Jamie Jensen to publish Route 66 guidebook February 10, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Books, Road trips.1 comment so far
Jamie Jensen, the author of several well-regarded road-trip guidebooks including “Road Trip USA,” is set to publish a new volume devoted exclusively to Route 66.
“Road Trip USA Route 66″ is slated to come out in April. It’s 100 pages, sells for the budget price of $9.95, and is being published by Avalon Travel.
Here’s the publisher’s description:
Professional traveler Jamie Jensen traveled more than 400,000 miles to bring you the best-selling guide Road Trip USA. In this expanded tour of Route 66, Jamie covers the kitschy “Main Street of America”, one of the country’s first transcontinental highways. From the Meramac Caverns to the wild creatures on display in roadside menageries, this historic route survives, despite being replaced by a high-speed Interstate. From the Golden Sands and Sunshine of Los Angeles to the gritty streets of St. Louis and Chicago, Road Trip USA Route 66 highlights major cities, obscure towns, popular attractions, roadside curiosities, local lore, and oddball trivia on this unforgettable journey into America, then and now.
The book can be preordered here and other online retailers.
(Hat tip: Publishers Weekly)
Owner may restore Boots Motel February 9, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Motels, Preservation.2 comments
In a Carthage (Mo.) Press feature, Savannah’s Restaurant owner Vince Scott talks about, among other things, his ownership of the Boots Motel on Route 66:
Scott also owns one of the historic landmarks in Carthage, the Boots Motel. Again his intention was to buy the property and sell it quickly at a profit, which might have meant the destruction of this landmark, but things didn’t work out as planned.
The Walgreen’s pharmacy chain looked at the corner of Central and Garrison to build a store for several months but the deal couldn’t be made and Walgreen’s built its store at Grand Avenue and Fir Road.
Since then, however, the Route 66 icon has produced a steady income for Scott and his family, but it hasn’t been immune to the economic slowdown.
“It’s always been a good income producer, but it’s been a little bit slow even there,” Scott said. “The people who rent weekly, for whatever reason, whether they are transitioning from one place to another or they’ve lost their job, whatever the reason, they’ll stay there because they don’t have to get the utilities turned on or anything like that because I’m paying all that.
“There must be a lot less people moving around because I’ve got a couple of units open and I’m always full, and there are a lot less people calling.”
Scott said he hasn’t ruled out restoring the Boots himself and capitalizing on its unique place as one of the few operating roadside motels left over from the mid-20th century heyday of the Mother Road.
“If I was to be able to make this restaurant work and stand on it’s own, I may do that,” Scott said. “Then I could set people up in the Boots and send them down here to eat.”
The article is significant in that it’s the first time Scott has shown any inkling of wanting to restore the property. As recently as 18 months ago, Scott showed no interest in doing so.
Second, I believe this is the first time it’s been confirmed that Scott bought the Boots Motel in an effort to flip the property to Walgreens. A lot of well-placed sources said Walgreens was trying to get involved. But now the proof is apparent.
(Photo by Jim Ross)
Route 66 Marathon touches more of Mother Road February 9, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Events, Sports.add a comment
A few days ago, I surfed over to the Web site of the Route 66 Marathon, slated for Nov. 22 in Tulsa, and found that the organizers have tinkered with the course layout again.
The course was changed mainly because of complaints from runners about hills near the end of the 26.2-mile race. Now, most of the hills are at the beginning. Also, the course goes through more sections of Tulsa, including downtown and Midtown.
Roadies also will be pleased to learn that the course touches more of Route 66. In addition to the usual mile or so on Southwest Boulevard, the course also winds through a portion of Second Street (part of the old Admiral Place alignment downtown) and part of 12th Street (a downtown continuation of the 11th Street alignment).
The half-marathon doesn’t include Second Street, but keeps 12th and Southwest.
A five-kilometer run scheduled that day doesn’t hit the Mother Road at all. But, then again, this is the Route 66 Marathon, not the Route 66 5K.
