Route 66 museum will participate in Roy Rogers Centennial November 3, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Events, Movies, People.add a comment
The 100th anniversary of the birth of Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys, will be celebrated this weekend in Apple Valley, Calif.
The California Route 66 Museum in nearby Victorville will mark the occasion with a car show on Saturday. That also happens to be the 16th anniversary of its opening.
More about the car show can be found here.
Rogers and his wife Dale Evans lived for decades in the high desert of Apple Valley.
According to a news release from Apple Valley:
Roy “Dusty” Rogers Jr. and Dustin Roy Rogers, son and grandson, will honor his legacy in a free concert at the Civic Center Park amphitheater. [...]
Steve Lewis and the Mojave River Boys will kick off the concert at Civic Center Park beginning at 1 p.m. Storytelling and reminiscing will fill the afternoon, leading to the headline concert from 2:30 – 4:30 by Roy “Dusty” Rogers Jr., featuring Dustin Roy Rogers and the High Riders, straight from Branson.
Dusty and his band perform classic cowboy, western music reminiscent of the sounds of Sons of the Pioneers, the group founded by his father. It’s always a crowd favorite when he shares his personal stories of growing up with Roy and Dale as only Dusty can do. Experience first-hand how the legacy of Roy Rogers continues in the live performances of his son and grandson.
The weekend also will feature a “Pancakes and Prayer” event, free admission at the Victor Valley Historical Museum if you announce yourself as “Roy’s guest,” and a concert at the Double R Bar Ranch by the Cross Town Cowboys.
A schedule of events for the Roy Rogers Centennial Celebration can be found here.
In the unlikely event you don’t recall who Roy Rogers is, these two clips will jolt your memory bank:
Roy Rogers once operated his own memorabilia museum just off Route 66 in the region. But attendance plunged after Roy’s death in 1998. The Rogers family moved the museum to Branson, Mo., in an effort to make a go of it, but it closed in January 2010. The Roy Rogers collection was auctioned later that summer, including the RFD-TV network buying Roy’s stuffed horse Trigger.
“Cars” director gets star on Hollywood Walk of Fame November 2, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Movies, People.add a comment
John Lasseter, the Oscar-winning director of the 2006 Disney-Pixar movie “Cars” and a guiding force for many other Pixar Animation Studio films, received an honorary star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday.
Check two vehicles that showed up at the vehicles:
“Cars” stars who attended the ceremony included Bonnie Hunt, Cheech Marin, Owen Wilson, and John Ratzenberger. Two musicians who made key contributions to the soundtrack, Randy Newman and Brad Paisley, also were there.
“Cars” used real-life people and landmarks on Route 66 to inspire the fictional Route 66 town of Radiator Springs in the film. Lasseter and other Pixar crew members actually toured Route 66 to gather material for the film. “Cars” helped bring a new generation of children and their parents to the Mother Road.
The Los Angeles Times posted a good story about the ceremony.
UPDATE: Here’s video from the ceremony. It was classy how Lasseter turned his speech into a tribute to Pixar founder and Apple magnate Steve Jobs, who died last month:
(Photos by Alex J. Berliner/ABImages)
A closer look at Lincoln’s Ghost Bridge November 2, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Bridges, Ghosts and Mysteries, Preservation, Restaurants.add a comment
Alas, the Decatur (Ill.) Herald & Review didn’t post this until after the event. But this video shows the legendary Ghost Bridge of Route 66 in Lincoln, Ill., and the Ghost Bridge Walk that became a fundraiser for The Mill in Lincoln.
Excerpts from “Route 66: The Road West” November 2, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in History, Movies, Music, Television.add a comment
This video clips contains excerpts from “Route 66: The Road West,” a three-part television documentary that aired on NHK in Japan and a one-hour version on the A&E Channel here in the States.
A lot of good stuff here, including Club Cafe in Santa Rosa when it was still open, Russell Soulsby when he was still alive, and Bobby Troup performing and explaining his signature song.
Hard to believe the program is nearly 20 years old; it first aired in 1992.
Former Firestone station will reopen Nov. 21 November 1, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Events, Gas stations, Preservation.add a comment
The former Bristow Firestone Service Station building on Route 66 in Bristow, Okla., will hold its grand reopening from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 21, according to a news release from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program.
At noon that day, officials from the program will present a plaque to owner Jack Longacre, who has restored the 1930 building at 321 N. Main St. and will operate it as Bristow Body Shop.
The Bristow Firestone Service Station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, and recently received a $25,000 cost-share grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program.
From the release:
With a vision and penchant for historical accuracy, Longacre completed a meticulous restoration of the station. The ambitious project included restoration of the original windows and glass pane overhead doors; structural and masonry repairs; and restoration of the sign in historic Firestone styling. The building will continue its legacy of auto-related service by operating as an auto-body repair shop, thus preserving a local treasure and tangible link to the American icon, historic Route 66.
According to the news release, the building also hosted Kerr-McGee, Phillips 66, and Mobil gas stations. It stopped selling gas by the 1990s.
