Route 66 Revisited

Road trip fantasies, tourism and auto repair come alive on America’s Main Street

As the song goes, it winds from Chicago to L.A.—more than 2,000 miles all the way. That’s Route 66, the famous two-lane road that carried countless Midwesterners on migrations west and continues to attract enthusiasts worldwide for the quintessential American road trip.

As a car guy who also loves a great road trip, I’ve become more than a little familiar with Route 66. It started nearly 15 years ago, when I moved from Michigan to California for a new job. That job took me to spots throughout the Southwest, and whenever I got the chance, I’d jump on sections of Route 66 to soak up the nostalgia.

There are stretches of “America’s Main Street” or “Mother Road”, that are still living, breathing roads, such as in and around Kingman, Ariz., but other parts are little more than crumbling patches of asphalt next to the freeways that resulted in Route 66’s decommissioning as a national highway in June 1985. In fact, some of Route 66 was overlaid with Interstate 40 and other highways, obliterating all vestiges of the original road that was established in 1926.

I’ve driven most of what’s left of Route 66 during the past decade or so, meeting people in small towns who embrace the heritage and Americana of the road, as well as those who’d rather have the economic boon that an interstate truck stop would bring.

None of the trips was as memorable as the time I tried to drive a 30-plus-year-old car across the country in the dead of winter. I’d moved back to Michigan, but kept close ties with friends in sunny Southern California. I also wanted to buy an older car back there, as the rust issue at home made classic vehicles impossible to find, impractical to work on or prohibitively expensive. So, with the help of a couple of Orange County pals, I located a white, one-owner 1970 Mercury Cougar.

Powered by a pedestrian two-barrel-fed 351 V-8, it wasn’t exactly a muscle car, but what it lacked in sheer performance, it made up for in style. Vacuum-operated headlamp covers and signature sequential tail-lamps were its unique features. It also came with reams of original paperwork and receipts. I bought it from the niece of the proverbial little old lady owner, who was settling her late aunt’s estate.

Heading east
The Cougar ran well as we cruised in and around Huntington Beach. After an oil change and thorough inspection, I threw my bags in the car’s cavernous trunk and headed east. Not all of Route 66 is drivable in California and, frankly, the section that ends in Santa Monica winds through some pretty thick urban traffic— including Hollywood’s famed Sunset Boulevard—so in order to make some time on the road, I aimed to pick it up near the Arizona border.

Cruising through the desert, the Cougar performed well, which made absorbing the gorgeous scenery all the more enjoyable. It’s easy to understand why the Southwest inspires and draws so many; the overpowering landscape is humbling and breathtaking.

I was worried about the coolant temp of the 30-year-old car as the elevation increased, but didn’t pay much mind to the few hiccups from the engine. After all, it was an old, carbureted engine. They do that sort of thing. I apparently wasn’t minding the speed limit signs in Kingman, Ariz., either, as I was pulled over just east of its downtown. The officer looked over and complimented the Cougar, but he still gave me a ticket.

Despite the citation, I bear no ill will toward Kingman. It’s a small town that was hit hard by Route 66’s closing years ago, but it embraced the road trip culture and has become one of the must-visit destinations for any Route 66 road trip. And with the general influx of new residents all over Arizona during the last decade, Kingman appears to be thriving.

Not every town along the route has embraced the “66” legacy like Kingman, according to Joanne Barnhardt of Amarillo, Texas. She and her husband, Barney, run Barney’s Auto Service, a TSS affiliate shop located on Route 66 (called Amarillo Boulevard in the city).

“Amarillo doesn’t play up the Route 66 connection to a great extent,” she says. “Everyone here knows about it, but it’s not really celebrated.”

Nevertheless, she says, the city attracts travelers along the route, particularly as it’s named in Bobby Troup’s “Route 66” song; and some find their way to Barney’s for service.

The Barnhardts have run their shop on Route 66 for about 15 years. It sits a few miles north of I-40, but Joanne remembers when Route 66 was the main drag in town — and what happened when the freeway came along.

“I was a child at the time, but I recall how devastating it (Interstate 40) was to the businesses on Route 66,” she says. “It changed the town completely.”

Barnhardt says the Route 66 corridor in Amarillo today is “pretty healthy,” with lots of local traffic, but it’s simply not the important travel way it once was.

Flooded
With my speeding ticket stuffed between the front seats, I stayed on Route 66 as long as possible until it melded with I-40, eventually stopping for the night in another town made famous by song, Winslow, Ariz. In fact there’s a statue of a guy standing on a corner in downtown Winslow, commemorating the line in that Eagles song. I didn’t, however, see any girls in flat-bed Fords.

I hadn’t planned on Winslow being anything more than a nighttime stopover, but that old carbureted engine had other ideas. The town’s elevation of 4,850 feet was nearly a mile higher than Huntington Beach’s sea level and the old two-barrel quickly flooded in the thin, below freezing air. (There was a hint of the problem at a gas stop the previous day, but I chose to ignore its implication.)