The map for the full marathon course is here. Registration for the event is here.
Lands bill will be voted on this week February 8, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Preservation.add a comment
The Omnibus Public Lands Bill, which contains a measure to reauthorize the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program for another 10 years, will be voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday or Wednesday, according to KC Earth Notes, a blog affiliated with the Kansas City Star.
The bill was easily approved by the U.S. Senate during a rare Sunday session last month, despite efforts by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to block it. Because the measure has wide bipartisan support, it is expected to also pass in the House.
The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program provides cost-share grants to historic Route 66 properties and other assistance.
Follies performer makes record book February 8, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Attractions, Books, Events, Music, People.add a comment
Dorothy Dale Kloss, 85, a performer with the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies during its season-long musical salute to Route 66 in “Get Your Kicks,” was recently confirmed by the 2009 Guinness Book of World Records as the “world’s oldest still-performing showgirl.”
According to the Follies:
Dorothy at age 18.
She has been tap dancing on the Follies’ stage for 14 years with the skill and electricity of someone a quarter her age—continuing a dance career that began decades ago, in the 1930s. [...]
Little Dorothy Hunn (her maiden name) was already dancing when Calvin W. Coolidge was president of the United States, took lessons at three, taught the legendary Bob Fosse to tap dance when she was a teenage prodigy, and emerged at the famed Empire Room of the Palmer House in Chicago as, Dorothy Dale, a show business headliner at 15!
She was paid $35 for the first week, bought a dress for her mother, and still has the cancelled check as a souvenir. [...]
Ask her if her feet and body ache after a performance, one of nine weekly, and she replies jauntily (and apocryphally), “No, I just soak them in vodka.”
In addition to a long career in show biz, Kloss survived a bout with colon cancer in her late 50s.
Here’s Kloss being ribbed by Follies emcee Riff Markowitz and handing it right back:
Tickets for the Follies can be purchased here. Susan Anton is performing with the production through March 7, then John Davidson through May 9. Anton returns for an encore on May 13-17 before the season closes.
Motel history February 6, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in History, Motels.add a comment
David Wilkening at Hotel Interactive has a pretty good article about historic motels along Route 66.
Not only does Wilkening talk to longtime roadies Johnnie Meier and Jim Conkle, but he speaks with the owners of the Motel Safari in Tucumcari, N.M.; the Rodeway Inn in Williams, Ariz., Wild West Junction of Williams; and the Chelsea Motor Inn in Chelsea, Okla.
Nothing minor about it February 5, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Highways, History, Road trips.add a comment
Llewellyn Toulmin has a story in The Sentinal Newspapers about a trip on Route 66, with most of the material taking place in Illinois and Missouri.
Then there’s this passage:
The history of Route 66 is fascinating but complicated. It was not envisioned as a major road at first, as witnessed by its number. In 1926, when the route numbering system was launched, major coast-to-coast roads were given numbers ending in zero, similar to our modern interstates. So 66 was not originally planned as a major highway.
Route 66 might have been considered minor by a few wags in the federal government when it was assigning highway numbers in the mid-1920s. But the highway’s patriarchs knew what they were doing. They knew a southern route from Chicago to Los Angeles that would naturally have fewer problems with winter weather would be a big deal to truckers and cross-country travelers.
In fact, Cyrus “Father of Route 66″ Avery wanted to name the highway U.S. 60, thus giving it the “major” highway designation. But some folks in Kentucky also wanted U.S. 60 in their state. A long, dragged-out fight might have ensued until Avery suggested that U.S. 66 would be acceptable for his route.
And so U.S. 60 became just another east-west highway. U.S. 66 not only became a major route, but internationally famous as well.
Joliet business adds kitsch to Route 66 February 5, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Attractions, Businesses, Vehicles.add a comment
Noting the Route 66 attractions on the Broadway alignment of Joliet, Ill., Dick’s Towing decided to get into the act, according to the Herald News.
