Just south of Towanda, Ill., just off of old Route 66 is a stately home called Towanda Meadows. Because of its proximity to a set of railroad tracks, it reputedly was a haven for escaped slaves as part of the Underground Railroad. It's a fascinating story. Too bad it's not true. Towanda Meadows is indeed … Continue reading Home’s Underground Railroad lore doesn’t match reality
Month: January 2007
Power outages begin
The National Weather Service has issued ice storm warnings from the Oklahoma-Texas Panhandle border clear into central Illinois. That means that power outages are almost inevitable. According to various newspapers and wire services: The St. Louis region has about 120,000 customers without power Saturday morning, mostly north and west of the city. Springfield, Mo., reports … Continue reading Power outages begin
A tasty wager
Before a big football game, it's common for the governors of the teams' respective states to make a friendly wager. It's not a serious thing, but serves more as a small publicity boost for companies and products in each state. For instance, if a team from Wisconsin is involved, it's certain the wager will involve … Continue reading A tasty wager
More bad weather
I'm told that many Japanese tourists travel Route 66 in January. If so, they picked the wrong weekend for a road trip. According to the National Weather Service, a winter storm is causing problems all the way from central Illinois to northern New Mexico this weekend along or near the Mother Road. Nearly all of … Continue reading More bad weather
Riding with The King
This combination of a slide show and film footage from a group's motorcycle trip through the desert Southwest in April 2006 is better than most that I see on YouTube. I also approve including the hit remix of "A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis Presley.
The Lope makes a move
One of our favorite Internet road-trip sites, The Lope, has to a new URL that uses a Blogspot template but no longer is publishing to Blogspot. The Lope writes: I did place posts at the old blogspot URL to redirect people to the individual new URLs, so any URLs you posted for the specific posts … Continue reading The Lope makes a move
El Vado demolition request rejected
From today's Albuquerque Journal: The historic El Vado Motel on Central is safe for now. By a 4-2 vote, the city Landmarks and Urban Conservation Commission on Wednesday denied a request to demolish the 70-year-old tourist court, in part finding the property owner, Richard L. Gonzales, failed to show that no means of preserving the … Continue reading El Vado demolition request rejected
The mother of “The Mother Road”
Remember last summer's PBS-TV documentary, "The Mother Road," where filmmaker Lauren Cardillo and her mother, Irene, traveled Route 66? The Cape Cod (Mass.) Chronicle interviewed Irene shortly before a re-airing of the one-hour program this Sunday on a local station. The story contains quite a bit of background about the film, which was originally shot … Continue reading The mother of “The Mother Road”
Photo exhibit features Route 66
Fordham University in New York is hosting a two-person photography exhibition, "In the City and the Mother Road: Route 66," by Doug Muir and Michael Putnam through Feb. 10. The exhibit juxtaposes urban settings with rural scenes from middle America. The Route 66 photography is by Putnam. According to a news release by the university: … Continue reading Photo exhibit features Route 66
A death in the family
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch today tells the tragic story George F. "Fred" Kiesel. Kiesel lived in one of the rooms at the Wayside Motel, one of the few surviving vintage motels along old Route 66 in the suburb of Marlborough. The Wayside is across the road from the famed Coral Court Motel, which was torn … Continue reading A death in the family