Get your kicks...

On Route 66! Yes, I had the Manhattan Transfer version of this great song stuck in my head the entire time we drove along Route 66. Or course, we have that song to thank that I even thought of doing Route 66 on this vacation. I was looking at a map trying to see what is about halfway between Lake Powell and Santa Ana in order to break up the very long drive, when I saw Kingman. Immediately the lyrics, "Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino..." popped into my head and I suddenly had a plan.

Being interested in anything having to do with automotive history, I knew my husband would be into this. One of our all time favorite kids movies is Cars. We must have seen it a hundred times. This is essentially a movie about Route 66, so I knew there would be a hook to interest my daughter also.

We got on Route 66 just west of Ash Fork Arizona. I love that part of the country which really has that wild west wide-open-spaces feel to it.

We stopped shortly thereafter at Seligman, a town which clearly was well studied by the creators of Cars. We later found out that while this town nearly dried up and blew away, it was saved by the passion of one man who revived interest in the historical Route 66. While nearly everything was closed by the time we got there, and we eventually met our craving for ice-cream from the freezer box at a gas station, there was still one gift shop open. Since my husband collects license plates and such, he got a souvenir sign for his garage.



While most people get off the highway only to visit Seligman, we continued on Route 66 all the way to Kingman. It was a beautiful drive!