It's February 28, and we are up early and out the door. This is the day that I have been looking forward to since we started this trip. As luck would have it, Route 66 was located directly behind our hotel. Armed with McDonalds' breakfast burritos, we went looking for black and white memories of Tod and Buz cruising Route 66 in their 1960 Corvette. I was only eight when the show aired, but I watched it because my sisters did. I don't remember anything about the show other than Route 66 was where you went to get your kicks (whatever that meant).
The last sixty years have not been kind to Route 66. Long stretches of road have merged with I-40 and the remaining sections are mostly abandoned and ignored. However, there was just enough magic left in the blacktop to imagine what this famous stretch of road was like in its hay day.
The Cadillac Ranch was easy enough to find, but we struggled unsuccessfully to find the sign from the Bates Motel of Psycho fame.
When we made it to Tucumcari that I caught my first glimpse that my memory had held for the last sixty years. It was a simpler, more innocent time. I could see Tod and Buz getting a malt at the local drive-in . . . or having a fist fight over a girlfriend. I could hear the roar of Tod's and Buz's Vette pulling out on the road in search of some adventure at the road's vanishing point.
Sometimes the past lives up to your memories, and sometimes your memories are only a reflection what you wish the past had been. And while I had never been there before, Route 66 exceeded all my memories of its past.
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