Motorcycle Men
Motorcycle Men
Episode 468 - Talking with Jerry McClanahan About the EZ66 Guide for Travelers
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Hello boys and girls,
Today we’re joined by a true Route 66 legend: Jerry McClanahan, author of the iconic EZ 66 Guide for Travelers. If you’ve ever dreamed of exploring the Mother Road, chances are Jerry’s maps, notes, and hand-drawn gems have guided your wheels. We’re going to dig into the creation of the guide, the research behind it, the updates that keep it fresh, and the magic of Route 66 itself. Whether you're a first-timer or a seasoned road wanderer, this conversation is packed with insight, history, and a whole lot of heart.
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Hello, boys and girls, and welcome to the Motorcycle Men Podcast. This is episode four sixty-eight. I am Ted, your host, here in the V Twin Cafe, over in the corner booth, as usual, having some coffee that is quite questionable, and as you know, the hosts barely know what they're talking about. But we have some stories, and they're always worth the ride. Today we're joined by a Route 66 legend, Jerry McClanahan. He's the author of the iconic Easy66 Guide for Travelers. If you've ever dreamed of exploring the Mother Road, I have, chances are Jerry's maps, nodes, and hand-drawn gems have guided your way. Alright, we're going to dig into the creation of the guide, the research behind it, the updates that keep it fresh, and the magic of Route 66XL. Now, whether you're a first timer or a seasoned road warrior or road wanderer for that matter, this conversation is packed with insight, history, and a whole lot of heart. So grab your helmet, grab your coffee, and let's hit the road. But before we do, and talk to Jerry, let's give a nod to our sponsors. Scorpion helmets. Now they're offering high-quality, innovative motorcycle helmets and technical apparel at an incredible value. So to learn more, visit scorpionusa.com. And wild ass seats. Now you can improve your comfort and ability to stay in the saddle longer with a cushion from Wild Ass Seats. So if you're doing Route 66 and your butt starts to hurt, you get one of these cushions. So if you're tired of those painful pressure points and fatigue, go to wild-ass.com and get your cushion today from the real Craig Johnson and make sure you tell him the motorcycle men sent you. And Viking Bags, a world leader in motorcycle luggage and one of the fastest growing motorcycle parts companies going. Luggage for whatever you need, whatever you ride, and wherever you go. And as always, boys and girls, Tobacco Motorware for the best in casual riding gear for men and women. There's only one place you should be going, and that is Tobacco Motorware. Visit them at tobacco motorware.com, and our listeners will get 10% off your order when you use the code MOTOMEN. Your safety is worth it, so get on over to Tobacco Motorware and get in Dave's pants. Alright, let's go have a little chit-chat with Jerry about Route 66. Alright, and we're back and joining me today, all the way from where are you right now?
SPEAKER_00Chandler, Oklahoma, kind of midway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
SPEAKER_02All right, we have Mr. Jerry McClanahan. He is the author of uh Easy66 Guide, correct?
SPEAKER_00Yep, that's it. All right, so well I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02That's right. You know what? I I practiced that. You used to, yeah. Uh so I'll tell you what, because I know a lot of people don't know who you are and what you do. So why don't you um tell us who you are, what you do?
SPEAKER_00All right. Uh I have been uh documenting, photographing, researching Route 66 since 1981. Discovered it as a kid in the backseat of the car from California to through Oklahoma City, and dad never stopped. That's where I got my fascination with it. So what I do is I do paintings of Route 66 scenes with people's cars in them and the ensigns and motels and everything. I offered the Easy66 guidebook, which is coming out with its sixth edition next week. Wow. Did a set of maps with a friend at Jim Ross out of Arcadia in 1994, and they're still selling well. Plus other books and videos and just whatever happens with Route 66. Oh I've even uh putting out my own comic book to celebrate the Zandia.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's awesome. So now the Easy66 Guide has been kind of a go-to book for Route 66 travelers. What inspired you to create it originally and how has that guide evolved since the very first edition?
