Ha ha. Another menu.

My perfect vacation requires a car, a camera, and two hundred-or-so CDs. No timetables, no plans, and no other people.

Route 66 was my original road trip/obsession.

I shot many of these pictures in 1995 and 1996 on a friend's manual Pentax when I was just getting into photography, so (in my opinion) the quality isn't of the level of much of my work. A few of the black-and-whites are actually color shots that looked rather bland, so I desaturated them. Nevertheless, I think I have some good scans, and Photoshop cures all ills.

Brief history: Route 66 runs from Chicago to Los Angeles and was conceived as a all-season route to the west coast. Businessmen in Oklahoma were the primary forces behind 66. They actually wanted the number 60, but it was already earmarked for another road. US Highway 66 became reality in 1926, although it wasn't completely paved until 1937. In its early days, the narrow "highway's" path through mountains, washes, and windswept plains was dangerous and sometimes fatal.

Technically, 66 no longer exists. The completion of Interstates 15, 40, and 55 rendered 66 irrelevant (to national highway planners), and US 66 was decommissioned in 1985. As a historical and cultural artifact, 66 is possibly more popular than ever.