Mother Road matchmaker

News broke Friday afternoon that music legend Paul McCartney and girlfriend Nancy Shevell are engaged to be married after a four-year courtship. You can read many of the particulars from the Daily Mail in London here, along with seeing a charming photo of the couple.

And it’s fairly likely a Route 66 trip that McCartney and Shevell took a few years ago likely cemented that relationship.

In case you’re new to Route 66 News, the Mother Road community was all atwitter in August 2008 when it became apparent that McCartney and his new girlfriend Shevell were cruising Route 66 in a 20-year-old Ford Bronco, starting from Chicago.

The buzz started when the newspaper in Lebanon, Mo., reported that a Paul McCartney lookalike was spotted in a gas station across the road from the now-closed Bell Restaurant that week.

News then quickly emerged that McCartney and Shevell were seen at the Joliet Area Historical Museum and in Springfield, Ill., the day before.

Soon, McCartney sightings were all over the Mother Road clear to Flagstaff, Ariz., where the former Beatle had to cut short his trip because his daughter was giving birth back in England. You can read about all of the reports from eyewitnesses and newspapers here and here about McCartney and his gal pal on Route 66.

The next year, during a sellout concert in Tulsa, McCartney briefly talked about his trip on Route 66. Then he sang “The Long and Winding Road” (alas, that audience patter didn’t make it to this clip).

Today’s news is especially good for McCartney, who had to deal with the cancer death of his first wife and an ugly divorce from the second. And what do I mean by “Mother Road matchmaker” in the title? Well, there’s this report from the Daily Mail shortly after McCartney’s Route 66 journey was announced:

A source said: ‘The road trip was Nancy’s idea as a way of them getting to bond and spend time together – just the two of them.’

I guess it worked.