Route 66
-
- Route 66 Missouri, summer 1991 I was in such a hurry to get out of Illinois I don’t think I pulled out my slide camera until I hit St. Louis. In subsequent trips down Route 66 through Missouri, I’ve noticed all these landmarks are gone, including the great Diamonds Truck Stop with approved clean rest rooms, west of St. Louis. Diamonds was the true Gateway to the West.
-
- Route 66 Missouri, summer 1991
-
- Route 66 Missouri, summer 1991
-
- Route 66 Missouri, summer 1991 Entering the Ozarks and the hideaways of Jesse James.
-
- Route 66 Missouri, summer 1991
-
- Route 66 Missouri, summer 1991
-
- Route 66 Missouri, summer 1991 Notice the double pictures of St. Louis Cardinal Hall of Famer Stan -The Man- Musial in the background. This was way before Mark -The Fake Muscle- McGwire.
-
- Route 66 Missouri, summer 1991
-
- The Wagon Wheel Motel, Cuba, Mo. (recently restored)
-
- As I drove out into the sticks of ’66, older sections of the road were recognized by vintage curbs.
-
- The Shrine Mosque in Springfield, Mo. Elvis Presley appeared here.
-
- I shot this heading into Joplin, Mo. The portrait wound up in a juried Route 66 art show in Gallup, N.M. It is still the only time my work has appeared in a gallery.
-
- Downtown Joplin, Mo.
-
- First Cowtown in Kansas
-
- Downtown Commerce
-
- I bought a slab of barbecued ribs from these guys in Claremore, outside of Tulsa, Ok. I was driving alone and learned how to drive while eating ribs with my fingers. This was before texting.
-
- Route 66’s iconic -Blue Whale- from the old Blue Whale Amuseument Park near Tulsa. The whale has since been spruced up and weeded. I was wearing shorts and didn’t want to wander in the tall grass and catch cooties.
-
- Mid-century architecture, downtown, Tulsa
-
- Leaving Tulsa, the juxtaposition of the old ’66 motel and the new interstate.
-
- Outside of Oklahoma City
-
- Another rib joint with cool roadside architecture, Oklahoma City
-
- The man with the hat from Yukon, Oklahoma. I bet the sign is bigger today.
-
- El Reno, Okla.–Parts of the Dustin Hoffman movie Rain Man filmed in Room 117 of this fleabag motel. Note the Amarillo sign. That was installed for the movie and was never removed.
-
- El Reno, Okla.–Same motel. This guy showed me to my room. Yikes!
-
- The precious Lucille Hamons of Lucille’s Gas Station and beer joint (see the neon in the window) in Hydro, Oklahoma. For more, see my essay in this section.
-
- Legendary Pop Hicks Restaurant, established 1936 in Clinton, Oklahoma. I bought a souvenir fly swatter. What kind of restaurant would sell a fly swatter? Pop Hicks has since burned down.
-
- Erick, Okla. The birthplace of Roger – King of the Road – Miller. Comedian Bob Hope was busted for speeding here, too.
-
- Wild open Texas
-
- All aboard! Gallup, New Mexico
-
- The El Rancho, Gallup, N.M.
-
- I urinated here to see which way it would flow. (New Mexico). My Steve Earle tee-shirt reminds me his road music was better in ’91 than in 2011.
-
- Ernie Hemingway wrote lots of Old Man and the Sea in 1951, here in Cubero, N.M. He wanted to be on dry, dusty land to better visualize the ocean. The motel staff didn’t care for him because he threw empty liquor bottles out his window. When this one-stop general store was built in 1936 it was the first stop west of Albuquerque on old Route 66.
-
- The great Santo Doming Trading Post near a profoundly impoverished Native American res in Domingo, N.M. President Kennedy stopped here in 1962. I bought a turquoise ring here that I still wear today to remind me of the freedom and promise of this trip. The other night a woman at the Matchbox, my favorite bar in Chicago, noticed the ring and asked me if I was bi-sexual. I never bothered to tell her about Route 66.
-
- The trading post was destroyed by fire in 2001, but rebuilt thanks to a $1 million restoration federal grant awarded in 2010 from the economic development administration.