Editor’s Note: This is the first column in a series featuring the author’s travels along Route 66

It is no secret to our friends and family that my husband and I are fond of traveling. He loves to cruise from any port he can get to: New Orleans, Port Canaveral, Fort Lauderdale or Baltimore and Boston. For me, most cruises are the same: too much food and each port resembles the last one. I am convinced that after the ship leaves an exotic port, a group of cruise line workers rearrange the cabanas, lounge chairs and souvenir shops and then replaces the “Welcome to Grand Turk” sign with “Welcome to San Juan,” “Welcome to St. Thomas,” etc. while the captain or maybe auto pilot drives the ship around in circles until the next day when it docks at the rearranged “old” port.

While taking six cruises in 33 months, three of those in 2015, I made my plan to take a different kind of cruise, a cruise on Route 66. I had read that the trip was best taken between late April and late June or late August and late October, which is determined by the snow in the Midwest and heat in the desert. Because I always want just a little more time, I chose to go a few days earlier than the earliest suggested time.

Very excitedly, we drove to Chicago on April 18, 2016. (At least one of us was very excited.) The next morning we set out for my “cruise.” We chose to drive East to West, not because it is the customary direction to travel on the route, but because I was anxious to get started! Originally, Route 66 started on Jackson Boulevard, but today it is a one-way eastbound street. The westbound lane begins one block to the north on East Adams Street, at the corner of Michigan Avenue.

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US 66, also referred to as the Mother Road, the Will Rogers Highway and the Main Street of America, was established Nov. 11, 1926, with only 800 miles of pavement. It began in Chicago, Illinois, and ran through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, ending at the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica, California. It served as the major path for those heading west. Many Mom and Pop businesses, including restaurants, motels and service stations sprung up along the way. Because the Interstate System was created in 1956, five different interstate highways began bypassing sections of the road over the next three decades. Route markers were taken down and it was decommissioned on June 27, 1985. The once bustling route came to all but a screeching halt. Businesses were shuttered, jobs ended and for sale signs went up on homes.

After years of paint peeling, signs rusting and roofs caving in, a renewed interest in the historic stretch began, which may have been attributed in part to the release of Pixar’s “Cars” movie in 2006. The movie is about a little red race car that mistakenly gets off the interstate in Radiator Springs, a small fictitious town that has been forgotten since it was bypassed years before. The animated movie portrays the hardships of the residents in the town who tell what the town used to be like.

As we navigated the route we met long-time Route 66 residents and business owners who gave their opinions as to why the upswing in traffic and renewed interest. Some gave credit to the children’s movie of which nearly every boy born after 1999 owns or has owned a likeness of the main character, Lightning McQueen. Toys, clothing, bedding and anything that carries a picture of the little red car with his buddies, all with big eyes, especially Tow Mater the tow truck, flew off the shelves and are still popular with little boys today.

Other reasons attributing to the spark of interest could be the result of grant money that some states have passed out, including New Mexico where the neon is aglow, especially in Albuquerque and the neighboring area. Heavy advertising is being done abroad resulting in many foreign tourists. In fact, one business owner told me the foreign tourists make up the bulk of her business.

Today’s motorists can no longer follow a curvy dark line on a map when touring the Main Street of America. Driving Route 66 requires three things: a driver, a navigator and a guide book. We followed the EZ Route 66 Guide for Travelers by Jerry McClanahan. It is considered the No. 1 guidebook for maneuvering the Mother Road. McClanahan, who has a passion for the road that was one of the most popular roads in America during his childhood, has fond memories of traveling thereon with his parents. He invites travelers to stop at his McJerry’s Route 66 Gallery in Chandler, Oklahoma, to have their EZ Guide signed.

He has updated the book three times since the original edition came out in 2005. McClanahan has no idea how many books he has signed.

“I’ve been researching since 1981. First I photographed, but then I had to map to know where Route 66 was,” says the author. “My first trip from Oklahoma City to Chicago was in 1986, a year after they took down the signs. I’ve never driven it all the way (at one time), because I live in the middle, but I’ve driven all of it.”

The guide features written directions, with westbound at the top of the page and eastbound at the bottom. The center of each page is reserved for hand-drawn maps and additional directions leading to short stretches of older versions of the road, sometimes warning of primitive conditions or dead ends. In these situations the author often suggests driving to a bridge, trestle or other landmark to get a peek then returning on the short stretch originally taken to the location. Also sharing the middle of each page are bits of history, trivia, sketches of points of interest and motel and restaurant options. He recommends tourists take advantage of the iconic motels and diners of days gone by and we fully agree!

“If two or three people tell me they like a restaurant, I’ll stop and try it and put it in the book. There’s a lot of good food on the road.”

McClanahan has never lived more than five hours from the route.

“Over the years I’ve driven it in Fords, Toyotas, a ’57 Chevy wagon and whatever I’ve had that I thought would get me to California and back,” he laughs. “Once I drove my dad’s old pick-up that used a quart of oil every 100 miles. I bought a case at 79-cents a quart.”

Some sections of the historic roadway that pass through four states, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico and Arizona, have been designated a National Scenic Byway. Some of the route signs have reappeared and it is showing up on some maps as State Route 66.

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Our first stop on the route was Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois. It was dedicated in 1999 so is a part of modern Route 66 history. Covering nearly 1,000 acres, it will provide 400,000 burial lots when completed. The cemetery is on the grounds of the former Joliet Army Ammunition Plant.

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For about the first half of the trip we were excited about every “giant” McClanahan pointed out and sometimes went out of our way to get a picture. The Gemini Giant was the first of three fiberglass giants located in Illinois and several more located throughout the United States that are made from the same Paul Bunyan mold. It is located on the lot of the Launching Pad Drive-In in Wilmington, which is no longer in operation and displays a realtor’s sign.

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The small town of Gardner, Illinois boasts a tiny two-cell jail.

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The beautifully restored Ambler’s Texaco Station is located in Dwight, Illinois. It’s big round Texaco Star sign is positioned atop a sturdy white post, exactly like the one that was located in my side yard when I was growing up at my father’s “filling station” in Union City. Pennsylvania.

Sets of four replicated signs advertising Burma Shave, a shaving cream that was made for over 40 years from 1925 to the early to mid-60s, can be seen along various stretches of the road taking me back to the days when I was a kid and a young adult. My mother always read these silly, rhyming stories to us as we anxiously approached each of the evenly-spaced 4 or 5 red signs.

As the days went on, we learned to appreciate the little 5×8-inch book more and more.

To be continued …