Roadtrippin' 66 in '58

My wife ran into a man at the local grocery store today who saw our car which is heavily loaded with Route 66 license plates and stickers. It is very EASY to spot. He was probably in his 70s and he wanted to talk about his trip on Route 66 back in 1958. He talked with her for twenty minutes. Unfortunately, she had bought some Good Humor ice cream and it was in the 80s.

They lived in LaGrange, Illinois, and went to Los Angeles to visit friends for an extended period of time. They picked Route 66 up nearby and drove it the whole way. He figured that some of the things he saw were still there and some of the things were being renovated.

Liz brought up that Armond Ortega,who owns the Indian souvenir places out in New Mexico had extensively renovated the El Rancho in Gallup. He was happy to hear that.

His wife wanted to stay in one of the Wigwams, but they had a different problem than us, because when we made the whole run last fall, we kept getting to the two remaining ones in Holbrook, Arizona and Rialto, California too early in the day to stop. They were arriving in the late afternoon/early evening and found them with no vacancy everytime.

When they got to the Mojave Desert, it was so hot (remember these were in the days before most cars had air conditioners) that they ended up sitting in a restaurant killing time until dark, when they made their run across the desert in the luxury of 104 degrees.

Once in LA, they didn't care for the arrangements their friends had made and shortened their stay and headed up to Seattle where they found the weather excellent and enjoyed their stay there.

You'll be happy to Know that I just had one of those ice cream bars and it had not melted to some mass of goodness.

Traveling in the Old Days was Quite the Experience. --RoadDog