Two vintage Albuquerque motels will find new life May 18, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Motels, Preservation.1 comment so far
The Luna Lodge and the Sundowner Motel along Central Avenue (aka Route 66) in Albuquerque are going to be renovated in the coming months and converted into apartment complexes, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
According to the newspaper:
The Sundowner Motel at 6101 Central NE, just west of San Pedro, would be transformed into a 71-unit apartment complex with a community room, laundry room, gym, library, community garden, business incubators, and office and retail space. [...]
The Luna Lodge site at 9119 Central NE, east of Wyoming, would include 30 “affordable” apartments: 14 units, an office and community room with a kitchen in the existing motel and 16 units in a new two-story building.
The Sundowner is most notable as a place where Bill Gates and Paul Allen stayed in the 1970s when they worked on BASIC computer language for the Altair computer. Their efforts culminated in the formation of Microsoft.
The Luna is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is considered a prime example of a vintage Route 66 motel.
Renovations on both properties were approved by the city’s Environmental Planning Commission. Because Central Avenue suffers from a glut of cut-rate motels, any adaptive reuse of such historic properties should be applauded.
Vulcan Materials settles lawsuit with Illinois May 18, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Highways, Towns.2 comments
Vulcan Materials, which was accused in a lawsuit of damaging a now-closed one-mile stretch of Joliet Road (aka Route 66) in McCook, Ill., settled with the state of Illinois for $40 million, according to a news release today.
The company, which supplies asphalt and gravel, said it will pay $20 million to the Illinois Department of Transportation within 10 days. The remaining $20 million will be paid as Vulcan receives funds from its insurers.
The lawsuit, filed in 2001, came after the road became dangerously unstable and was closed. Vulcan operated quarries on both sides of the road, and the state maintains that those activities undermined it. The lawsuit finally was set to go to trial this month.
According to the Southtown Star:
Vulcan Materials Co. does not admit liability in the settlement, which was reached after three weeks of negotiation, IDOT said Tuesday.
However, the enormous size of the settlement and the fact the state was willing to go to trial suggest that Vulcan feared taking its case (such as it was) to the courtroom.
Alas, because of the road’s grave condition, it’s doubtful it will ever be reopened. Traffic is detoured onto a two-mile stretch of 55th Street and East Avenue.
UPDATE: An updated story by the Southtown contains this:
U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-3rd) said it’s unlikely Joliet Road will be reopened, but he wants IDOT to explore options for relieving congestion on nearby streets caused by the closing. He said IDOT also must announce whether the road is being closed permanently.
“Not a month goes by that a person doesn’t ask me what the situation is with Joliet Road,” Lipinski said.
(Hat tip: Dave Clark)
Uranium Cafe reopens in Grants May 17, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in History, Restaurants.add a comment
The landmark Uranium Cafe along Route 66 in Grants, N.M., has reopened as Nana’s Cafe, according to an article in the Cibola County Beacon.
According to the article, the building was constructed in the 1950s and named after the uranium mining industry that dominated the area’s economy for decades.
The place closed, then briefly reopened as Five Brothers Uranium Cafe, then closed again in 2007.
The article contains a lot of history about the restaurant, but precious little about its current incarnation. It does mention that it reopened May 14 and is operated by Allison Ramirez and her “extended family.” According to the article, New Mexican food will be served, featuring chicharrones.
Summer(fest) is coming May 17, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Events.add a comment
Here is the Route 66 Summerfest’s own promotional video for its annual festival in Rolla, Mo.
Here’s a shorter version of the video if you have only a minute or so:
Michael Wallis elected to Tulsa Hall of Fame May 16, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Books, Events, People.1 comment so far
Michael Wallis, author of the seminal “Route 66: The Mother Road” and 14 other nonfiction books, was elected to the Class of 2010 for the Tulsa Hall of Fame, according to an article in the Tulsa World today.
“Route 66: The Mother Road” became a best-selling book shortly after it was published in 1992 and sparked a renaissance in the historical road that continues to this day. Wallis, a Missouri native, has lived in Tulsa for decades and has continued to be a vocal advocate for Route 66.
His work has been published in national and international magazines and newspapers, including Time, Life, People, Smithsonian, The New Yorker and The New York Times. [...]
Wallis was inducted into the Writers Hall of Fame of America, the Oklahoma Professional Writers’ Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame, and the Oklahoma Route 66 Hall of Fame.
He received the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award, the Lynn Riggs Award and the first John Steinbeck Award.
In 2006, Wallis’ voice was heard in “Cars,” an animated feature film from Pixar Studios. He will be featured in “Cars 2,” scheduled for release in 2011.
