Route 66 Thoughts (Guest Blogger Tom)

Traveling on route 66 has been fun, but not for the reasons that I expected. I was expecting a lot of the old buildings, gas stations, and signs to be restored to their original pristine condition. In reality, only very few have been. Most of the sights are as run down and decrepit as I'd expect for being unmaintained for almost 30 years - faded, covered in graffiti, broken neon, etc. And it doesn't help that the guide that we bought seemed to be exaggerating the descriptions of the sights. A building would be described as being "well preserved and having vivid colors", and the only thing left would be 3 walls covered in grafitti. Maybe I'm exaggerating now, but that's what it felt like. We learned to take the descriptions with a grain of salt. When I heard about the Route 66 mini golf, I was joking that maybe they just give you a stick and a rock to play with. Also, the poor preservation of the Route 66 sights just seemed to pale in comparison to my trips to Europe, where buildings and sculptures seem to last for centuries in excellent condition.

I think the fun part for me about traveling Route 66 is that it's like a giant scavenger hunt played over thousands of miles. Drive for a few hours down some deserted road, and then look for some ruins described in the book, and snap a photo of it. It doesn't matter that the ruins look even worse than the guide's description. Point is, that we hunted it down and captured it (on camera). I don't think the kids understand at all -- they are barely amazed at the Grand Canyon, why would they be remotely interested by some broken neon sign? But that's how I'm "getting my kicks".

However, there have been some true gems on Route 66. Cadillac Ranch was a really fun stop. The only painting I've done in recent memory is the inside of my now-former house and I had to be very careful about not getting anything else dirty. And I can't remember the last time I did any spray painting, so it was very freeing to just buy 2 cans of spray paint at the local Home Depot, and just freehand paint on the cadillacs. And the idea of an orange construction sign with "Chang Xing '08" seemed to perfectly sum up the spirit of our trip.

- Tom