Get your kicks!
Dear Classic American,
It has to be said that I am no expert on Route 66 monuments but in 2013 my wife and I did ‘66’ (and a whole lot more) as a honeymoon trip. We hauled a new 27ft fifth wheel trailer with a then 10-year-old V8 Nissan Titan crew cab (an awesome hauler made in America, so hopefully no readers will get angry over it being a Nissan!) and had a ball.
Stopping for two nights in Carthage, Missouri, the camp site reception team invited us to an evening beach party ‘at the lake’.
En route to that party they stopped at a monument for the 9ft highway, which is actually miles from any of the ‘normal’ Route 66 carriageways and hence not a regular sightseeing haunt.
The lake turned out to be well over two hours’ drive from Carthage but clearly in the mid-west that distance for an evening party is just normal!
Shots of Jim’s monument (page 24 of the June issue) are easily found on the web and is somewhere close to where Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma all meet; the remains of the 9ft section there is called the Ribbon Road and there are other similar monuments along its very remote route (sorry about the setting sun shadow on our shot… it was an evening party!).
Our US tour was awash with auto memorabilia and great tourist trivia; the people we met were unfailingly kind and friendly and classics abounded. I would recommend any American road trip, but ‘66’ from Chicago to New Mexico is a petrolhead’s dream to be taken slowly.
There are numerous option routes along the way as ‘66’ got diverted repeatedly as the development of early cars allowed, e.g. that essential watering holes needed for topping up boiling radiators could be bypassed by the Forties.
I have to admit that it all gets a bit ‘lost in the desert’ from New Mexico to the Pacific coast, but undoubtedly it’s a trip not to be missed!
Roger and Lynn Lott
Via email
Thanks for sharing your memories and photos of Route 66; it is probably, and some might say certainly, the number one road trip for Classic American readers and should definitely be taken slowly and preferably in a classic American car or truck – even an American-built Nissan!