They’ll make a route from here to there
with careful planning everywhere.
The team will build it, load by load:
A SUPERHIGHWAY, MEGA ROAD!
Construction Site: Road Crew, Coming Through!
written by Sherri Duskey Rinker
illustrated by AG Ford
Chronicle Books, 2021
On Tuesday, October 24, 2017, my husband and I started out on a 5,825 mile trip to the Southwest US. We were gone 19 days. (I’m counting the last day because we arrived back home at 8:21 pm.)
We started out with a full tank, a load of curiosity, and an empty journal, and headed for Route 66, the best way to discover the nebulous “West.”
After meeting old friends for breakfast in St. Louis, our first stop was the Gateway Arch, conveniently located on the Mother Road, herself.. We worked our way from there to the Rte 66 museum housed in a new library in Lebanon, Missouri. We found dinner in Stroud, Oklahoma, at Tammy’s Roadside Roundup Cafe.
Across the Texas panhandle to Amarillo then Sante Fe., New Mexico. Except for the Georgia O’Keefe museum, everything was cotton and cattle.
Oil rigs next to silos and a 10-mile wide wind farm that included at least 100 windmills. Then Taos. We visited an Earthship community in Tres Piedras, NM. It’s a self-contained community that generates its own electricity, water, food, and companionship. Click the link to see Earth and her Earthlings enjoying each other.
Cottonwood after cottonwood after cottonwood tree glowed gold at the bottom of Rio Grande del Norte, a gorge just a little smaller than the Grand Canyon.
Viewed ancient petroglyphs in Petrified Forest National Park.
Speechless with the wonder of beauty at Grand Canyon.
Flagstaff and Sedona with their breathtaking views of mountains at 7,000 feet of elevation.
At the Phoenix Botanical Garden we learned that both Gila and gilded woodpeckers carve holes in saguaro cacti 15 to 25 feet high for their nests. The nest holes don’t hurt the cacti. The plants ooze out a liquid resin that hardens to protect themselves while providing a firm base for the nests.
Cacti mature at about 40 feet and don’t start growing arms till they’re at least 50 years old.
We crossed the Carefree Highway on our way to the Hoover Dam and Lake Meade, then found Rte 93, the Joshua Tree Parkway. The trees are ubiquitous along the roadsides for miles.
A switchback road took us to Oatman, AZ and back to Rte 66. Oatman was a mining town: copper and silver, mostly. Now it’s famous for its burros. The ones roaming the streets today are descendants of the working burros that pulled miner’s equipment. They eat hay you can buy from the general store. One dollar for a lunchbag sized package. The town holds a naming contest each Spring when new babies are born,. (They all looked alike to me!)
Stayed in Boulder City, NV, just outside Las Vegas. Walked around the town and saw lots of statues commemorating Hoover Dam.
Finally, 3,373 miles from home, we arrived at Zion National Park. Walked several easy trails before heading to Bryce Canyon.
At 7,777 feet, we woke up near Bryce Canyon to 39 degrees and frost. By the time we saw the Hoodoos, the weather was warm and sunny.
We took the loooong way to Moab, Utah, and had to stop for two cows in the road.
Arches National Park might be the most beautiful place on Earth.
Every bend of the road delivered an astonishing view.
Zion. All in Utah.
November 9. After traveling 4006 miles, we turned toward home.
Mesa Verde’s Cliff Dwelling tours closed for the season the day before we arrived, so we explored the area where the Ancestral Puebloans lived before they moved into the cliffs, and viewed the cliff dwellings with binoculars across a canyon. A good reason to return.
Lots of snow as we crossed the Continental Divide in Colorado.
After a night at the Wigwam Motel, incredibly shaped like a cement wigwam, (not much room to move around and the bathroom mirror was on a slant to accommodate the inside wall), our home called a little louder.
We blew past the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, the Oz Museum in Wamego, Kansas, and Harry S. Truman’s Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.
Whew! Home, 19 days and 5,825 miles later.
