220730 Route 66

1957, Our trip on route 66.
That summer grandpa and I went down route 66 from Saint Louis to Los Angeles. That was the best trip of my life. We had some fun and adventures along the way that I fondly remember. We were on the Will Rogers turnpike when grandpa asked if I had ever been in a car at 100 mph? I said no I hadn’t. He put the gas pedal on his 1953 dodge down and the Red Ram V8 came roaring to life. We got up to 100 when I looked behind us and saw an Oklahoma State patrol coming up behind us with lights and siren blaring. Grandpa said, “Oh no!” he let up on the pedal and that trooper went by us at I’m guessing 150 mph and kept going until he was out of sight. Grandpa let out a sigh of relief. When we would stop to eat, grandpa would look at the menu to decide what he wanted to eat and then he would look at me and say, “I know you want a hamburger” and he was correct, every night on the road that was what I wanted.
We went through to Gallup, New Mexico and got there on a narrow 2 lane part of route 66. It was late Saturday afternoon just before dark. The streets were filled with drunk natives pitching empty bottles and staggering across the street. I was frightened and he was too. That was one of the scariest half hours of my young life.
In Arizona we stopped at a roadside souvenir shop and I bought myself a cowboy hat. I was pretty proud of that hat and wore it everywhere in Arizona and California. Later in an unusual summer rain, my cowboy hat melted down until the brim of my hat was flapping on my ears. In Los Angeles we stayed with my aunt (grandpa’s daughter) in Glendale.
This picture is the court where my aunt lived and if you look closely that is me standing under the tree with my cowboy hat on.

From there we went to Disneyland, before it was officially fully constructed. There were few people there so I got to ride everything without having to stand waiting for any ride there.
This pisture was me on a boat ride in Disneyland.

We went to the beach and I swam there. Later we went to the Mount Wilson observatory, which was interesting to me and to grandpa. We also made a trip to Chavez Ravine, which was later to become the home of Dodger stadium.
This picture was me in Chavez Ravine.

On our way home we had some difficulty that angered grandpa. In New Mexico we were on a two lane part of route 66. The road had just been resurfaced with fresh blacktop. Grandpa passed a farm tractor and soon after there was a policeman chasing to stop us. Grandpa pulled over and the policeman handed him a ticket for passing in a no passing zone. Grandpa said there were no markings on the road to indicate it was a no passing zone. The policeman said that didn’t matter. He had us follow him to a local gas station where the mechanic donned his judge robe and fined us for the ticket on the spot in cash. Grandpa was mad as a wet hen, but he never said a cuss word. We drove on and a day or so later we got to Joplin, Missouri. The highway through there was all blocked up with refurbishing the highway so we were rerouted all over the area and instead of a 20 minute drive through it ended up being well over an hour and a half. Grandpa was not pleased with that either, but we finally made it home with a lot of good and bad memories that are still with me today. None of this post was previously written down. It all came to me on the fly while I was listening to a compilation of old Route 66 tunes today on Youtube.