Welcome to Paradise: Terry and Peggy Go For A Ride

There’s this mystique that surrounds Route 66. I’ve heard of it, and thought the whole thing was kind of cheesy. I mean, it’s just a road, right? There’s this subculture of people who rattle on about The Mother Road, dress in ’50’s style clothing, and wax rhapsodic about WigWam motels and cute little gas stations. Silly, huh…

But y’know, I was raised in the age of the Interstate Highway, by parents who believed that the journey was merely a means to an end. It was all about getting there, the destination. The journey was a chore to be endured and gotten over with as quickly as possible. Growing up, we were allowed a 5 minute stop every 4 hours or so. 5 minutes to pee and dig a drink out of the cooler. I hated traveling.

Since then, I have learned there’s a whole ‘nother world out there, off of the Interstate Highway. Interstate travel is just so many 4 lane roads, so many truck and cars all rushing to get to their destination as efficiently as possible. Route 66 travel, and any highway travel, I believe, is another species entirely. You don’t approach it as a means to an end. It’s all about the journey.

When we took this trip, we weren’t actually *going* anywhere. We considered maybe going as far as St. Louis, or maybe Springfield. We made it as far as Joplin. That was ok. No one was waiting for us with a cake. We just decided it was time to turn east and south and go home.

Traveling Route 66 was…I don’t know…Magical. It sounds terribly cliche’ and I hate cliches, but there it is. Rather than bypassing each little town with speed and efficiency, the road goes straight into them, to the heart of little towns bustling with interesting people and peculiar businesses. Normal people punctuated with oddities that they accepted with good humor. The towns themselves were like little gemstones on a long necklace. Each one had their point of pride, a theater lovingly restored or the

*Good Grief What is That* UFO glittering in a front yard. You’d never see these delights if you were on the Interstate.

The people were…awesome. We weren’t looked at like freaks of nature, but greeted with enthusiasm and advise about where to eat and what to see. A guy named Joe whipped into the parking lot where I was taking Terry’s picture and informed us we needed to BOTH be in the picture.

He was driving an appliance repair truck and had on a uniform with his name over the pocket. After he snapped our photo, he told us where to go eat, Clanton’s, and we took his advise and had the best pie EVER.

We would never have known if he hadn’t have stopped.

In another town, we were gassing up the car and a gentleman named Gary W. struck up a conversation, noticing our out-of-town car tags and the fascination with The CrapDuster.

He told us of a fantastic drive in theater outside town, which we would never have known of otherwise. It is an amazing place. If it had been Friday we probably would have stayed on for the Double Feature. As it was, the owner of the theater was weedwhacking there, and told us the story of the place, and how it was a bloomin’ miracle that the original 1949 ticket box hadn’t been shot to bits while the theater was serving as a salvage yard in the 80’s and 90’s. He let us wander about the place, taking pictures and generally falling in love with it.

There is definitely a revival happening. Old places are being restored and new places are cropping up. Pop’s, in Arcadia Oklahoma, is only 2 years old,

and it is the embodiment of the Spirit of Route 66, with it’s funky architecture, full service (gas, food, snacks, cold drinks) sensibility, and silly landmark bottle. The service station in Shamrock, Texas was the inspiration for Ramone’s Body Shop in the movie “Cars”,

and the little service car’s leaning tower of tires was a hat tip to the The Leaning Water Tower in Groome, Texas.

Go on into Tulsa, OK, and there’s all sorts of good stuff, buildings and walkways and bridges, all cared for and there for picking like a perfect piece of ripe fruit.

It’s hard to explain really clearly, this feeling of exploration. All I can say is that it renews my sense of optimism for our country. Being able to drive into some little town I’ve never heard of and see that all the store fronts downtown are full, people are doing business, old men are sitting on the benches outside the courthouse and someone’s still doing hair in their garage. Our sense of humor is intact, as witnessed by the UFO, the truck up on a pedestal

, and the Crapduster.

No one would ever see it, if all we did was rush from one place to the other on the Interstate Highway. Don’t get me wrong, the Interstate is a great way to get to Savannah in 45 minutes, or Amarillo in a day and a half, if that’s all the time you have. But for Terry and me, I’m thinking we’ll plan at least one trip a year to make it all about the journey. There’s so much to see in this country, and not just on Route 66. Highway 301 passes through Statesboro and was a main corridor from Glasgow, Delaware to Sarasota, Florida. Even this little bit we’ve seen locally has fascinating signs and towns (the Paradise Restaurant sign is just outside town here). We are making plans to explore it some more. Highway 280, Highway 84, there’s so many.

Check back in now and then, I’ll be posting on Big Brutus, bridges, architecture, and strange sights along the trip.