Saturday August 28,2010. Start Kilometers 24394. Finish Kilometers 24713. Total today 319 km.
Born in 1926, US 66 was pieced together from an existing network of promoted trails and unnamed roads, most of which were ornery dirt paths at the time. Change has always been a part of the mother road. The late 1920's and 1930's watched dirt 66 rapidly transform into a paved, all weather highway by 1938. Dirt roads gave way to narrow, twisty two lanes, which in turn were straightened and widened, some becoming 4 lane super highways before the Interstate Highway System began taking over in the late 1950's. Much of old 66 hung on during the 1960's as the Interstate began to usurp the route's path across the country, digging up old pavement and stranding towns with cruel bypasses. Finally 1984 brought the final bypass in Williams Arizona and the next year the decertification of Route 66 became a reality. Today remnants of Route 66 follow five modern freeways; I-55 from Chicago, Illinois to St. Louis Missouri; I-44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; I-40 from Oklahoma City to Barstow, California; I-15 from Barstow to roughly San Bernardino, California; and I-10 from there to the Pacific coast at Santa Monica.
 |
| 1932 Standard Gas station in Odell. |
Today was a late start as I have slowed my pace to appreciate the journey across "66". I departed the hotel at 11 am and after exploring Joliet, home of the very first Dairy Queen and its northern neighbour Romeoville I began my southward journey through the various small towns with the goal of reaching Springfield by days end. Wearing jeans, T shirt and helmet and with the hot beautiful weather my first leg was one of the most enjoyable days since I departed Vancouver. Barely did I reach speeds over 80 kilometers per hour and every new town brought a visual delight. Today was a day for many stops to do some high dynamic range photography which entailed the use of a tri-pod for most shots. Unfortunately I unable to post these on this blog due to the large file sizes so I will post these to my flickr site when I return to Vancouver. Also, I have been unable to post videos from the bike cam due to large file sizes and will add these as well upon my return. So for now I will post the usual array of snapshots as I continue down this historical route.
 |
<><>
<>
Abandoned Mobil gas station. | <><>
 |
Remnants of old Rote 66
|
No comments:
Post a Comment