Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving America's Main Street

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Description

Youll never understand America until youve driven Route 66thats old Route 66all the way, a truck driver in California once said to author Rick Antonson. Its the most famous highway in the world.

With some determination, grit, and a good sense of direction, one can still find and drive on 90 percent of the original Route 66 today. This travelogue follows Rick and his travel companion Peter along 2,400 miles through eight states from Chicago to Los Angeles as they discover the old Route 66. With surprising and obscure stories about Route 66 personalities like Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, Al Capone, Salvador Dali, Dorothea Lange, Cyrus Avery (the Father of Route 66), the Harvey Girls, Mickey Mantle, and Bobby Troup (songwriter of (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66), Antonsons fresh perspective reads like an easy drive down a forgotten road: winding, stopping now and then to mingle with the locals and reminisce about times gone by, and then getting stuck in the mud, sucked into its charms. Rick mixes hilarious anecdotes of happenstance travel with the routes difficult history, its rise and fall in popularity, and above all, its place in legend.

The author has committed part of his books proceeds to the preservation work of the National Route 66 Federation.

Reviews

His tale is a middle-age Woodstock in motion, an encounter with an America that isn t as lost as we thinkAnd in the end Antonson proves that Route 66 indeed still kicks as does America. --Keith Bellows, editor in chief of National Geographic Traveler
I have traveled Route 66 more times than a long-haul trucker and this book is going to become one of the classics of the road solid proof that Route 66 still kicks. --Jim Conkle, director, Route 66 Pulse newspaper and TV
One of the best books of the bunch [2012 round up of Holiday Travel Books by The New York Times] is partly a homage to Bobby Troup, the lyricist who wrote the 1946 hit (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66. --Joshua Hammer, for The New York Times
There are many Route 66 books but none are a full-length road trip like this If you plan to motor west and get your kicks doing it, I suggest you read it. --David Knudson, executive director, National Historic Route 66 Federation
There are travel books, and there are travelogues, and then, if you re lucky, you come across storytelling like this that actually takes you on a history-filled, magical mystery tour that becomes a remarkably accessible journey. --Peter Greenberg, travel editor, CBS Evening News
Antonson s most impressive feat in Route 66 Still Kicks is how he incorporates history into the narrative. Even those familiar with the stories of Will Rogers, Cyrus Avery, Mickey Mantle, or Al Capone will find them rendered by Antonson in a fresh way. Highly recommended. --Route 66 News
Antonson calls Route 66 "the highway of highways," and after reading his luminous travelogue, you probably will agree. A must for Route 66 aficionados. --Chicago Tribune
By far the best book I have read about the Road in many, many years. Two guys went in search of Route 66 and found America. Highly recommended. --Bob Moore, co-author of The Complete Guidebook to Route 66 and The Complete Atlas to Route 66
The most impressive account of a road trip I have ever read. --Paul Taylor, publisher of Route 66 Magazine
Antonson's most impressive feat in "Route 66 Still Kicks" is how he incorporates history into the narrative. Even those familiar with the stories of Will Rogers, Cyrus Avery, Mickey Mantle, or Al Capone will find them rendered by Antonson in a fresh way. Highly recommended. --Route 66 News
Their hopes for a trip to Asia dashed, the author (president of Tourism Vancouver and a frequent traveler) and his friend Peter quickly came up with plan B: Route 66, the legendary--and now mostly bypassed--highway that spans nearly 2,500 miles from Illinois to California. The result is this lighthearted travelogue--Rick and Peter being a sort of road-comedy team--but the book also has its bittersweetmoments, since to remember Route 66 in its heyday is to remember an America that no longer exists. The book is full of interesting or amazing historical facts (for example, Illinois was the first state to completely pave its portion of Route 66, way back in the Roaring Twenties, because Al Capone needed a good road to transport bootleg liquor). It might be a bit too artsy-fartsy to call the book a road trip into the past, but along the way, Rick and Peter do discover bits of the original Route 66, untouched by the modern world, including a smattering of people who live along the original roadway and who seem to have stepped out of the past. A winning mixture of travelogue and history. --Booklist

Author Bio

Rick Antonson is the author of Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving America's Main Street, To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa, Full Moon Over Noah's Ark: An Odyssey to Mount Ararat, and Walking With Ghosts in Papua New Guinea: Crossing the Kokoda Trail in the Last Wild Place on Earth. Rick is a past chair of Destination International, based in Washington, D.C. and past deputy chair of the Pacific Asia Travel Association based in Bangkok, and the former president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver. He and his wife Janice live in Predator Ridge in Canada's Okanagan Valley.