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, I mentioned Jim Ross and I had done the map series before. And uh in 2003, my publisher for the Easy Guide, who's David Canute of the National Historic Route 66 Federation, say that five times fast. Yeah, uh called me up on the phone and says, Jerry, the route really needs a good guide. I said, Okay, you know, it's like let's put on a show, you know, that type of thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it took the next uh couple of years. All I did was work on the book, drove everything again, both directions, uh did about uh how many, at least 40 90-minute cassette tapes of notes. Wow, to listen to that man can transcribe them. Yeah, listen to me cough, listen to 10 or 12 minutes of traffic noise, all this kind of stuff. But uh the book the the uh easy guide has uh directions both ways, it has maps for the whole route, detailed maps of the towns, side trips, attractions, options, mom and pop motels and restaurants, giant that's my thing. I started putting alerts for all the giants, and my gosh, you talked about changes since the first edition. Yeah, we have added so many new giants to Route 66. Oh, really? Tulsa, well, let's look at Oklahoma, for example. I mean, there's a lot of new ones in Illinois, but Tulsa has now, let me see, Buck Adams, Stella Adams, Meadow Gold Mac, who's a lumberjack, and then across the street is a guitar playing cowboy, and then they have a Rosie De River Turk girl. Yeah, giant 66 foot tall, like a Brontosaurus.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you go back uh east to Vanita, Oklahoma, the Highway Cafe, this little hat this little cafe on the west side of town, they have got a giant Indian that moved from like Minnesota, they have a muffler man who was on that traveling mobile oil exhibit, and then they have a uh chef which uh just moved from Springfield, Missouri. So that one little cafe and motel has three giants there. Wow. Here in Chandler, I I have a Route 66 mascot I created in 1992 named Rudy. He's a Route 66 head with a face, and uh he's been on all the maps since '94. He's been on charity t-shirts and other shirts and get and just many, many things with him and his entire family. Right. I drew a picture of him as a superhero. You know, he's he's disguised, he's got these goggles, so it's like Clark Kent, and you can't tell he's really city of Chandler. Loved that. They were putting in an application for grant money for a new park. So they said, Jerry, can we put your 66 man, have him built, and put him in the park? Said, sure. So we worked that out. The man that built all those giants in Tulsa is uh just about done with him in Virginia, Mark Klein. He's famous for building a lot of giants along Route 66. Oh, wow, really? And uh yeah, he built Buck and Stella and all of them. So uh my giant should be delivered pretty soon, and we're looking at maybe the 4th of July to have a celebration of him. He'll be flying this in a superhero flying pose up on a pole. Yeah. And he's actually now the park he's in, you know, they told me they were getting application to this park. And then after the application was approved, finally I found out about it. They called it McClanaham Park.
SPEAKER_02Oh, no way.
SPEAKER_00Which is kind of embarrassing. I think, okay, I'm not dead yet, you know. Hurry on, letters. Nobody's gonna be able to spell it or pronounce it. But yeah, we're gonna have our own giant.
SPEAKER_02That's amazing. That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, the changes that come into the book every edition, like between the fifth and sixth edition. There's good things, there's a lot of value added to the route because of this in Tio. Oklahoma had at least 20-something cities that got grants to do visitor centers or uh neon signs. Uh Stroud is got a grant and they put up about 50 neon signs in town. Wow, really? There's lots of new things to add. Yeah. And then the sad thing is like I had to take out a lot of restaurants because they closed.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00Because after COVID and trying to keep uh employees and everything, it's just wow.
SPEAKER_02Now your research is kind of legendary on this. Um, what what does your on the ground process look like when you're verifying alignments and landmarks and changes along the route?
SPEAKER_00Oh my. Well, you have to go back to the like the 81 and 83 for the start of all that. But I tell you, as a kid sitting in the back of the car on vacation during the mid-60s, I was trying to draw my own map of 66 by looking at the window and drawing.
