The Alfatross: Under the Influence . . . (Post # 84)

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Under the Influence . . . (Post # 84)

Under the Influence.

. . . of Route 66, that is! A couple of weeks ago some friends invited me to go with them to the "Route 66 Fun Run" an annual event celebrating, well, Route 66--"The Mother Road." One of my earliest memories is of a TV show by that name featuring two young all-American men wandering the highways looking for adventure in a C1 Corvette. I was infatuated by the concept and wanted to do that too! I don't remember anything about exactly where they went or what they did. All I remember is the hypnotic theme song and the afterglow I felt at the end of each episode that put me permanently under the influence of the Great American Road Trip . . . and since you can't make a road trip without something to ride in . . . cars!

The American West is BIG!

So of course I accepted my friends' invitation immediately. Then I discovered that Route 66 no longer exists. It was superseded decades ago by the Interstate Highway System. The little towns that once depended on it withered and died. But vestigial bits and pieces of the old 2-lane tarmac still remain--bypassed and now just back roads--but they're still there. One of them is a stretch between "survivor towns" Seligman and Topok, Arizona. This is where the Fun Run takes place.

Main Street (on old Route 66) in Seligman, AZ, starting line
for the Route 66 Fun Run. Drive what you brung!

The 500 mile, 8 hour drive from Santa Fe to the starting line at Seligman paralleled a lot of the original route. That gave us plenty of time to ruminate about things, like the way the invention and evolution of the automobile changed just about everything in American life.

The first roads were rails and the first cars were pulled

by "iron horses." This one is in Kingman, Arizona.

The personal automobile is the embodiment of freedom, but it needs a road to access that freedom. That's what Route 66 did so well, and although the route itself eventually yielded to 4-lane interstate highways dedicated to moving as much traffic as fast as possible, losing a lot of its original mystique along the way, the legend survives.

Better take along a spare gas can . . . .

Route 66 started out in 1926 as a link between Chicago on Lake Michigan and Los Angles on the Pacific coast. It was a long, often lonely drive across thousands of miles of prairie, high desert, majestic mountain ranges, mighty rivers, Indian reservations, widely spaced gas stations and a really big sky, altogether spanning about 2,400 miles across 8 states.

It became a by-word for travel, exotic locations, and adventure in America. The allure spread far and wide in song, literature and theater. Today thousands of tourists from all over the world come to the US specifically to drive portions of Route 66 in cars, RVs, motorcycles, dedicated tour buses and even bicycles. We saw a lot of them--and they were all smiling!

We were smiling too, utterly relaxed. We had three sunny, cool days to cover 70 miles, so no one was in a hurry. I found myself wondering what The Alfatross would think about this storied road. Construction on the US Interstate Highway System--that we all now take for granted--was not started until 1956, the year after The Alfatross was born. It struck me that Old Route 66 and The Alfatross are both experiencing the same type of nostalgic re-birth that things go through if they survive long enough. They are contemporaries: the car and the kind of 2 lane blacktop road it was designed to travel. I allowed myself a little daydream--that maybe one day in the not-too-distant future they will get the chance to meet in person . . . .