Route 66 "The Mother Road"

New Iberia to Morgan City then over to Houma, up to New Orleans then on to Bay St. Louis, etc.

Fantastic read, very inspirational. I grew up in Tulsa but have been away for years. Your writing and photography draw me in.

Mike, nice pictures and write up. I enjoyed the history you showed along your trip.

Eddie

Thanks Eddie, I think I enjoy the history of a ride as much as anything.

Oh, that's just so cool. Where did you find that? Looks like it is the base to a coffee maker? oh, yeah click on your sig duhhh.

Wow Mike!! What a great report! Route 66 is on my list of rides to do in the future. I'll be hitting you up for the maps someday. That GS is suiting you pretty well it looks like.

Hi Ted, good to hear from you. Thanks for the kind words, yes I am enjoying my GS for sure. Any time you want the GPS info just let me know, you would love it too. Hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas.

I enjoyed your ride report. I spent part of my childhood in Springfield, MO. and remember one of the old restaurants along the route in town, The Stuffed Pig, served a very juicy and flavorful sandwich called the stuffed pig, great food. The owner, Johnny Weatherwax, was killed in a robbery in 73 and the recipe died with him.

Great ride report. Thanks for posting it. You have inspired me to get out and see a lot of those things that I live so close to but have not taken the time to see. Thanks again!

Glad to hear it Fotobo! Enjoy it's a lot of fun.

If you're staying on the new 4 lane US 90, soon to be I 49, you're not on the old original 90 which is mainly 182 now. In fact , the new 90 does not even go to Houma and bypassed a few other of the neat cities it used to go though. I run that road lots in the late 60's early 70's from Jennings to New Orleans when I worked for Shell at Venice. It was all two lane and through the cities back then.

My man, if you have the track file on what you did on Route 66, I would love to have it. If things work out, I'll probably be traveling on a 650 thumper this coming Summer. Be a perfect bike for that.

Could you throw some light on pronunciation? Speaking English rather than American English we allways refer to route 66 as (Root 66) rather than (Rowt 66) but in American songs etc. it seems to be the English pronunciation. So which is right for you Yankees?

Richard Evans (Blue Mountains Australia)
P.S. Loved the photos.

...it's "root".

From my prospective, everything was route until the song, then only 66 was root.

Don

In South Louisiana, tis pretty mixed up and can be use a few ways in just one sentence. " I dunno wat route I'm taking but gonna end up on Root 66. But, gotta get off La Rue Church to do it. ;-) Now I bet cha confused.

I've only been on about 100 miles of the old Route 66 out in Arizona I think. Lots of interesting stuff to see and a lot of good memories for us older folks.

Really enjoyed your report. Nice job and thanks for taking the time!

Hello everyone, I'm back on the Mother Road! Left Arkansas and headed to Santa Rosa, NM where I had stopped on my last ride. As I was zipping through Texas I noted a sign so I pulled in and got a picture of it. I missed this on my last report somehow.


644 miles later I arrive in Santa Rosa, NM and get a room at Motel 6 and crashed. Long boring day on the interstate. Tomorrow should be much better.
I woke to a bright and sunny day and promptly hit the route.
Saw a lot of closed diners and old service stations today, sad to say the least.


This old gas station was not a "Trading Company" I didn't stop to see what they were selling.


I could not believe all the Volcanic rock I was seeming in NM


I looked up some information on it. Pretty interesting.
It seems that each of the Southwestern states has an apparent geologic specialty. If so, and Arizona is the big Canyon state, Utah is the Mesozoic fauna state, and Colorado is the big snow-capped Rocky Mountains state, then what is New Mexico? New Mexicans need only look out their windows for the answer: New Mexico is the Volcano state. New Mexico has one of the greatest concentrations of young, well-exposed, and uneroded volcanoes on the continent. And as a bonus, it is also the Rift Valley state; it has one of only four or five big continental rifts in the world, East Africa being one of the other ones. The fact is, New Mexico is one of the best places to study the natural history of volcanoes. Twenty percent of the U.S. National Parks and Monuments based on volcanic themes are in New Mexico. There are more here than Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington combined.

These guys Blakes Lotaburger kind of look like an old diner but they are actually a chain out of Albuquerque with over 83 locations!


Interesting tunnel on the route.


Not too long after that I hit Arizona.


By now it's getting late in the day so when I hit Holbrook, AZ. I notice a waypoint for the Wigwam Motel I had to stay here tonight, this looked like too much fun to pass up.


They had an old classic car parked by most of the Wigwams, or Tepees as I like to call them. Here is a very short video of what they look like inside.


I walked down the street a block from the hotel and find this



Slept real good that night even though they had a bunch of trains running behind the motel all night. Seems they have a big switch yard here.

Next day I hit Winslow, AZ and "Stand'n on the Corner" as the song goes I take my obligatory photo of Earl's Motel.



An old service station that is now a salon.


I hit Seligman, AZ and they had a lot of shops catering to the Route 66 motif



I pushed on toward Flagstaff and then hit Kingman around one o'clock. Unfortunately, the wind had gotten so strong and was gusting to around 45-50 knots I was just played out. As I pulled into get a drink I had the misfortune to see a truck pulling a horse trailer pull right in front of another motorcyclist. Found out he lost his life too. I figured I had gone far enough for now and after a short rest and some food I decided to abort the rest of the trip and headed back home. At any rate. I hope you find this report to be of interest, the west has a lot of distance between towns in some cases and I ended up riding 2700 miles in five days by the time I got back home.

Was fun I stayed dry if not beat up by the high winds. Till next time. Ride safe my friends.