SPEAKER_03Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So I was all I got fascinated with maps and things back then. I would look at the Atlas and say, That's Mount Taylor, and it's so many thousand foot tall, that kind of thing. Oh, wow. We had no video games, we had no DVDs, so it was like read Mad Magazine or look out the window.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh I started making notes of everything I saw along the road and taking photos. I uh excuse me, let me take a little drink of water here. I looked at old gas station maps dating back to the 20s.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I looked at county maps that would show old alignments that had been forgotten, like the Jericho Gap, the original dirt alignment still there, but every other author said it had been paved over. And I found it by looking at old county maps and comparing them to the uh auto club strip maps from the things. I got tons of material, and then I met up with Jim Ross, my fellow researcher, and we started doing hand-drawn maps one inch to a mile of the whole round. Okay, so I would take a trip back to Arizona, and then I come back and hand him my a copy of my maps, and he take them and mark them up, and back and forth we kind of evolved or research. Since then, he has put his research and my research and everything onto his website where he has between Chicago and Santa Monica, every bit of road that was ever 66, dirt, pavement, or whatever, even if it's just the west down lanes of I-40, he's got it all color-coded and marked there.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00600 PDF maps. There's it doesn't cost anything to look at them, and it's a great research thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well that that well that brings me up to about the the map, the Route 66 itself. It's constantly shifting. Closures, uh, renovations and new attractions. How do you stay updated? And and what is your system for deciding what gets added or removed or revised?
SPEAKER_00Well, for one thing, I do my own trips when possible. Last year I did the eastern half, and uh I have to squeeze some time this year to do as much as I can. Yeah. It's busy right now with people want to come by on tours and groups and things like that. But yeah, I'll drive it. And I took a trip to California and back a few years ago, I guess before the fifth edition, doing research. Okay. And on a almost a two-week trip, I shot 18,000 digital photos. Wow. Oh man. But I'm shooting, I'm just holding the camera up at times, exit sign, street name, all this stuff because I need the reference. When I get home and I'm trying to figure out can they turn left at this intersection? If I look at street view on Google, it's like maybe out of date, or there's a truck blocking it. Yeah. So I my photos and say, Yeah, they can turn left. Oh. And uh, I have to put together routings that these people can follow. The main routings are in boxes for east and west travel in my book, and that's all pavement. And it's as road as possible. Some of the roads are a little rough, and I'll tell people. Then I have options where they can go on dirt or gravel if they want to. Some people are in RVs or motorcycles, they don't want to go down this old rough dirt and gravel and rubboard road. Wow. Are there a lot of those? Yes, you'd be surprised, especially west of Oklahoma City, headed out to California. How much old abandoned dirt 66 is still out there and drivable? No kidding. Yeah, it's it's it's quite amazing. Wow. You know, uh it's like that Jericho Gap I mentioned. That was east of Amarillo. It was the last kind of unpaved road in that section. It was incredibly gumbo, sticky mud. Farmers would get money pulling people out. And they moved the road about a mile north and paved it. But they left the old Jericho Gap zigzagging through the country. It followed section lines.
SPEAKER_02Can you still traverse that section?
SPEAKER_00Most of it. Really? You know, accessible, but most of it, if you know where it is. Oh, that's cool. That's what I was doing in the 80s and 90s and all up, is researching all this fun stuff, writing articles about it. I hiked through the middle of Cajon Pass in California, between the two lanes of the interstates, because they're widely separated, and found the original 1916 pavement that had been bypassed in the 30s, and it was still there in places.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow. Now, is is that any of this stuff on private land? Like those.
