned after three local Politicians had bought up all the houses in the path of the curve and, somehow, the intended path failed all the Perk Tests.. 

Edited 6 hours ago by ri702bill

[Handy Don 17,469]

1 hour ago, ri702bill said:

always an adventure to get there and back

One regular family visit involved a ferry across the Hudson River.

We kids thought it was just the coolest thing, but the new bridge shortened the travel time by more than an hour and was free. The ferry went out of business, of course. 

[ri702bill 13,016]

2 hours ago, Handy Don said:

The ferry went out of business, of course. 

So much for an alternate source.

[cafoose 3,839]

[wh500special 2,457]

If you count the interstates that parallel the original Route 66 roadway, I’ve traveled the entire length of Route 66.  But I cheated…

 

Route 66 runs along the town I grew up in (Granite City, IL) and while it was just another road to my generation, nobody ever called it anything other than Route 66 or Old 66 despite all the street signs proclaiming it as a named street or local thoroughfare .  My first and second jobs (welder and forklift driver) were both on Old 66.  My current office - where I am sitting at work at this very moment - is along one of the previous Route 66 paths through St. Louis.  So, I still drive on a portion of it almost every day and see the old Route 66 bridge across the Mississippi that has one heck of a dogleg turn about 2/3 the way across the river (look at satellite images of the Chain of Rocks Bridge).

 

Many places along the route and the route’s position itself changed over the years, both in the road’s heyday and in its retirement.  There are several Route 66 pathways through St. Louis alone so in its 100-year history it has both shaped and been shaped by the changing times. I would imagine the meandering path holds true across the country.

 

When I was a kid (in the 80’s) pretty much everything along the old route from St. Louis to Chicago was in some state of disrepair or abandonment.  There’s been quite a resurgence of the kitschy stuff in recent years and now there’s a lot of signs helping people navigate the old path.

 

November marks the 100^th anniversary of The Mother Road (will we see a bet you’ll didn’t know about this coming up?).  I’m not sure I have seen as many antique cars in my lifetime as I have seen just this year.  Great numbers of enthusiasts have been retracing the paths of the road and of the mentioned show.

 

My grandpa and his brother left this area in the depression and tried to find better luck than what befell the Joads on their Route 66 travels.  They drove out to California in a 1916 Chandler on 66 and ended up finding work building a Borax factory somewhere in the California desert.  Eventually grandpa came back home to Illinois, but his brother stayed.  They traded letters and a few phone calls but never saw each other again over the next 60 or so years.  It’s a shame grandpa didn’t write a book about his adventure out and back. 

 

My daughter goes to college outside Los Angeles.  While I loosely knew that the western terminus was out in the same area, I was delighted to find that her college is merely a block or two over from Route 66.  It’s kind of neat that while she’s over 1800 miles away, she’s really just down the road.  Full circle.

 

Steve

Edited 42 minutes ago by wh500special