Sunday, January 17, 2010

Route 66

My friends recently drove from St. Louis to San Francisco, and followed old Route 66 at least part of the way. This card is pretty typical of a contemporary postcard from Historic Route 66.

Anybody who knows me, knows that I am a major road tripper, long and short. As part of this passion, I've become a big fan of Road Trip USA. Route 66 is Route #11 on the website. I've traveled small pieces of it, but not a lot.

However, I have traveled 95% of Route #1, from Seattle through to San Diego (into Baja for that matter; it's just not called Highway 1 in Mexico); Route #9, the "loneliest highway in America" from San Francisco to Grand Junction, Colorado; Route #7, the Great Northern, from Everett, Washington to Kalispell, Montana; and Route #6, the Atlantic Coast, from Ocean City, Delaware to Charleston, South Carolina.

One of my travel dreams would be to drive on Route #10, the Southern Pacific to the East Coast, and follow Route #8, the Oregon Trail, back to San Francisco. Or at least a good portion of both of them.

What's your favorite Road Trip?

4 comments:

  1. Some day I will do Route 66 - some day!

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  2. I haven't done a cross-country drive since I was a little kid fighting with my brothers in the back seat, with an occasional threat from the front seat about stopping the car and spanking the lot of us if we didn't behave. I love the Road Trip USA website. thanks for telling us about it.

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  3. I Love Route 395 from Mojave, California to Mammoth Lakes, Calif. No contest. Travelling by the highest peak in the 48 United Sates , Mt. Whitney, and passing close by the lowest point in the U.S., Death Valley, is a thrill. Both are reached easily from 395. The beauty of the Eastern Sierras is breathtaking. Incredible Western history all along the route.

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  4. I don't recall what highways we were on, but travelling from Bend to Pasadena. We joined I-5 at Weed, as per usual, but turned off I-5 at McCloud, through Lassen Nat'l Park to the east side of the Sierra's then south to Yosemite turn-off, west into Yosemite, then south along some "grey roads", into Sequoia Natl. Park, some more grey roads,through Bakersfield, by a wonderful lake where we stopped for a swim, then into Pasadena before we rejoined I-5 for the final leg of our trip.

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