SPEAKER_00Well, some of it is that was uh uh National Forest Land. Oh, okay. I wouldn't do it again today because there's a communication race at the top, and they might be a little pinky after you know 9-11 about a while back. And other information I get, people reading my book will send me emails or call me and say, Jerry, got one today. He said, He confirmed what I told him yesterday. The road across our famous Pony Bridge in Western Oklahoma is fairly closed. And he told me it's still closed, and also that there's no sign until you get to the bridge. So I put that in my updates today. Oh my website. I will update to also updated two restaurants in Tukum Curry. One reopened in a new location after a fire, one closed. And the if they're already in the book, the book is already, you know, it's yeah, the book's been in in production for a couple months, you know. So I just warm updates because it's still it's a lot of work. Yeah, so I have spies up and down Route 66. I I look at Facebook, uh people host about things. Uh I found out too late about a new place in Glu uh I'm blanking in Kansas, Galita.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00That's a cool new place, and uh I'll I put them on the update, and then when we do a new edition or a running revision, I'll I'll tuck them in there.
SPEAKER_02Well, there you go. Now your your detailed maps are uh kind of like a signature part of your of the guide itself. What goes into creating those maps and how do you balance the accuracy with uh reliability and maybe even a little bit of charge?
SPEAKER_00Reality, yeah. Well, I go back to those hand-drawn maps that I was doing in the 80s and 90s. Yes, it's the core of them, and then I would look at every possible gas station map, county map, online map, everything. Topo topo maps from the US government. Wow, use all that to figure out how to how to make a map. Yeah, but then I make it readable, right? And sometimes to fit it on a page, I may have to stretch it or shrink it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Also, let me just you have to stretch it or shrink it. Uh there are sections where Route 66 in western Oklahoma is on the north side of the freeway and then it's on the south. But you have to you have to adjust the scale, yeah, for for readability. So it looks funny, you know. But and uh I have to decide how much information to put in the maps and in the directions, yeah. Make the directions as easy as possible. But sometimes I have to tell them, look, a block ahead, get in the left lane, because otherwise you're not gonna be able to make this turn. And then there's one in near Hollywood. I say, if you missed a turn, go to this street and come back down because it's oh, so you really get really get detailed about I have to balance it. Some people say, Oh, there's too much detail. They look at it at everybody looks at the book at home and say, it's impossible, it's too complicated. But then almost everybody says, once we get on the road, it makes sense. Yeah, again. Yeah, that's the deal. You hit if you're in the context and you're reading the directions, and some directions are like uh in Missouri, I say, You got you know 96 miles here or whatever, just keep your head out of the book and enjoy, you know. And then others, some of the city, it's like this block, this block, this block.
SPEAKER_02Wow, yeah, so it gets really detailed in that case.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and when I do my own trips, I force myself to read every direction and follow it.
SPEAKER_02Do it right to ensure that you got accuracy correct.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, I said turn left instead of right. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Now, travelers do love your your easy tips and your news flashes. How do you gather those real-time insights? Uh, and what are some of the most surprising updates you've uh had to include over the years?
SPEAKER_00Well, we we talked about till you know that I get them from Facebook.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00From readers, and your spies. My spies, any news sources, my own shrimp. Uh gee, my hit.
SPEAKER_02Well, how many do you do you get a lot of updates like every week or every day?
SPEAKER_00It depends. It just depends on what's happening out there. Yeah, I mean, sometimes there's a lot of closures, there's a lot of roads, a lot of construction, and sometimes there's nothing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh last week there was an issue where somebody had reported the road was closed at Ludlow, California. And uh I looked at the official San Bernardino County Road Closure guide, nothing. But Google, bless their hearts, showed closure on the east side, and you'd head for a dirt road. I called two businesses in Ludlow and messaged the Royce Cafe and Amboy, and they all said there was no closure there. So, okay, it's just you know.
SPEAKER_02Wow. See, I got accuracy intended, but not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's just, you know, you you've got to get out there and you've got to know about Route 66 and have driven it and be intimately familiar with it to be able to do something like this. Wow.
SPEAKER_02So surprises come along every now and then.
