We say Goodbye to Route 66 and Thanks for the Memories

Route 66 was a dream of a ride. Touring through America, catching bits of Americana Nostalgia and the excitement of today’s Route 66, it has been a true pleasure and an amazing experience.

RVing full-time allows us some freedom and flexibility to choose a route, heading back from the east coast to the west coast, Route 66 was the only route that called to us and I am so grateful we listened.

We left Charleston on February 17th, still close to winter weather we decided to start our Route 66 just east of St. Louis with a beginning goal date of March 8th. Watching the weather closely, we chose a route from Charleston to Pacific, Missouri that provided a shorter route from point a to point b. The route took us to towns we would normally not have chosen, yet, we enjoyed immensely.

Since we were still in the off-season for mainstream RVers and the weather was unpredictable, we planned our stops and the length of our stay around the weather, planning about a week out at a time. I had made a list (yes, I am list maker) of RV parks along the route, with their phone numbers, starring my preferred RV parks. Check out our blog post for a list of the RV parks we stayed at, with a short review.

Our tour of Route 66 ended in Needles, California on April  25th. There are so many highlights to our Ultimate Road trip and hundreds of photos, it will be hard to choose, but I will give it a shot. We also made a few side trips, which I highlighted in my post about our Grand Detours.

Most importantly, it will be the memories we will treasure.

Highlights

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Missouri

So many wonderful highlights in Missouri, you can read about most of them in our post "Building Excitement."

Kansas

Cars on the Route, the inspiration for the movie CARS! And where you can stand in three states at once - Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma

oklahoma

They really promote the route in Oklahoma and each town tries to stay somewhat authentic. It was a fun and easy-going ride, through small towns and bits of countryside, some of it weaving through the larger towns like Oklahoma City and Tulsa where you can still can find history mixed with urban development.    Read more in our post - Oklahoma is OK.

TEXAS

Texas Route 66 was colorful and just like they state, they do everything BIG! Read our post - Moody Route 66.

New Mexico

Most of our time was spent in Albuquerque, where Route 66 is Alive and Glittering with NEON Lights.  Tucumcari also had great NEON lights,  do the route at night, it's pretty short.
Read our post - Where the Past and Present Merge

Tucumcari and Santa Rosa

Albuquerque and Old TOWN

arizona

Arizonia has so much to offer Route 66 travelers. The road itself is not intact, each community has pieces of it, so the best way to travel the route is Hwy 40, but what pieces they do have are worth the stop. Read our post on Standing on the Corner.

Signs of route 66