66 Motor Palace

Locked up in Gardner, IL. My father had to adjust his plans In Ohio on his way to Maine once. He lost so much time to detours and road construction the rally he was planning to attend would be wrapping up as he arrived. He turned north and zig-zagged his way back. The way he saw it he got a few free days to ride his motorcycle. We haven't had anything like that but I thought of him as we tried to escape Springfield, IL. via Route 66 near the Fair Grounds. Let's just say these guys would think our Fair was a picnic in a park. One hour and ten miles later we escaped Springfield! Our strategy's been working so we continued up 66, turning at all signs for a retired alignment. Again we passed through one classically beautiful small town after another. People waved as we passed...(as they mowed their own lawns), streets were clean, highways were free of those big Toyota bumpers I dodge on my daily ride to work, and get this! Kids were playing. In random groups. I even s...

Covered Bridge in Illinois. It was a cool 66 degrees as we left the Wagon Wheel, our clothes still damp from Thursday's storm. The interstate was built beside 66 here and the old road is still maintained. It's used as an access road and connects the main streets of the towns as it may have even before it was designated "Route 66." It's an easy ride and you have the opportunity to reflect. We were rolling along on Sportsters about 50 mph while the cars on the highway were doing 70 when I thought about the guy at the Totem Pole Trading Post in Rolla. He pointed out when they were building Route 66 the Model T was Fords newest car. On some of the narrow 1926-1930 alignments it's easy to imagine chugging along in a column of Model-Ts at 25-30MPH, pulling over to eat a sandwich while the car cools after a long grade...and no other option. Anyway, we had a nice visit at Henry's Rabbit Ranch where we got some good tips on older and abandoned sections. Ro...

Wagon Wheel Cuba, MO. Cuba, Missouri that is. The Wagon Wheel Motel to be exact. We left Carthage after a nice breakfast at the pancake restaurant next to Boots and hit a detour about a mile down Route 66 and missed the old alignment around Kellog Lake. That's life on the road. We stumbled across the town of Spencer which was purchased and restored by the Ryans. The road was nice and we were able to make good time. We lost Route 66 again before Springfield and picked it up again at the city limits. We've since figured out we missed Paris Springs near Spencer. We had a good tail wind but it was bringing thunderstorms with it. While fueling up we were warned by three people a big one was coming and the race was on. We saw the Elbow Inn near the Devils Elbow and met the nice guy who owns the Totem Trading post in Rollo between wrong turns and missed intersections. We wanted to stay on Route 66 and beat the storm. The storm won the race and drowned us the last twenty miles...

Boots Motel Carthage, MO. Book your room now they're restoring them right and have limited availability.  The rain had stopped in Edmond OK while we slept and Route 66 was waiting. Our first stop was the Round Barn in Arcadia. When we walked inside we ran into a couple guys from the Midpoint Tuesday. It turns out Jeff lives near the top of the Cajon Pass (near us) and His cousin Bob is from Kentucky and they stayed at the Blue Swallow the night we did. we talked about Route 66, motorcycles, etc. and parted ways. The Seaba Motorcycle Museum in Warwick was our next stop, but we arrived to find they're closed on Wednesday. This place looked real cool and we're going to hit it on the ride home. We continued on Route 66 to The Rock Cafe in Stroud for lunch. The Rock Cafe was nearly destroyed by fire in 2008 and was rebuilt. Luckily it's really made on rock so the main structure survived. When we walked inside Jeff and Bob were there! We figured we should take pictures...

We didn't bring computers on this trip and our blogs are being done on iPhones. I'm using blogger. It's easy to update and post but I'm unable to arrange the order of the pictures or group them with text. For example the sunrise is Wednesday on Route 66 near Oklahoma City and the neons were shot Monday night. The rest were taken Tuesday. Anyway...when I was a kid I read about the Cadillac Ranch and thought it was the coolest non-motorcycle thing in the world. I finally got to see it yesterday and wasn't disappointed. Before the Cadillacs we stopped in Glenrio, a Texas ghost town on the NM border and we had pie at the Midpoint in Adrian TX. We wanted to get through Oklahoma city for the night and were running behind. With strong headwinds from Amarillo on and menacing clouds hovering to the North we pinned the Sportsters stopping only for gas in McLean TX and Weatherford OK. We picked up Route 66 in downtown Oklahoma City and rode it to Edmond just north. It...

Since we've already bored you with posts about Route 66 Arizona we just stopped for gas and headed for Gallup. The riding was great and we managed to stay on Route 66 from Kingman to almost Ashfork. (Everyone should traverse this segment at least once.) While refueling in Seligman we met Sam in a Deus EX Machina shirt. He's on his way back to Kansas from California via Denver. Small world I guess. The El Rancho is fun and the food's great but we have to move on. Today's strategy was to get on the 40 and exit anyplace with an Historic Route 66 sign. The first one was Continental Divide. From here we avoided the 40 'til Laguna (a little over a hundred miles). We've since figured out we screwed up and got off too soon. We passed through Thoreau, Bluewater, Milan, Grants, and more. We passed through San Fidel too but we're not sure if we were on Route 66 . We continued with the green and red theme mentioned the other day followed through today with the addi...