Other inductees this year are Flintco Cos. owner and chairwoman Robin Flint Ballenger, Building Tulsa, Building Lives co-chairwomen Judy Zarrow Kishner and Gail Zarrow Richards, former Tulsa mayor Kathy Taylor and former Dollar Thrifty car rental owner Bill Lobeck.
The induction ceremony is set for Oct. 21 at the Tulsa Convention Center. To request an invitation to the event, contact the Tulsa Historical Society.
A motivational message May 16, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Religion.add a comment
It appears Matt Foley, motivational speaker, has morphed into the prophet Haggai:
This has been yet another twisted episode in “Route 66: A Road Trip through the Bible.”
Book review: “Riding America’s Backroads” May 15, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Books, Motorcycles, Road trips.1 comment so far
Here’s an idea that I can get behind: a motorcycle travel magazine compiling articles on 20 of its top U.S. tours, including Route 66, into one well-illustrated book. Motorcycle tourism has steadily grown as baby boomers approach retirement, so the market for such a book is there.
RoadRunner Motorcycle Touring & Travel magazine, on its 10th anniversary, has done this with “Riding America’s Backroads” (softcover, Fox Chapel, 192 pages, $27.95). In addition to the Mother Road, the book includes tours into central and northern New Mexico, the Mendocino Coast of California, Grand Canyon Country of northern Arizona, and Big Bend National Park in Texas — all with beautiful full-color photographs and illustrations. Sprinkled throughout are one-page stories and sidebars about trip planning, group rides, repair tools and other information.
However, I found enough flaws with “Riding America’s Backroads” that I would use it with caution — especially with Route 66.
In the book’s opening chapter of Route 66, the uncredited writers mention they inadvertently skipped Tulsa and Oklahoma City, which signals they drove on Oklahoma Highway 66, aka the interstate, through those cities instead of taking the classic alignments. Oops.
And Kansas — and its 13 miles of Route 66 — isn’t mentioned at all.
The book’s serious shortcomings pop up when the authors mention eating breakfast at Norma’s Diamond Cafe in Sapulpa, Okla., and stopping to see the Big 8 Motel (famous for a scene in the movie “Rain Man”) in El Reno, Okla. Both places have been gone for at least five years.
Obviously, the article was written a long time ago. But, like the error-riddled “Road Trip USA Route 66,” the publishers needed to employ a fact-checker to ensure the book is up-to-date. At the least, editor’s notes in the story should have informed readers that those landmarks are defunct so that future travelers aren’t disappointed.
The end of the chapter includes a one-page Facts and Information, including the best times to travel, typical road conditions, books and map resources, key Web sites, and a short listing of attractions.
However, the Route 66 map places several towns in inaccurate spots, including Stroud, Okla., away from Route 66 entirely; Clinton, Okla., being very close to the Texas border; Santa Rosa, N.M., in the Tucumcari area; Oatman, Ariz., being east of Sitgreaves Pass instead of west, and Barstow, Calif., being about 100 miles too far to the east.
With these oversights and mistakes in the opening chapter, it doesn’t give one much confidence about the rest of “Riding America’s Backroads.”
Another gripe: The book does not contain an index or listing of chapters by page number. This makes trying to look up the sections a big hassle.
The book provides a website in which you can download global-positioning system files and tankbag maps for your trips. I had a devil of a time finding the address for the downloads; it wasn’t featured on RoadRunner’s main site. The only place it’s listed is on the inside flap of book cover. Anyway, the download site is here.
The downloadable maps are the same as the ones in the book. So the downloadable Route 66 map has the same problems with the strangely positioned towns as the book version, and is only marginally useful.
I don’t have a GPS unit, but plugged in RoadRunner’s downloadable coordinates into Google Earth. Admittedly, this isn’t ideal for testing. But I determined that RoadRunner’s coordinates did include older Route 66 alignments such as the Santa Fe routing, part of the Admiral Place in Tulsa, the Sidewalk Highway near Afton and Miami, Okla.; the old Geary, Okla., alignment, and the old Springfield-to-Carlinville routing in Illinois.
However, the GPS coordinates did not go into Arizona’s scenic Black Mountains and the quaint mining town of Oatman. I’m not sure whether RoadRunner thought Oatman Road is too challenging, or an oversight.
So, if you’re a Garmin junkie, it may be to your advantage to supplement the device with other Route 66 coordinates, such as these.
“Riding America’s Backroads” might provide a motorcycle enthusiast a few good ideas for his or her next road trip. But I would think twice about using it as a primary resource.