Time to find some new kind of kick on a century-old lost highway in the fantastic roadside Americana documentary Route 66: The Main Street of America, written and directed by John Paget. Paget had previously documented his travels across Route 66 decades ago in the mid-90s, visiting one forgotten town after another. He interviewed the owners of the classic diners and gas stations that had thrived during a heyday that disappeared a while ago. Once the most traveled highway of the 20th century, this two-lane wonder that went from Chicago to California was made obsolete when I-40 opened in 1982. The new cross-country freeway bypassed all the small cities that made up the Route 66 experience, with many mighty neon signs and giant statues left to decay.
A towering fiberglass giant stands against a blue sky at the American Giants Museum in Route 66: The Main Street of America.
“Paget sets out again to drive Route 66, this time in a borrowed white convertible that would fit right in with the bygone era he is chasing.”
Paget sets out again to drive Route 66, this time in a borrowed white convertible that would fit right in with the bygone era he is chasing. He starts in Chicago, then drives the old road that cuts through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before finally arriving in California. What he finds at the hundred-year anniversary of the opening of Route 66 is compelling. Yes, the economic calamity of interstate cut-offs is still felt through the rippling of tumbleweeds blowing through deserted commercial centers. However, the dream of Route 66, and the classic American vacation, is very much alive, with the internet providing a digital highway for people around the world to find their way back to the mother road of the country.
If you are like me, you will love the whole Route 66 jazz down to the bone, as Route 66: The Main Street Of America plays it very well. I treasure the lost highway architecture found here as much as I do Art Deco, because only in America does commercial real estate become this mesmerizing. When my wife and I drove to Vegas to get married almost 25 years ago, our first stop for the night was the La Mesa Motel on Route 66 in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. We are still together, thanks to our union being blessed by that ancient neon. To me, Route 66 is the purest representation of original entrepreneurship our country had, versus the stultifying reappearance of the same chains in different cities on the interstates. It is the most magnificent concoction of art and commerce combining into a dream made real before fading away.
"…getting there is all the fun."
