I Got Kicked on Route 66

“Wait, that’s not how the song goes”

In my ongoing quest to document everything I did this summer, the second major thing that I did was technically not Route 66, but a trip up to southern Wisconsin to spend time with my friends from high school! It was just a weekend trip, but we had a lot of fun, and went to Devil’s Lake nearby and went kayaking and grilled burgers and changed a flat tire and it was a good time overall, and I’m glad I got a chance to spend time with them! And then, the very next day, that was when I started on a cross-country two-week road trip with my brother, Nick, and my dad in a converted cargo-van-turned-camper. We drove 4900 miles in the course of around twelve days, and we covered like ten different states. It was exhausting, but full of fun stuff and cool sights and amazing times, and I’m glad I finally get to write about it, because there is a lot to go through here.

So, to start out, let me explain the situation we were living with, back then. My dad had, earlier that year, bought a Recon Camper Van, which is a converted Nissan cargo van that basically has everything you’d need to life out the very popular and tiktok-approved #VanLife. It’s got a backseat that rolls out into a bed, custom-fitted window screens, an in-house battery, a water heater, 13 gallons of water storage, a pop-top bed for sleeping on top of the van, and a handful of other extra doo-dads like plentiful storage and a solar panel. Also, Steve-O, of Jackass fame, has a van from this same company, so clearly we are among comrades. It’s a really sweet vehicle, and while sometimes the backseat can get a little bit hot, my dad’s van took the three of us across the country and back with little-to-no problems. My dad’s van is named Wilson, by the way. Of King of Prussia fame.

To be fair, sleeping in it is a little cramped with three people, especially considering we spent most of our time in the American Southwest where night temperatures were regularly still in the 80’s and 90’s (Fahrenheit, that is), so I actually brought along a backpacking tent and camped out next to the van most nights. It was just less sweaty that way, but also it meant I got to use my brand new tent, which was very exciting. It was a brand-new outing for everyone all around, apparently. But let’s get back to the trip.

So, if you aren’t familiar with Route 66 (which, let’s be real here, everyone knows about Route 66, that damn song is in every road trip movie ever), it’s essentially a massive highway route that originally ran from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California. Called the Mother Road, or America’s Main Street, Route 66 passes through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. It was originally built in the 1920’s, and was the primary route along which Dust Bowl refugees traveled in the 30’s. However, it was later superseded by the Eisenhower’s U.S. Interstate Highway System, with Route 66 being officially demoted in the 1980’s. You may recognize this as what happened in Pixar’s Cars. But despite its official absence as a U.S. highway, Route 66 still remains in spirit. Though we traveled along the interstate for most of the actual driving, all the detours we took (including to see the original road of Route 66) tended to take us back along what would have been the old road. We took a lot of detours.

So, we didn’t actually state in Chicago, per se, but we did start in the west suburbs, which as anyone from Naperville will tell you, is *basically* the same thing. We first hit a place that claims to be home of the original corn dog, but was also an original restaurant on Route 66 or something, and then we stopped at Cahokia Mounds. I’d been there before, but it’s still pretty cool to see the remnants of this massive indigenous city and imagine what life would have been like there a thousand years ago before, you know, European settlers and the American government killed almost all of the indigenous population. Also, you can see the St. Louis skyline from the top of the mounds, which is a little surreal. We also got a tour of the Meramec caverns in Missouri, which was neat. I like caves. Caves are cool! I like being underground for some reason, makes me feel safe, I guess. Plus that was where we camped the night anyway, so it made sense.