SPEAKER_00The worst surprises are they're working on this intersection. There's one in Missouri now where they've closed overpass. Westbound, if you get there without knowing it and there's no sign, you have to go back about five or six miles and free. Yeah. And the eastbound's okay. And Missouri does that a lot where where they don't have a sign in it well in advance, just tell you. Yeah. And there's all the worst updates are when they close or demolish an old bridge. Oh gosh, yeah. The old bridges at Katusa are gone. They they demolished them, but they did save the pony bridge at Bridgeport. They restored this bridge, it's three-quarters of a mile long. There's 38 pony trusses. A pony truss is not as big as the truss that you drive through where you've got all the steel work running. It's like a pony. There's 38 of those. They took everyone off, restored them, repainted them, built a new concrete deck on top of the original piers, and then put them back up. Wow. They don't hold the weight of the bridge like they used to. But they're there, and you can even park below the bridge and see a view you could never see before.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow. So what's that's well what state you think you think along the whole route, what state is the most prolific with construction and closures?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think it's kind of spread pretty even. Except Kansas only got 13 miles.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's been like you know, let's see. There's a big detour in California for bridges east of Amboy that has been dragging on for quite a long while. It's the San Bernardino counties trying to fix them and jumping through regulatory hoops and things. Oh, geez. Yeah. Uh I know there's currently some construction near Gallup, New Mexico. There had been construction east of uh of uh uh Amarillo at McLean that maybe changed. My directions because they eliminated an uh underpass under I-40, and you can't access 66 that way anymore unless you do a dukes of hazard jump over all the stuff. So yeah, it's and it's stuff like that that bug me. Where sometimes I can find out about this ahead of time, and sometimes it's oh, that's been in fact for two or three days. I've got to warn people, you know. Oh, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02So that's why that's why you post it on your website then.
SPEAKER_00I have it on my website, and then I also I have Easy66 Guide to Route 66 as a Facebook page. Oh, okay. I will post quick, like today, I post screenshots of one of our local weather ladies said, Here's where there's gonna be tornadoes today. I put that on here, and I'll tell them if they're coming through here, this is your weather alert. If it looks really bad, I'll tell them that maybe they should stop early.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh, not too long after I bought this place, maybe 2010, 11, there was advanced warning of an extremely enhanced risk of tornadoes that was going to be starting about three in the afternoon west of Oklahoma City and moving through El Reno and all. They were really warning people. I had a young couple come through right before lunch, something like that, and I told them about it. And I suggested, you guys want to get through that area before three and and you know, make sure you're safe. That evening they called me from Amarillo from their hotel and thanked me for saving their life, quote unquote. Wow. As they got past that area, they looked back, a tornado crossed I-40, killed people in some cars, tore down a refinery and killed somebody at a drilling rig, and then sphered north and barely missed Oklahoma City in El Reno. Wow. And you know, you've you've got to you gotta have some kind of phone apps and be looking at the weather and not driving the thunderstorms. Yeah, exactly. Wow, man. Holy crap. Was it February? Uh we've already had a share and it's early. Really? Already? Wow. It was wiped out in 1897 by a tornado.
SPEAKER_01No kidding.
SPEAKER_00But here in my gallery, I've got a concrete bunker. It's like something on the, you know, in World War II, you know. I can open a heavy door, I can get in there, you know.
SPEAKER_02But yeah. So look, Route 66 is full of these quirky little stops, little hidden gems, and these historic icons, right? How do you choose which ones to highlight?
SPEAKER_00Well, I cram as many cool things because definitely the established ones like the uh totem pole park near Foyle, the blue whale, the round barn, all these are in home. I will include those. And then something new like the giant flip-flop in San Jome, New Mexico. Okay, there's nothing else in that town, so they got a giant flip-flop at a game.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow, okay. Now, well, and have you discover uh speaking of new stuff like that, have you discovered many new favorites uh in during your recent research?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because uh all these giants they're adding. There's a giant museum in Atlanta, Illinois. Atlanta's a tiny little town, but uh quite a while back they got a giant Paul Bunyan holding a hot dog that came from, I guess, Cicero. Yeah. So now they have a museum devoted to giants. Wow. They've got new giants there, they've got a giant pie waitress over at the uh a local restaurant, they've got an octagonal library, eight-sided library with a clock tower out front that people can actually arrange to a wind up, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00They've got tons of stuff in that tiny little town.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Do you see a lot of giants popping up now?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, yes. Giants are popping up all over, like those, those three that are at the highway cafe in Venita, the okay, Tulsa. We we mentioned Buck Adams, Stella Adams, Meadow Goldmack, who's an original lumberjack from the 60s, the guitar playing one whose name I forget, the uh Rosie the River one, and then they also have the original Golden Driller, which is a few blocks south of 66. So that's six, plus they're getting the giant dinosaur. That's seven giants right there in Tulsa alone. But more are being added all the time. Oh, yes, all those are all those giants except for the golden driller are within the last few years.