Legislation for building public highways was first introduced in Congress in 1916, but it wasn’t until 1925 that road construction finally began. In summer of 1926, the road received its official numerical designation. The planners intended U.S. 66 to move southwest to connect Chicago to Los Angeles, “a principle east-west artery.” The road would connect main streets of rural communities to urban communities providing much needed “access to a major national thoroughfare.”
The road was used by farmers to transport grain and produce to the big cities, and by 1930 truck traffic rivaled the rails. Called the Mother Road by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath (1939 novel, made into a film in 1940), the name stuck. Over 200,000 people migrated from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl years (1933 to 1939) earning Route 66 its symbol as the “road to opportunity.”
Young Army captain, Dwight D. Eisenhower, saw the need for improved roads as the world ramped up to World War II. Between 1941 and 1945 the US government invested about $70 billion to build new military training bases out West, primarily around LA and San Diego, and move soldiers there.
After the War, store owners, motel managers, and gas station attendants rose to the challenge of meeting the needs of growing numbers of travelers and people re-locating from the cold winters of the North to the “barbecue culture” of California. And in 1946, Nat King Cole released “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” written by former pianist with Tommy Dorsey and ex-Marine captain, after he moved from Harrisburg, PA to California, Bobby Troup.
Under Eisenhower’s direction, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 provided the finances needed to pay for our Interstate Highway System.
By 1970, nearly all of Rte 66 was bypassed by modern four-lanes, and by 1984, the final section was bypassed by I-40 at Williams, Arizona. (See National Historic Route 66 Federation for more history of our Mother Road.)
Although we were not on Rte 66 our entire trip, lots of the road passed under our tires.
What a beautiful country!
I just finished reading Whale Eyes: a Memoir About Seeing and Being Seen written by James Robinson with illustrations by Brian Rea (Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House, 2025). It’s the fascinating story of a boy whose distorted vision turned him into a documentary filmmaker. His inspirational journey was guided by his mother and his own determination, grit, and curiosity about how the world really works. Recommended.
--Stay Curious! (and travel by armchair
till the price of gas goes down)
with careful planning everywhere.
The team will build it, load by load:
A SUPERHIGHWAY, MEGA ROAD!
Construction Site: Road Crew, Coming Through!
written by Sherri Duskey Rinker
illustrated by AG Ford
Chronicle Books, 2021
On Tuesday, October 24, 2017, my husband and I started out on a 5,825 mile trip to the Southwest US. We were gone 19 days. (I’m counting the last day because we arrived back home at 8:21 pm.)
We started out with a full tank, a load of curiosity, and an empty journal, and headed for Route 66, the best way to discover the nebulous “West.”
After meeting old friends for breakfast in St. Louis, our first stop was the Gateway Arch, conveniently located on the Mother Road, herself.. We worked our way from there to the Rte 66 museum housed in a new library in Lebanon, Missouri. We found dinner in Stroud, Oklahoma, at Tammy’s Roadside Roundup Cafe.
Across the Texas panhandle to Amarillo then Sante Fe., New Mexico. Except for the Georgia O’Keefe museum, everything was cotton and cattle.
Oil rigs next to silos and a 10-mile wide wind farm that included at least 100 windmills. Then Taos. We visited an Earthship community in Tres Piedras, NM. It’s a self-contained community that generates its own electricity, water, food, and companionship. Click the link to see Earth and her Earthlings enjoying each other.
Cottonwood after cottonwood after cottonwood tree glowed gold at the bottom of Rio Grande del Norte, a gorge just a little smaller than the Grand Canyon.
Viewed ancient petroglyphs in Petrified Forest National Park.
Speechless with the wonder of beauty at Grand Canyon.
Flagstaff and Sedona with their breathtaking views of mountains at 7,000 feet of elevation.
At the Phoenix Botanical Garden we learned that both Gila and gilded woodpeckers carve holes in saguaro cacti 15 to 25 feet high for their nests. The nest holes don’t hurt the cacti. The plants ooze out a liquid resin that hardens to protect themselves while providing a firm base for the nests.