The next thing we visited, and the first real kind of weirdo, out-there Route 66 type of thing, was Uranus, Missouri. It isn’t a town, it’s a tourist trap that just happens to be called Uranus, Missouri. It is, frankly, a little hard to explain; a cross between rest stop, gift shop, folk art installation, and circus side-show museum, Uranus, Missouri is one of the more inexplicable attractions along Route 66. Why does it exist? Why do they have pig fetuses in a jar? Why do they have living turtles with two heads? Why do they say “Welcome to Uranus!” whenever anyone enters the gift shop? Well, that last one I know the answer to; because it’s kinda funny. But we didn’t stick around long before we went to Wilson Creek National Battlefield, which was probably my least favorite stop on the trip. Not to say that it was a bad stop, nor do I mean to say that there were any bad parts of the trip; rather, Wilson Creek was the most underwhelming thing we saw, despite being on a list of “100 things to see on Route 66.” It’s the site of a civil war battle, apparently one of the biggest battles fought west of the MIssissippi river (or the first, or something, I don’t really remember), but it wasn’t clear which side won, or why they were there at all. But it had a spring inside an old 1800’s ice cellar, which was neat.

The more Route 66 specific thing from that same time though, was visiting Galena, Kansas, which is supposedly where the Pixar team found the rusted up pickup truck that acted as the inspiration for Mater from the Cars movie, and its illegitimate bastard sequel Cars 2. It was actually kind of a cool town, in a sad, ghost town way. There’s an old gas station and some murals dedicated to Route 66, and a handful of other decorative cars and signs and what not, but it isn’t exactly like the town’s drawing a lot of attention, since it’s off the main interstate. But that’s kind of the running theme of a lot of these little towns that we passed through; economic malaise and a sense of abandonment. It’s, uh, kind of depressing.

On a less depressing note, we also went to the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma! This one was a specific choice of mine because it was donated to the city of Tulsa by Waite Phillips, the same guy who donated Philmont to the Boy Scouts. And I think it’s very clear that I like Philmont. I wanted to go there mostly to see Waite Phillips’ other mansion, since I’ve seen the one at Philmont itself, but honestly, the art museum was worth it on its own. They’re working on constructing an exhibit about the Tulsa race massacre, and the museum overall was very respectful of different cultures and featured works by several contemporary artists of color. It was really great! And really surprising! Not necessarily what I expected out of a museum in Tulsa, of all places.

Our next stop was Pop’s Soda Ranch, the first of two soda-themed attractions on our trip. They had hundreds of flavors of carbonated beverage, but we didn’t stay long. We did spend more time, however, in Palo Duro canyon, a state park in Texas where we hiked and spent the night. Palo Duro is way up in the north of the state, but it’s really pretty. I think our whole party was surprised by the beauty of the canyon, especially since we got to sleep in it and do a sunrise hike. Did you know it’s also the second-largest canyon in the U.S., after the Grand Canyon? We sure didn’t know that, and would never have guessed because the thing is literally like a quarter the size of the Grand Canyon. Apparently there’s just a leap of several magnitudes between canyons. Weird.

But after that we were back at it with the wackadoodle shit of Route 66. We spent some time at the Cadillac Ranch, that strange place where a bunch of old cars have been upended and buried in the dirt, and have over the years been covered with several inches of spray paint. They’re in the middle of nowhere, for no good reason, and yet we saw several dozen other people there. It’s kind of unreal just how much paint is on these cars, and also how many full cans of spray paint are just conveniently placed nearby. Of course we spray painted stuff on them. And of course at least one of us drew a penis. I won’t say who, though.

But speaking of things in the middle of nowhere, we visited the Santa Rosa Blue Hole, which is just a straight-up naturally-formed diving pool randomly placed in New Mexico. I don’t know why it exists, or how it got there, but it does, and it’s natural, and we swam in it before we drove to Santa Fe. But in Santa Fe, that’s where we saw one of the coolest things of the trip, something that was a favorite visit among all three of us; Meow Wolf.

Meow Wolf is one of those things where to explain it, or show you pictures, or try to make any sense of it, is to miss the point. Part art installation, part playground, part self-guided tour through a novel written during acid-induced fever dream, Meow Wolf Santa Fe is by far one of the strangest, and most interesting, places I’ve ever been to. It was created by over two hundred individuals artists in an old bowling alley that had been converted into this art space, and was at least partially funded by George R. R. Martin. There are secret tunnels, there are hidden doors, there are puzzles and secrets and weird documents to find. It’s an interactive art experience, is maybe the best, but still pretty vague, way to describe it. I don’t want to tell you more than that because if you ever go, I’d hate to spoil it for you. I’ll just say it’s a little bit like House on the Rock, but way better. If you’re ever in Santa Fe, it is, in my opinion, a must-see location, full stop. Go there. It’s so cool.

