Bourbon MO

We just learned about the Bourbon Hotel in the eponymous Missouri town. A local couple recently purchased it and is enthusiastic about learning its history and restoring the building. The photographs on the Facebook page they created suggest -- to this amateur -- that the building is structurally sound enough to warrant the extensive work they are doing inside.

Since our trip is still a few years off, there is a good chance it will be open for a visit by the time we pass through!

Our Ride

 

I hope the paint job on the right is not for production; I assume
this has something to do with obscuring some design details.

As we think about this Chicago-to-LA journey, a key question is the choice of vehicle.

Perhaps the route could have been traversed by public bus at some point in the past, and perhaps much of it could be today. But if ever a journey was meant to be completed in a car, it is this one.

In 2016 we purchased a 2008 Mercedes E350 wagon, which we call Gretel, especially when her GPS talks to us. Even though we got it for a good price, we could only justify the extravagance of such a vehicle because of its potential to last for many years. At 13 years and 210,000 miles, signs of wear are few (though occasional repairs can be shockingly expensive).

We can fully expect to still have Gretel when we take this journey in 2029. And a 2,000-mile drive stretched over several weeks might not warrant a new car purchase.

Still, it is not too soon to be thinking about using this trip as an opportunity to make a break with the internal combustion engine. Mercedes-Benz is doing so as a company, recently announcing that it will have all-electric models in every major category by 2025, with an entirely electric fleet by 2030. 

The company's plans are not limited to the production side: it is developing a network of charging stations that hopes will provide a "seamless" experience. That geographic aspect of the planning will be key to customer acceptance. 

This photo of Gretel was really about showing off the kayak.

Tulsa -- Greenwood Memorial

Image: from the Route66RoadTrip.com site

 Depending on which way we follow the route (Chicago to L.A. so we start with a big send-off from our kid and our in-laws, or the opposite? -- we have time to decide), Tulsa will be either a couple days ahead of or a couple days after the midpoint of the trip.  The real midpoint is at the Midpoint Café in Adrian, Texas. Check back in a few years for my review of the coffee.

In either case, we will need to spend some extra time in Tulsa -- both for the touristy things and to learn more about how the city is addressing its history as the site of the terrible racist massacre of 1921. I did not know of the attacks at all until I was well into adulthood. We as individuals and we as a country need to take some time to learn this part of our history and to take seriously its implications. 

The rampage took place just a mile or so north of the alignment of Route 66 through the city. 

Map image: from the Route66RoadTrip.com site

From a Frequent Traveler

A YouTuber named Let's Go Road Trippin' has prepared a nice overview of the Mother Road, supported by some online research and inspired by his own experience delivering mobile homes along the modern version of the route.

Through a 2020 Lens: Vicarious Explores

 

Train in New Mexico sunset. Photo: Luke Sharrett, NYT

The editors and photojournalists of the New York Times are providing a bit of a respite for those whose wanderlust has been severely curtailed by pandemic restrictions on travel, in the form of a series of lush, lonesome photo essays entitled The World Through a Lens. 

Although a maritime essay about British island-keepers was my first glimpse of this series, the chance for a virtual explore of the Mother Road is my first indulgence. (And yes, in Casa Hayes-Boh, "explore" as a noun is considered grammatically correct.) Among other things, this essay by Luke Sharrett (who, like me, grew up in northern Virginia) shows just how hard the elements have been on some of the old commercial signs. I wonder what a decade of further weathering will have left intact by the time of our planned odyssey. 

Lagniappe

For further self care, the 1957 recording of Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite by Eugene Ormandy & The Philadelphia Orchestra is the perfect audio to follow Sharrett's photography.

Musical Engineering

Between Tijeras and Albuquerque: Google Map

When we get near Albuquerque, the road itself will be our reward. A quarter-mile stretch of the Mother Road just west of Tijeras sings -- and with any luck will still do so when we are ready for our drive.

Carefully calibrated steel plates were used to crimp the asphalt into a musical rumble strip so that a vehicle traveling at 45 miles per hour will play the familiar melody of America the Beautiful (followed by a brief jingle to thank the project's financial sponsor). The work was completed by National Geographic in partnership with New Mexico Department of Transportation, as described in detail below.

As of this writing, a lot of the YouTube comments focus on the fact that the narrator talks over the music. I promise we won't do that, but I also think folks took this whole thing a bit too seriously. A video by Beth Thomas provides just the music and ambient road noise:

Pam learned of this treasure from Snopes, which also includes Jennifer Nalewicki's Musical Highway article in Smithsonian.

Lagniappe

This story brought the same phrase to mind for both of us: STEM to STEAM. With any luck, it will have run its course by the time we run our course (get it?), but probably not. STEM, as most people in education now know, stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, which is NCLB-era jargon for "most of the things we dropped when ill-informed school reformers focused too narrowly in reading tests."

Realizing that this still excluded the humanities, the "A" for "Arts" was inserted -- with some degree of success -- in order to attract some attention and funding to yet another area that the Clinton-Bush-Obama reformers had marginalized. See the work of reformed reformer Diane Ravitch for more background. See Google for hundreds of examples of this jargon in use.

Full disclosure: this is a game I both decry and play. The EarthView program I help to coordinate was moved into a STEM framework in order to sustain its support, and I always remind folks that it is a great example of STEAM.

End to End Preview

Facebook just reminded me that a year ago today, we posted this Route 66 Pregaming photo:

The Mother Road, as the song reminds us, "goes from Chicago to L.A." We did not realize until this day a year ago, that in Chicago, it starts directly in front of the Art Institute of Chicago, where our kid Harvey was attending the world-renowned SAIC. We were, in fact, in town to see his fabulous works in his senior BFA show.
Another wonder of social media: we learned that a friend and former student of mine was at the other end -- the L.A. part -- at the same time!