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 aint 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.