SPEAKER_02So the whole giant thing is making this resurgence because for a while it was like a dead thing. It is.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm gonna take credit for that. Maybe I'm not, but in in 2005, when my first edition came out, I had giant alerts and I put pictures of giants in there and I called out every giant along the way.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's what I said. Giant alert. That is funny. I'd also say here's a giant gun. But I had to modify that because there is a giant pop bottle in uh Opa, Oklahoma. But it's only about six foot tall. But that's giant compared to everything. Sure, of course. So now I have big alerts. No, it's just big. This is the 66-foot tall pop bottle that pops in Arcadia.
SPEAKER_02That's the is that the one, the white one that goes like spirals all the way up and it's like a C and D's that make different colors.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep in the round barn. Round barn's a restored uh classic thing. I I love it when people restore old sites. I love it when they uh build new cool things. But okay, there is a giant in Springfield, Illinois on the original alignment of 66 that was bypassed in 1930. But this giant was put there in the 60s, so he's not of that era, but he's we accept anything cool along any part that was ever 66 as historic 66. That road was bypassed by this road, and that one was bypassed by the interstate. Okay. If it's something along a path of 66 that's cool, okay. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna grab it and tell people they should see it. Oh, absolutely. The brick highway near Auburn, Illinois is very famous as a Route 66 attraction. Except the bricks weren't put down until the mid-30s, and Route 66 had changed before at 1930. It's something you're gonna see driving Route 66. Historic 66. You could ask me about the Navy Pier and the Santa Monica Pier in a minute if you want to.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, uh well, I'd tell you what, we're gonna talk about quirky sections. Uh talk to me about the the sidewalk highways.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Uh I'm a little sad about the sidewalk highway.
SPEAKER_02I heard they did something really nasty to it.
SPEAKER_00I haven't seen it in person, but uh that used to run from Miami, Miami, not Miami, down to Afton. And there's two remaining sections, and they had been covering gravel and abused over the years. Yeah. And some of it had been paved. Well, the county got money to restore it, but then they decided to just kind of rebuild it. So basically, it's going to be here's where the original nine-foot ride road was. It was a concrete base and curbs with an asphalt wearing surface, something they could renew. And according to a Route 66 expert who actually has an asphalt paving business, that was the original stuff. I think they've melded all that up and replaced the concrete into adding paved shoulders. So, yeah, it's not the same to me now. Many people, including the Oklahoma 66 Association, finally got them to agree that the last mile of that section, which ends at current Route 66, and a monument won't be touched. And that was the most intact. So hopefully, if all goes well, you'd still be able to drive that mile. Now I'm just telling people, turn around and go back. Don't even do the whole thing, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because uh that was a uh a unique roadway.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a shame they would do that. I mean, uh, as I understand it, there's multiple sections that are like that.
SPEAKER_00There's different areas. Well, there's the section from Miami to Narcissa, we just talked about there's a section that that is east of Afton that runs for a few miles at dog legs. Basically, that's it.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_00Oh man. Afton and and Miama.
SPEAKER_02I you would think that something as historic as that, that the the towns, the counties, the state would just leave it alone because it is so historic.