After a couple of hours of trying to get the car started and nearly running down the battery, I sought professional help. I wasn’t associated with ACDelco back then, so I don’t know if the shop was a TSS affiliate, but the owner and his assistant who arrived in their tow truck exemplified the very best in service shop personnel. After an inspection, the shop owner suggested driving the Cougar over the Rocky Mountains wasn’t such a good idea with an old carburetor that wasn’t tuned for the cold weather or elevation.

“You’re only going to drive higher up from here,” he said. “So, your problem will only get worse.”

Sizing up my options, I decided to rent a truck and trailer to tow the Cougar the rest of the way back to Michigan. Fortunately, the shop owner also ran the town’s only U-Haul franchise, so I hopped in the tow truck with him to pick up the truck. On the way, he told me how he ended up in Winslow almost 60 years earlier. He was heading home with his wife after his stint in the service during World War II. The train stopped in Winslow on its eastern heading and they just stayed.

After decades in the automotive repair and towing business, he was planning to hand the reigns over to his assistant, a hard-working immigrant the shop owner helped put through school. I found the shop owner’s story heartening and thoroughly American. It was fitting I met him while shadowing Route 66.

A couple of scares
Leaving Winslow in a decidedly non-classic rental truck and trailer, I still tried to run on Route 66 whenever possible. It was February, very cold and the wind was blowing hard enough to cause most passing big rig trailers to list like sailboats. Driving through higher elevation was inevitable. It was a slow go towing the Cougar, but at least the fuel-injected modern truck didn’t mind the altitude.

Just as I was getting comfortable on a particularly steep grade, the truck’s rear tires lost traction on the icy road. The rear end slipped to the side and that set the trailer swaying. I looked in the big side mirrors as the trailer and Cougar alternately swung in and out of view. It was a sickening sight. I anticipated the trailer going off the road and taking the truck with it, but somehow it straightened out. My heart rate buried the needle there.

The next day, I was through the mountains with nothing but flat land ahead of me. I figured the hard stuff was behind me. I was wrong. Miles from anywhere, I heard a pop and saw smoke in the side mirror; one of the trailer tires had blown and was skidding along the highway.

I limped the truck and trailer to the first side road I found and, after a few miles, came upon—of all things—a tire service center. It was even a U-Haul affiliate, so the tire change cost me not a nickel. They had me back on the road faster than a NASCAR pit stop. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, and I was able to enjoy Route 66’s remnants.

Oklahoma is another great state for cruising the Mother Road, although it can be difficult to follow at times, as it merges with other highways. A good map showing the original route and where it overlays with modern routes is a must in the Sooner State, which attracts a lot of Route 66 travelers. Many of whom roll past—or stop in at—John’s Auto Repair, in Claremore, Okla.

“They come from all over,” says John Whorton, the owner and single technician at his TSS affiliate shop outside of Tulsa. “You see Harley-Davidson riders from Australia and Mexico, and other people passing through in old cars and rental cars.”

Unlike many local businesses, Whorton doesn’t sell Route 66 souvenirs, but says the tourism positively affects the local communities.

“They stay in the motels and eat in the restaurants, but I only see them when they break down,” he jokes. “The tourism seems to go in waves, but it’s definitely good for the businesses around here.”

Whorton’s shop is near the famous Catoosa, Okla., whale—the 80-foot-long, grinning centerpiece of a former wildlife park. The park closed in the 1980s, but a few years later the whale was restored as was the pond it sat on and some of the surrounding property. It was turned into a roadside picnic area. It’s classic roadside Americana and a must-see for any Route 66 trip near Tulsa.

Reflections at the end of the road
After Oklahoma, there is a brief, 13-mile stretch in Kansas—the state with the fewest of the road’s 2,448 miles—but the road is broken up and hard to follow in many places around the Kansas/Missouri border. And speaking of Missouri, the small city of Joplin has embraced its Route 66 heritage, too, making it a point of interest. The closer Route 66 gets to Chicago, the more it loses its aura. It blends into the myriad of other rural roads and, in many places, is all but gone.

When I returned home and the Cougar was safely unloaded, I thought about the countless thousands of Americans who ventured on Route 66 not for a vacation, but for necessity. They drove it one way in search of a better life out west, or drove it every day as part of their daily routine. They didn’t have fuel injection, air conditioning, radial tires and truck stops every 40 miles—and they certainly didn’t have GPS navigation or cell phones in order to call for a roadside rescue.

Many people today drive Route 66 as a lark, but there are people for whom the Mother Road is still their livelihood, like shop proprietors Joanne and Barney Barnhardt, and John Whorton. So, whether it’s a souvenir stand in Kingman, Ariz., or a service center in Claremore, Okla., they’re connected to an artery that will always be part of the American experience.

By Barry Kluczyk