Cacti mature at about 40 feet and don’t start growing arms till they’re at least 50 years old.
We crossed the Carefree Highway on our way to the Hoover Dam and Lake Meade, then found Rte 93, the Joshua Tree Parkway. The trees are ubiquitous along the roadsides for miles.
A switchback road took us to Oatman, AZ and back to Rte 66. Oatman was a mining town: copper and silver, mostly. Now it’s famous for its burros. The ones roaming the streets today are descendants of the working burros that pulled miner’s equipment. They eat hay you can buy from the general store. One dollar for a lunchbag sized package. The town holds a naming contest each Spring when new babies are born,. (They all looked alike to me!)
Stayed in Boulder City, NV, just outside Las Vegas. Walked around the town and saw lots of statues commemorating Hoover Dam.
Finally, 3,373 miles from home, we arrived at Zion National Park. Walked several easy trails before heading to Bryce Canyon.
At 7,777 feet, we woke up near Bryce Canyon to 39 degrees and frost. By the time we saw the Hoodoos, the weather was warm and sunny.
We took the loooong way to Moab, Utah, and had to stop for two cows in the road.
Arches National Park might be the most beautiful place on Earth.
Every bend of the road delivered an astonishing view.
Zion. All in Utah.
November 9. After traveling 4006 miles, we turned toward home.
Mesa Verde’s Cliff Dwelling tours closed for the season the day before we arrived, so we explored the area where the Ancestral Puebloans lived before they moved into the cliffs, and viewed the cliff dwellings with binoculars across a canyon. A good reason to return.
Lots of snow as we crossed the Continental Divide in Colorado.
After a night at the Wigwam Motel, incredibly shaped like a cement wigwam, (not much room to move around and the bathroom mirror was on a slant to accommodate the inside wall), our home called a little louder.
We blew past the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, the Oz Museum in Wamego, Kansas, and Harry S. Truman’s Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.
Whew! Home, 19 days and 5,825 miles later.
Legislation for building public highways was first introduced in Congress in 1916, but it wasn’t until 1925 that road construction finally began. In summer of 1926, the road received its official numerical designation. The planners intended U.S. 66 to move southwest to connect Chicago to Los Angeles, “a principle east-west artery.” The road would connect main streets of rural communities to urban communities providing much needed “access to a major national thoroughfare.”
The road was used by farmers to transport grain and produce to the big cities, and by 1930 truck traffic rivaled the rails. Called the Mother Road by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath (1939 novel, made into a film in 1940), the name stuck. Over 200,000 people migrated from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl years (1933 to 1939) earning Route 66 its symbol as the “road to opportunity.”
Young Army captain, Dwight D. Eisenhower, saw the need for improved roads as the world ramped up to World War II. Between 1941 and 1945 the US government invested about $70 billion to build new military training bases out West, primarily around LA and San Diego, and move soldiers there.
After the War, store owners, motel managers, and gas station attendants rose to the challenge of meeting the needs of growing numbers of travelers and people re-locating from the cold winters of the North to the “barbecue culture” of California. And in 1946, Nat King Cole released “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” written by former pianist with Tommy Dorsey and ex-Marine captain, after he moved from Harrisburg, PA to California, Bobby Troup.
Under Eisenhower’s direction, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 provided the finances needed to pay for our Interstate Highway System.
By 1970, nearly all of Rte 66 was bypassed by modern four-lanes, and by 1984, the final section was bypassed by I-40 at Williams, Arizona. (See National Historic Route 66 Federation for more history of our Mother Road.)
Although we were not on Rte 66 our entire trip, lots of the road passed under our tires.
What a beautiful country!
I just finished reading Whale Eyes: a Memoir About Seeing and Being Seen written by James Robinson with illustrations by Brian Rea (Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House, 2025). It’s the fascinating story of a boy whose distorted vision turned him into a documentary filmmaker. His inspirational journey was guided by his mother and his own determination, grit, and curiosity about how the world really works. Recommended.
--Stay Curious! (and travel by armchair
till the price of gas goes down)
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