Second edition of “Route 66 Yellow Pages” makes improvements

When the inaugural “Keeping You on the Mother Road” (aka “The Route 66 Yellow Pages”) appeared two years ago, I noted it was a good rookie effort by the Kansas firm that produced it, but improvements were needed.

Mother Road LLC published Volume 2 of “Keeping You on the Mother Road” a few weeks ago. I spent a few hours this weekend perusing it. As I’d hoped, I saw that many of the prescribed remedies had been made:

— More pages. Volume 2 boasts 432 pages, almost double the number of the 2010 edition. The publishers had hoped to offer a 300-page publication the first time around, but fell short. The current edition soared well past that goal. Best of all, it keeps its original price of $19.66.

— Better representation of the western half of Route 66: The first edition devoted just 64 pages to Route 66 west of Oklahoma City — a distance of 1,300 miles. This time, more than 150 pages cover that part. More pages and ads on western Route 66 still are needed — especially California — but it’s a huge improvement, regardless.

— More-readable maps. In the first edition, the maps for Route 66 were printed with too much detail and were hard to read. In the new edition, the publishers made most of the maps simpler and easier to follow.

— Better editing. The first publication contained dozens of errors of capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Someone obviously spent a little time with the copy for the second edition; I was hard-pressed to find any goofs.

Samples of the publication can be see in PDF form here.

One welcome addition is 50 pages of “Route 66 Community White Pages,” an alphabetical listing of businesses. It’s a handy way to look up a business’ phone number, especially if you don’t remember what town or region it’s located.

The publication also contains brief sections or listings on artists and authors, Route 66 history, state associations, museums, photographs, chambers of commerce, and tourism bureaus. Actual yellow pages are periodically sprinkled into the guide by city or region, with everything from restaurants and motels to towing services and motorcycle rentals.

The new “Keeping You on the Mother Road” has articles written by Dave Clark, Jim Conkle, Jane Dippel, Ron Hart, Claudia Heller, Joe Sonderman, John Weiss, Kip Welborn, and the deceased Lenore Weiss and Skip Curtis.

A few improvements still are needed. The maps include many older alignments, including Illinois 4, the Santa Fe Loop, Glenrio-to-San Jon, and the dirt-road segment from Geary, Okla. But the Admiral Place alignment in Tulsa was inexplicably omitted.

But that’s a relatively minor concern. The second edition of “Keeping You on the Mother Road” has grown by leaps and bound, both in size and quality. That’s what you want to see, and the “Route 66 Yellow Pages” should be a great addition for travelers, businesses, tourism centers, and other entities.

(If you’re interested in buying the guide, send an e-mail to motherroadinc(at)yahoo(dot)com. Review copy courtesy of the Boots Motel in Carthage, Mo.)