Jack - You know, I travelled Route 66 for the first time in the summer of 1966. I kind of went on a dare. My buddy Kenny had this brand new Cadillac Convertible and said "You want to go to California?” I was 19 years old, just out of high school, I said, "Sure, I'll go, I ain’t scared". I had no idea what I was getting into, or how hot it was going to be, how many wonderful people I would meet, how many sights I would see, some of which looked just like in the western movies! I stopped by to tell my folks. They were a little surprised, but not shocked. After all I was the sixth of eight kids and the third boy of four, so they had seen quite a bit already. They just said be careful so I picked up my toothbrush and a spare shirt and we were off!

Some parts of the highway were three lanes. There was one lane in each direction and a centre lane that took turns of being a passing lane for eastbound, or a passing lane for westbound depending on how the yellow painted stripes were. It was kind of a good idea as it was better than two lanes. You at least would get an opportunity to pass slow moving trucks. The bad part was sometimes your lane would run out before you got all the way around the traffic. So you had cars travelling in opposite directions just inches apart. The speed limit was 60 in the daytime and 55 at night, they had those magic speed limit signs that showed "60" in daylight but had some kind of reflective material that only showed "55" at night.