Route 66 Redux

Day 1: 342 Miles

Total: 342 Miles

It has been four years to the day since my last post. That was when I returned from my last cross-country tour, going from Chicago to Santa Monica, California then back again. Throw in side trips to Michigan and New York and the tally was over 7,000 miles.

A lot has changed since 2007. In 2008 my dad died, then in 2009 my son Mike died. In 2010 my divorce became final, and 10 days later my mom died. Life sucks right? No...actually it doesn't. Though I'll never get over the loss of my son, life isn't so bad. In fact it has started to become pretty damn good, especially after meeting my girlfriend Sharon.

It was after telling her about my amazing 2007 trip and showing her pictures of all the great places on the Mother Road that I started to get the itch to return. And Sharon was just as interested in seeing it for the first time as I was in returning. So we hatched our plan. On June 17th (today), we would leave Brevard, North Carolina on a multi-week trip of discovery and rediscovery. Not much is planned. We know that we will be at the Route 66 starting line in Chicago at the corner of Michigan and Adams at about 6:00am Sunday morning. We don't know what will happen next, but we know we'll eventually wind up on the Santa Monica Pier. Then everything after that is up for grabs too. We haven't decided where we will venture next, just that eventually we will wind up back in Brevard, perhaps by way of Auburn, New York. Lots of preparation, but very little detailed planning.

Even our first plan for our first night hasn't worked out the way we wanted it to. On our way to Chicago we decided to go through Cave City, Kentucky and stay in a teepee at the Wigwam Village Inn. Alas, a group had booked all of the teepees for the next two nights so we are staying nearby in an old mom & pop motel called the Holiday Motel. For someone who spends 100+ nights a year in various Marriott Hotels, it's a big change. We could have stayed in a "brand" hotel here, but that isn't the point of this trip at all. This place is old and decrepit, but it's clean. And we'll have two more shots at staying in a teepee - both on Route 66 - one in Holbrook, Arizona and the other (where I stayed four years ago) in Rialto, California.

So here are a couple of pictures for your entertainment, and I promise to make the blog much more interesting from here on out.

Ciao!