Route 66

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I drove Route 66 in Albuquerque maybe 15 years ago when I went out for the Hot Air Balloon Festival. We ate at the old Route 66 Diner. I don't remember much about it, but the food was pretty good.
 
911 said:
I drove Route 66 in Albuquerque maybe 15 years ago when I went out for the Hot Air Balloon Festival. We ate at the old Route 66 Diner. I don't remember much about it, but the food was pretty good.
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Just like us all 😂, “the food was pretty good”. In good times, we always remember the food.
 
My family + my grandma drove from Chicago to San Francisco and back in a 1950 Ford two door when I was 4 or 5 meaning around 1952 or 3. Thankfully I don't recall one second of the trip.
 
 
At age 3 or 4 our family of 4 was driving cross country on Route 66 to/from LA and over-nighted at the Painted Desert Inn, part of Petrified Forest National Park that is now a museum. Route 66 runs right through the northern end of the park where there is a cliff vista northward into the colorful usually waterless Painted Desert bad lands. When I did photography there a decade ago, upon entering the Inn I was surprised to vaguely remember the time our family ate a table in what was a cafe room. Amazing to recall any memory from that age. It gave me a deep inner mental feeling of my beloved mother and father from that period of my young life I allowed myself to deeply feel in tears. Note both my parents are long passed. Amazing what our secrets our minds hold that our visual mind might unlock given triggers even decades later.

https://www.nps.gov/pefo/learn/historyculture/pdi.htm

The inn opened in 1940 under the management of the Fred Harvey Company, which was famous in the Southwest for providing hospitality services to tourists and travelers on the Santa Fe Railroad. For two years, the inn offered Route 66 travelers food, souvenirs, and lodging, and local people with event and meeting space. It closed in 1942, as American involvement with World War II shifted resources away from domestic programs.

Petrified wood in front of some uniquely purple sedimentary clay layer strata. Have studied much earth geology including geological maps of places I visit. 4x5 Provia transparency crudely scanned.
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Almost 80 years ago, Nat King Cole recorded Bobby Troup's song: "Get Your Kicks on Route 66." Both the song and the highway became known across the pond when Chuck Berry recorded it. A few years later the Rolling Stones recorded it and many others have too.
My wife and I have visited Uncle Sam many times, but somehow Route 66 eluded us. It might not quite qualify as an Aloha shirt, but in honour of that famous highway, My Lady made this shirt for me.
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When the interstates went in a lot of the older places got bypassed and are a little off the beaten path now. I usually stop at Lucille's Roadhouse in Weatherford OK when I am going to or coming from New Mexico. They have fantastic food!

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Route 66 has a lot of history behind it. I drove it for over 100 miles and even stopped at a chrome diner named “Rock and Roll Diner.” They had a jukebox inside loaded with old songs from mostly the 50’s.
 
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