Our next few stops were more a handful of little things, spread out across the desert. We drove over that road where if you hit the bumps it sounds like America the Beautiful. It didn’t work great. We also stopped the world famous Albuquerque Holiday Inn, where the towels are oh-so-fluffy (though we didn’t stay there). We hiked through Petroglyph National Monument, which was damn hot, and drove through the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert in Arizona. Now, years back my parents took my brother and I on a trip to the Grand Canyon, where we actually also saw the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert then, too, and on this trip, it was much like I remember. Lots of rocks. Lots of open land. Colorful cliffs in the distance, and some rocks that used to be trees. Pretty neat stuff, and a lot of fun to look at, even if we didn’t do much hiking. We also hit the Wigwam motel, of course (another inspiration for Cars, because of course it was). But later that day we went to Flagstaff, Arizona, and instead of desert, we spent the night in Kaibab national forest, full of pine trees and a lake. Dog Town Lake, actually. What a name. It was a pleasant and unexpected surprise, and the last time we’d see trees until California.

After all that we did some off-roading to find the Topock maze, which is really just some hard-to-see lines on the ground next to an industrial pipeline. We also tried to get to the Amboy crater, which I guess a volcanic extrusion in the middle of the desert, except it was 120 fucking degrees outside. It was so hot you couldn’t even sweat, it just evaporated so quickly. Walking outside felt like being in an oven, an idiom I’d never believed could be experience so viscerally. We got maybe fifty feet from the car and then realized that we didn’t have the water or time to walk two miles in the immense heat, let alone any farther than that. So we said screw it and kept driving in our air-conditioned vehicle.

After that was our second soda-themed attraction, Elmer’s Bottle Ranch. This is different than Pop’s, though, because they don’t sell drinks at Elmer’s. Instead, it’s a couple acres of land filled with these weird, surreal sculptures of glass bottles. It’s like being in a forest where every tree is made of metal and empty glass. It is one of those weird American Folk Art things that I think gets art scholars excited, because it’s just such a bizarre place. Found objects, old metal machinery, actual garbage, it’s all there and it’s all organized into a bizarro art field. Frankly, it was kind of eerie. Gave me some Fallout vibes. By the way, we did see a handful of places that were inspirations not for the Cars movie, but for Fallout: New Vegas. Go figure.

But eventually we did reach the end of the line. Santa Monica Pier, in California, marks the end of Route 66, complete with a sign and everything, and not too long after the bottle ranch, we made it to the promise land and grabbed dinner. It was weird being around so many people all of a sudden, because Santa Monica pier was crowded as fuck, and pretty much every other place we’d been to on this trip was empty (except for Meow Wolf, but that was different). Honestly, it was kind of crazy to see the ocean, too. So much water after being in blinding heat just that same day was a strange juxtaposition, but a welcome one.

Our time spent in California was mostly just bumming around and doing things we hadn’t gotten a chance to see the last time we went to Los Angeles (it’s real weird that I was writing this blog the last time I was in LA, too). So we hit Griffith Observatory, some local swap meets and such, we went to the Golf Store (where we did not see Tyler, The Creator, this time around), got to Hollywood Forever cemetery, the high school from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (something that I didn’t even know I wanted to see until I was already in the area), an In N Out burger, and of course, more beaches and piers. I mean, it’s California, you have to go to the beach at least once every time you’re in the state. It’s practically law at this point. But at any rate, that was our last day on Route 66. From there, we had to turn around and make the long trek backwards.