SPEAKER_00The town of Miami wanted it left alone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But you know, it is what it is. It's it's like some things to me maybe improved too much along the road. I've been photographing since 81. I've seen things fall into ruin, I've seen things restored. Sometimes I think I want a little bit of more of the purity of how it used to look.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Some of that is still there, you know. So there's room for there's room for all the new pizzazz. If it keeps people interested in the road, if it gets young people wanting to travel it and keeps them alive, it's cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Now, as far as it goes for people traveling, um, then they use your guide. Uh, because you know, a traveling in 66 can be really overwhelming. So how does the guide help travelers uh understand uh or break the route into manageable, enjoyable segments?
SPEAKER_00I do, that's a good point. Uh I'm gonna show you to kind of illustrate what I'm doing here. Oh, yeah, look at that. Oh, wow. Where I break it into sections, like this is from Lupton, Arizona to Holebrook, Arizona. So there is a map that shows you everything on that section, which is how many miles? 280, Moppels 289 to 359. Do the math, you know, however many miles that is. Then the next page is westbound directions that take you and eastbound directions, plus everything in between, the detailed maps, attractions, historical information, roads that can drive on, roads that can't. So it continues in that vein. We've reached Holebrook, and then the next map here is from Holebrook to Winona. So everything is broken down into a two, three, four, five-page section, depending on how much there is. And uh, I've got city maps, I've got uh in Winslow, here's the 9-11 Remembrance Garden, here's the Old Trails Museum standing on the corner, some gift shops, some motels like Earl's Motor Court 66 Delta Hotel or the La Posada Harvey House Hotel. Wow, and there's restaurants, and then it's just it's like you said earlier, it is difficult to navigate 66. It's been chopped up so much. Yeah, it's like a snake and chopped it up in a hoe and threw it on either side of the interstate. Oh boy, and some are just frontage roads with no name, some are county roads, city streets, and they keep changing the name of city streets. In Missouri, the thing that confuses, especially people from overseas, is their county roads, and some of the state roads are letters. OO or W or V or just that's you know, you'll be I say turn left on Highway T and go three miles to Highway Zero Zero, you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh, geez. But for the first time traveler, I mean, what do you think the uh the Easy66 guide uh helps them understand about the road? If they did that, you know, if they didn't have the guide, what how does your guide help them understand things a little more? Or they would might miss it.
SPEAKER_00It would give you a context of how the road actually ran between the towns and the cities. All right. It'll show you, like in Oklahoma, you can look at my big map of Oklahoma City and look at the different ways it rent through the town, and you get a more of an understanding of the history. Instead of going through and I'm at this attraction, and the GPS takes me to the next attraction. I say, okay, I'm here and there's there, and look at everything in between. But here's a dirt road I didn't know about, and here's a here is two different routes I could choose from, and it's more interactive, it lets you kind of pick your own adventure.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow, yeah, I can see that. So do you recommend people not use their GPS when they're traveling?
SPEAKER_00Not the just the GPS that's going to send you, like if you say I'm gonna drive to Tulsa, it's gonna try to put me on the freeway. Yeah, so I say little freeways or co-roads, and then it wants to send me on a different two-lane road that's one minute quicker, you know, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00There are apps, and uh, I can't recommend either or app, you know, but people can research it. There are some dedicated Route 66 apps. Oh, I didn't know that. Traveling by themselves, if they a lot of people say they use the app and they use the book, and it works great together. Right. Also recommend getting some other books because I put like here is an attraction, here is a town, but I can't tell you every detail about this attraction and their hours of operation. I do give websites and phone numbers. Oh, okay. There you go. Tell you why Chandler was named Chandler. I can't tell you about the history of this place. There are books by Drew, I think we're sorry, there are books by Drew Knowles, uh, Jim Hinckley, and others that talk about more of the local color and history. Yeah, they're not guidebooks, but they kind of give you an idea of what you might want to see. You can do all this research to say, I really want to see this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The problem is this place is going to be closed when you come through on Sunday or Monday, or you're there too early, they're too late. I always tell people, don't worry if you can't see this item on your list, it gives you time to see the next item you would have missed.
SPEAKER_02Right. Now, do I mean do the people on uh the comp the businesses, the hotels, restaurants, and all that along Route 66 know about your book and that they are in it?
