I’ve been working on this for a few days, and I thought you’d like to see what familiar Route 66 landmarks would look like by satellite, via Google Maps:
- Buckingham Fountain, Chicago, near the start of Route 66
- Sears Tower, Chicago
- Launching Pad Drive-In restaurant and its Gemini Giant, Wilmington, Ill.
- Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, Madison, Ill.
- Gateway Arch, St. Louis
- 66 Drive-In theater, Carthage, Mo.
- Blue Whale, Catoosa, Okla.
- Blue Dome, Tulsa
- Round Barn, Arcadia, Okla.
- Glenrio, at Texas-New Mexico border
- Big cross, Groom, Texas
- Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, Texas
- Tucumcari Mountain, Tucumcari, N.M.
- Meteor Crater, Arizona
- Old Colorado River Bridge, at Arizona-California border
- Roy’s in Amboy, Calif.
- Wigwam Motel, Rialto, Calif.
- Colorado Street Bridge, Pasadena, Calif.
- Santa Monica Pier, near the end of Route 66
There were others I tried to find, such as the U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas, and the Pony Bridge east of Hydro, Okla., but the satellite images were too indistinct or too poor to zoom in close enough.
Search for Times Beach, MO and you get excellent coverage of the former Route 66 village, now a ghost town and Route 66 State Park resembling a fan along the Meramec River. To the west of the state park building, the old Inn that served the community and the Mother Road, you can follow old 66 as it quickly has its pavement overtaken by I-44.
So that’s what the Chain of Rocks Bridge looks like in the daylight!
This might be my favorite post ever. Love the whale, love the Barn, and I’m pretty sure that’s a better view of Meteor Crater than you get there.
I really like MSN Live Maps for bigger cities. Give this one a shot for the Blue Dome gas station in Tulsa:
https://tinyurl.com/2wtvm7
click on “Bird’sEye View” and pan a little right (don’t know why the address is off). Note you can zoom in and rotate the East, West, North, South views.
For other places, just go to MSN.com, type in their browser window an address and click on maps. They have decent-ish satellite maps but the Birds Eye Views are the best I’ve seen because of the camera’s angulation. I hope they expand these fun maps to smaller towns!