Obviously it took us much longer to travel down Route 66 than it did to come back, since we stopped in pretty much every state along the length of the road, but something about the return trip felt simultaneously longer and shorter than the trip there. Maybe it felt shorter because it was already nearing the end of our vacation, and we were all sad that it had to end, but it also felt longer because two days were primarily just driving for like ten hours. That kind of sucked. I’ve said it once before, and I’ll say it again. I always underestimate how much actual driving road trips take. But it’s all about the journey, not the destination, so that’s ok. Anyway, on our way back, we didn’t actually take the Route 66 way back, since we’d, you know, kind of already seen it all. So we went north through Las Vegas instead, and saw Meow Wolf’s second location there. It wasn’t as cool as the one in Santa Fe, but it was still pretty damn cool. I’d recommend either one in a heart beat. Plus, the Las Vegas one exists in an even larger art collective, with other businesses and restaurants around that are unrelated. So there’s even more to experience! We also saw the Hoover dam for all of thirty minutes, too. That was neat. Too bad Lake Mead is drying up.

After Las Vegas we drove through Fish Lake National Forest, which was another unexpectedly verdant area in the middle of desert, and we got to see Pando. So, this one was Nick’s request, and I got to say I’m really glad he got us to go to it, because it’s kind of an unreal experience. Pando is this grove of quaking aspen trees in the middle of a forest, except they’re all the same tree. Every tree in this however-many acre stretch of woods is connected by one central root system, and every tree is an exact clone of every other. Meaning that, effectively, the forest is one large organism. It’s weird, conceptually, to think about it, but it makes Pando the heaviest single organism, by biomass.

We also had a chance to go back to the desert before we left, though, and hike around in Arches National Park, in Utah. Now, I’ve previously been to Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Capitol Reef, but Arches was the one of the “Big Four Utah Parks” that none of us had been to yet. And it was pretty cool! For my money, Zion’s still the best, and Bryce Canyon has the best rock formations, but Arches has the arch! You know, the one on the Utah license plates. It’s a lot smaller in person, honestly. But we got to play around in a canyon full of sand and scream to God, so overall it was a pretty worthy stop. Still hot as hell, of course, too hot to hike to the arch itself. But we could see it from a distance. I mean, once you see one rock, haven’t you seen them all anyway?

That was kind of the last big thing we did, though. We did stop in Denver, to see the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. They had Bison there! And burrowing owls! Only one of which we saw, and I’ll give you a hint as to which one it was. It’s the one you can see from miles away because they’re massive hunks of hair. Pretty cool anyway, though! It’s neat to see restored short-grass prairie that actually has Bison still on it, even if it does take place in a deactivated experimental munitions testing site. And driving through the Colorado mountains was cool, too, but only for the first half of the state. Once you hit Denver, there’s no more mountains, only flat land. And I’ve seen plenty of that in my life. Everything east of Denver is terrible until you hit the Mississippi, is what I’m trying to say. At least from a scenic point of view. Because after Colorado was, eugh, Nebraska and, extra eugh, Iowa. Though to be fair, Iowa at least had rolling hills. Nebraska has literally nothing to see for hundreds of miles. It sucks. One of the worst states in the union, right up there with Indiana. Though Indiana is terrible for, uh, other reasons.

But that was it! After that, we pretty much drove straight on until home, and 4900 miles later, we made it back to the West Suburbs. We hit a total of thirteen states (if you count Nebraska and Iowa, which were really just drive-through states anyway), saw dozens of cool sites, and made countless memories that I know will last my lifetime. We cooked over a small stove, camped out of our van on the open road, I searched the entire country for butter cakes, we saw 49 out of 50 state license plates (the only we didn’t see being North Dakota, of all places; we saw Hawaii plates, Alaska plates, several types of reservation plates, U.S. Government plates, and Washington D.C. plates long before we ever saw North Dakota, which we never actually saw), and we had a good time. It was an incredible trip, and one that I’ll treasure for the rest of my days. And one that, maybe someday, I’ll take my own kids on. Who knows? But either way, it was a ton of fun, and I’m really glad I got to spend that time with my brother and my dad. It’s one of those things.

But that wasn’t even the end of my summer! Tune in next week (or whenever I get around to it) to hear what fucking else I did in my most jam-packed summer ever! Fucking hell, I did a lot. But it was all great.