He pulled two vintage vehicles from storage and had them hoisted to the top of a block building he owns on the southeastern edge of his property on the 900 block of Broadway, which was part of Route 66.
A 1949 Pontiac Chieftan and a 1941 International pickup truck are now perched on the roof with their tires hanging over the edge. Both vehicles were repainted, and the pickup was tricked out to look like a tow truck that is pulling the Chieftan. [...]
Bartel, 68, is a lifelong resident of Joliet, and he grew up in and around the Route 66 corridor. He went to school at St. Mary’s, ate snacks at the Donut Hut and bought Lionel trains at Emil and Ed’s Hobby Shop. He said he loves the old history of the route and is happy to add to the hoopla. [...]
This summer, Bartel said he will add to the building vintage signs and photos that his son, Dick K. Bartel, has collected through the years.
A photo gallery of crews putting the two vehicles on the roof can be seen here.
A chat with Michael Zadoorian February 5, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Books, Movies, People, Road trips.add a comment
Because of Michael Zadoorian, historic Route 66 may have not one, but two opportunities for high-profile publicity.
Zadoorian’s novel “The Leisure Seeker” was published last week. The story of an ailing elderly couple from Detroit driving down Route 66 for a final vacation together (review here) is entertaining and poignant enough that one could easily see the book end up on the bestseller list. The fact “The Leisure Seeker” has the marketing might of a major publisher (HarperCollins) behind it doesn’t hurt, either.
Also, “The Leisure Seeker” was optioned for film, nine months before publication, by noted producer Jeffrey Sharp 
of Sharp Independent Films. So there’s always the possibility of seeing John and Ella’s Mother Road journey on the silver screen.
I conducted a phone interview this week with Zadoorian, who was speaking from an office during a snowy day in Warren, Mich., a suburb of his native Detroit. The following is an edited transcript:
Q: Why did you decide to do a Route 66 trip?
A: I guess I’d always been fascinated with Route 66. I do believe I took the trip once or twice when I was a child, on camping trips with my mother and father out west. We didn’t take it all the way, unfortunately, but we did take small stretches of it.
Growing up in Detroit, the car culture is instilled in all of us here; we’re all kind of nuts about cars in our own way. For me, I think that’s why Route 66 tugs at my imagination. I was always fascinated with that and road culture in general. Once I knew where I wanted (John and Ella) to go, I realized that Route 66 would be a perfect choice. In a lot of ways, the road is sort of a mirror for the two characters. It worked out well, and it made it a lot more fun to write, too.
Q: When you did your Route 66 trip, did anything about the journey surprise you?
A: There were a lot of things that surprised me. I had been wanting to do the trip for ages, and so had my wife. I was one of those trips that my wife and I had always meant to take. I had the Route 66 books; there’s so much lore about the road.
When I took the trip, I had written a couple of drafts of the book. There’s so many books and photographs about Route 66 that I was actually able to write a facsimile about the journey before I went on it. But I knew at a certain point I would have to actually take the trip. Happily, it turned out to be the excuse my wife and I had been looking for for the past 10 years.
It was great. Once we actually got on the road, there was so much about the buildings and the sky and even the rubble of it … there’s a lot of incredible ruins along the way. Being from Detroit, one learns to appreciate ruins (laughs). All the history … you could really feel the history of it. When we were done, I really felt that we’d had a real American adventure. It was so very cool.
Q: Do you have anything that was your favorite on the route?
A: Gosh … I did love the Wigwam Village in Holbrook (in Arizona). That was so fun. And we ate all kinds of great food.
And it’s all kind of reflected in the book, but I’ve always had a thing for the fiberglass giants. There’s something about those things that speak to me … I don’t know why. We have stuff like that in Michigan, too. In the book, Ella mentions her fascination with the gigantic icons, and she mentions a photograph of her and her daughter next to the Paul Bunyan in Michigan. That photo actually exists; I have one of my mother and sister next to the Paul Bunyan. I wasn’t even born yet. I just love that stuff.
