I spent the next two days in the St. Louis area (where I had spent nearly all my school years) visiting friends and old haunts. I had lunch with Karen and Bob Sutton, family friends forever, and spent the nights with a Navy buddy Bill Link and wife Elsie, and Chris and Joe Lange, another WMA alum. One Route 66 classic I had to see was Ted Drewe’s frozen custard stand, but I was too early to indulge.
Killing time, I went across town to the renewed Delmar Blvd. area where the St. Louis walk of fame is, and had to admire the life-size statue of that great hometown boy, Chuck Berry.
I took my leave Monday morning and went southwest out I-44, which was built on top of a lot of US66 going across Missouri, but soon followed the old road through Eureka and Pond, where we lived and I did third grade. The school is still there, greatly enlarged.
I soon started to see, in the sections of US66 separated from the Interstate, a scene of deterioration and economic devastation that the Interstate system caused. In Illinois perhaps the local communities kept the businesses alive, but from Missouri west, unless a town is close to the “Super Slab” as Mike Wallis calls it, it is struggling or gone. I soon stopped taking many pictures like this, of closed or fallen-down motels, cafés, gas stations, etc. Pretty depressing. It reminded me of scenes along US50 in southeastern Colorado years ago, when those towns were bypassed by I-70. This destruction along Route 66 is of course the underlying theme of the great “Cars” animated movie (on which Michael Wallis was a consultant to Pixar).
Sometimes places look like they are down-and-out, but they’re not. The Elbow Inn is actually a going concern, along a great stretch of 66 called the Devil’s Elbow (dangerous curves, back in the day).
I loved the scenery along that stretch of 66 in the northern Ozarks. And there are parts of the old road, pretty neglected, and nice old bridges.
Little towns like Spencer and Gay Parita get as much boost out of Route 66 as they can muster.
This great old white building may have been a diner. Maybe a filling station. And it was nice to see a few functioning drive-inn theatres along the old road.
Killing time, I went across town to the renewed Delmar Blvd. area where the St. Louis walk of fame is, and had to admire the life-size statue of that great hometown boy, Chuck Berry.
I took my leave Monday morning and went southwest out I-44, which was built on top of a lot of US66 going across Missouri, but soon followed the old road through Eureka and Pond, where we lived and I did third grade. The school is still there, greatly enlarged.
I soon started to see, in the sections of US66 separated from the Interstate, a scene of deterioration and economic devastation that the Interstate system caused. In Illinois perhaps the local communities kept the businesses alive, but from Missouri west, unless a town is close to the “Super Slab” as Mike Wallis calls it, it is struggling or gone. I soon stopped taking many pictures like this, of closed or fallen-down motels, cafés, gas stations, etc. Pretty depressing. It reminded me of scenes along US50 in southeastern Colorado years ago, when those towns were bypassed by I-70. This destruction along Route 66 is of course the underlying theme of the great “Cars” animated movie (on which Michael Wallis was a consultant to Pixar).
Sometimes places look like they are down-and-out, but they’re not. The Elbow Inn is actually a going concern, along a great stretch of 66 called the Devil’s Elbow (dangerous curves, back in the day).
I loved the scenery along that stretch of 66 in the northern Ozarks. And there are parts of the old road, pretty neglected, and nice old bridges.
Little towns like Spencer and Gay Parita get as much boost out of Route 66 as they can muster.
This great old white building may have been a diner. Maybe a filling station. And it was nice to see a few functioning drive-inn theatres along the old road.
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