Refreshments will be served during the reopening, and the public is invited to tour the building. More about the restoration project can be read here.
Pontiac tourism rises 30 percent in one year November 1, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Attractions, Museums, Towns.1 comment so far
The Route 66 town of Pontiac, Ill., is seeing a 30 percent increase in tourists over a year ago, according to a report in the Bloomington Pantagraph.
Tourism director Ellie Alexander keeps a regular tally of visitor numbers. So the boost in tourism isn’t anecdotal.
An increase in the number of tour groups is mostly responsible for the increase, she said. Tour groups include coach bus tours, car clubs, motorcycle groups, women’s clubs, church groups, student groups and other organizations.
So far in 2011, more than 20,000 tourists have visited the city.
“I would say it has far exceeded our expectations,” said City Administrator Bob Karls. [...]
The tourism season is starting to slow, Alexander said, but last week, 517 visitors from 19 states and 15 countries registered at the local museums. In addition to the Route 66 Museum and Pontiac Oakland Auto Museum, Pontiac also is home to the International Walldog Mural and Sign Art Museum and the Livingston County War Museum.
“We are up by about 63 percent for group tours,” Alexander said, “and that is what really drives up our international numbers.”
The biggest weekend of 2011 was when the Pontiac Oakland Auto Museum opened in July. About 3,000 people visited the museum at that time.
Book review: “Billy Connolly’s Route 66″ November 1, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Books, Road trips, Television.1 comment so far
“Billy Connolly’s Route 66″ was a highly rated, four-episode television program that aired on ITV1 in the United Kingdom this fall. It earned a lot of praise from roadies who saw it, and its popularity very likely will spur a new wave of Britons traveling Route 66 in 2012.
This entertaining but flawed book of the same name shouldn’t be regarded as a substitute for the program, but as a companion until the DVD finally makes it to American shores (or if you can find the episodes on YouTube).
“Billy Connolly’s Route 66″ (320 pages, hardback, $29.95, Kindle version available) winds up with many of the program’s charms — namely, the Scottish comedian’s personality — but also shows a few the problems that were apparently excised from the TV version.
What turned up in the book turned out to be mostly fascinating. You’ll read about segments that were left on the cutting-room floor and a lot of behind-the-scenes material. The former included a trip to the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, Mo. (which horrified Connolly) and chatting with Blaine Davis at the Blue Whale of Catoosa, Okla. (both which delighted him).
Connolly’s breezy prose — and his initial approach to exploring Route 66 — mostly won me over:
I had made it clear to Nicky Taylor, the show’s producer, that although I would obviously have a documentary crew in tow, I was determined to travel with no preconceptions about what was lying ahead of me. I told Nicky I wanted to keep the experience as pure as possible. Even if it drove the crew doolally, I wouldn’t allow myself to be barracked into visiting places that didn’t interest me. There was no way I was going to take part in stunts or make detours simply because they’d look good on television. I didn’t want set-up meetings with weirdos and professional eccentrics, the kind of people whose entire existence depended on promoting Route 66.
I wanted this to be a personal journey of discovery. I wanted to experience every mile as it came upon me. When I woke each morning, I didn’t want to know what I would be doing that afternoon, let alone the next day. What would happen would happen. The serendipitous nature of the trip was everything to me. Planning ahead would kill the adventure and the excitement. If that happened, there would be no point leaving home.
So, obviously, the trip — and book — became of a more personal journey for Connolly. Because of this first-person approach, Connolly speaks his mind freely. His comments about politics, war, road food, religion, and rodeos might offend or irk some readers. He’s not above sprinkling occasional profanity into the text. But that candidness provides immediacy to his observations and storytelling — an asset to any travel book.
The book works best when you imagine Connelly’s Scottish accent while reading (he uses the word “wee” liberally throughout).
However, sometimes the brogue disappears when the text delves into the history of various Route 66 sites, like the material was shoe-horned into place. I’m not certain who’s to blame for the abrupt changes in the book’s tone. Maybe it’s co-author Robert Uhlig; maybe it was the tight time frame in which the book was written. Regardless, the book could have used a little more TLC in its editing.
Another significant problem turned out to be the book’s lopsided content. “Billy Connolly’s Route 66″ reaches the midpoint of the Mother Road — Adrian, Texas — on Page 213. That leaves fewer than 100 pages to cover the remaining 1,100 miles of Route 66. A motorcycle accident in eastern Arizona left Connolly hospitalized for several days and in significant pain for the remainder of the trip. One wonders whether Connolly’s convalescence left the film crew with too little time — or whether Connolly had too little energy — to see all the sights. This lack of material about Route 66′s western half wasn’t apparent during the television program, but it sticks out glaringly in the book.
Despite its shortcomings, “Billy Connolly’s Route 66″ turned out to be an often-enjoyable book. But it simply can’t compare to the wonderful cinematography and crisp editing of the ITV production. “Billy Connolly’s Route 66″ proves to be a rarity — the television program being better than the book.
Recommended.