Q: As a man, was it difficult to write the book from the perspective of a female character?
A: I really didn’t feel like it was hard … it felt very natural for me.
As a child and as an adult, I always listened to my mother. I guess I took a lot of the cues from there. I had been doing research on the book for a long time, and people I work with and friends would sometimes compare things that our mothers had said and did. All of that came in handy when I was writing the book.
If I had written it from John’s point of view, it obviously would have been a completely different book, especially since he’s got Alzheimer’s.
Q: You say Ella is based on your mother. Is it from the whole cloth, or is Ella a mix of different people?
A: It definitely is (a composite). I did start from my mother’s point of view. But after a while, the more you work on something, the more the character takes on their own history and their own personality. It’s difficult to write something based only on one person. You want a book to take its own kind of course.
Q: I was startled to learn that you had sold the film rights even before the book’s publication.
A: It was kind of an unusual thing. At the moment, it’s been optioned; there is no guarantee that it’s going to be made into a film. But the person who optioned the film is a really good independent film producer … really nice films such as “Boys Don’t Cry,” “You Can Count on Me,” “Proof.” So he’s got some credentials. He recently started an affiliate with HarperCollins where he basically gets first look at all their properties. He can pick and choose as he sees fit. The woman who was to be my editor was so enthusiastic about the book that she put it into his hands. He read it over a weekend, and everybody decided at the same time to make a book offer and a film option. The film option got folded into my publishing contract. If I wasn’t the first person to have that done, I was one of the first.
Q: It’s been a number of months since the film option was announced. Have you heard anything since?
A: I know the producers were at Sundance, and I’m sure they mentioned the book. But I don’t think they say anything unless there’s something really solid happening. I do think they’re working on it very avidly. But I’m pretty much just the book guy; it just came out, and I’m caught up in all that right now.
I know there’s been some interest in a film. But you know Hollywood … unless papers have been signed, you never know what’s going to happen. But I wouldn’t be surprised if something comes of this.
Help protect the Pony Bridge February 4, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Bridges, Preservation.4 comments
A few weeks ago, I read that the state of Oklahoma was putting together a list of bridges slated for repairs or replacement in the next decade or so.
I’m for safe bridges as much as the next person. But I was concerned that the Pony Bridge, the amazing 38-truss span built in 1933 on old Route 66 near Bridgeport in Canadian County, would lose its distinctive look amid bureaucratic zeal to create a safe, yet humdrum, structure. I e-mailed the state department of transportation, explained its historical significance, and implored the agency to “repair, don’t replace” the bridge.
Today, I received a letter from Cole Hackett, public information officer for the agency. In part, it read:
The Canadian County project, scheduled for 2015, is in the early planning stages. I spoke with our environmental division engineer about the U.S. 281 bridge and she said the bridge was placed in our 8-year plan because it had major needs that need to be addressed. She assured me that they understand the historical significance of this bridge and have been in a dialogue with the State Historic Preservation Office to discuss what can be done to address those needs while at the same time maintaining the bridge’s historical significance. As the plans to address those needs progress and an environmental study is done, we would appreciate input from you, the Oklahoma Route 66 Association and all those interested. Public input is vital to the planning process leading up to projects and we appreciate any input we receive.
So the Oklahoma Department of Transportation is listening.
If you want to also chime in that the Pony Bridge should be repaired but not replaced, the phone number is 405-521-3050. Also, you can e-mail Dawn Sullivan, head of the state’s environmental programs division, at dsullivan(at)odot.org. If you want to use snail-mail, the address is: Oklahoma Department of Transportation, 200 NE 21st St., Oklahoma City, OK 73105-3204.
I’d be polite in the correspondence. The state has proven responsive in the past with other recent Route 66 concerns, including the preservation of the Captain Creek Bridge near Wellston.