SPEAKER_00They recommend it. I I have people that that come to visit my gallery and they say, Yeah, everywhere we go, they say, use this book, and then they say, Oh, you're using it, you know. Sell it in the gift shops. Yeah, they're in it for free. I never have taken any promotion or advertising money.
SPEAKER_01Right. No, yeah, why not?
SPEAKER_00Right? Because you know, it's it's places either I've eaten or stayed at, yeah, or people have recommended to me. Yeah, so you know, I don't trust all the online reviews. Some of them will have bad reviews about a motel I love, you know. Man, and there's some of the motels I recommend are maybe C or C minus, most of them are B or even A. Yeah. It's you know, clean and safe, you know. But some people they should only stay at the highest class hotels and never.
SPEAKER_02Are there any are there any D E and F hotels along the way?
SPEAKER_00Oh, there are plenty. Oh, really? Oh, geez. I don't know. I I only have two that I currently can recommend.
unknownOh, wow.
SPEAKER_00And the the Carlin Villa Motel. Uh there's another one that I don't recommend because it's been very smoky when I've gone there, and then I've seen lots of bad reviews, not just online, but people complaining on Facebook, and then the manager saying insulting things to them. I said, Yeah, I'm not gonna imagine. There are a lot of vintage classic motels. Yeah, I like those. We've we've lost some recently. The Munger Moss Motel in Lebanon, Missouri, longtime owners. Uh uh Ramona and her husband had passed away.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And now it's long term. Supposedly there'll be tourist rooms, but I'm waiting to see reviews from travelers who are using my book. I'm not going to recommend that now. Right. But then we have Roman Rich Dinkella. Yes, I know Roman Rich. He's been on my show. Oh, yeah, he has been restoring, lovingly, obsessively restoring the Shamrock Motel in uh Sullivan.
SPEAKER_02He was working on the uh the training post out in the middle of nowhere out there.
SPEAKER_00I worked on that too. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, uh I was out there a couple of Septembers, and the last session I was on a scaffold for a week redrawing all the letters up on the top and the sides. Oh, nice. Only some of it was left. I had done it in a painting in 2002, so I just did the same thing. I would look at old photos, draw lines, and sometimes I could see part of a D, part of a T. Other times I was nothing. Yeah. And people would come along behind me and black them in as I moved along, you know. That was that was fascinating. I'm looking at the original sign painter's work, and I noticed okay, his E's tend to trail down like this, not straight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I felt a little sad about covering up his work, but you couldn't see it. It was under layers of paint. Yeah. I just was there and I could see the shadow of the letters, you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's a rest that's what restoration is, you know. It's you have to replace the old with the new, but in the same form. Uh now the Route 66 has a really passionate community. Um how has that community influenced your work?
SPEAKER_00Well, I have come to more focus on people. When I first started my research, I was looking at I wanted to photograph Route 66, but I had to know where it went. So I started researching the road, and then I wanted to do artwork based on it because I have a degree in art, but I never knew what to do with it, so I started doing Route 66 art. So that all bundled together. But in in the 90s, as I met more and more people who were fascinated by Route 66 and they were promoting it and preserving it, the people along the road and the people traveling the road became more important. So that's kind of how my thing has evolved, you know. I've done a lot of paintings for people of their like an Australian couple traveling the road in their mid-60s Cadillac, and they wanted to be posed in front of the uh Boots Court in Carthage, Missouri. And the guy's an Australian, so I had to draw a bottle of beer in his hand, you know, and I got them standing out in other Cadillac. Incredibly intricate grill. I warned him I would charge him more if he made me paint that grill. And he did. So, you know, I uh I'm in touch with people up and down the route all the time. We got a phone call from one of the California people the other day about things, and then will tell me about what's going on. Part of the linear community, which goes uh overseas. Uh, we get a ton of people from Europe in a good year. And uh I was married to a Japanese woman who loves Route 66. We went back there about five times, and every time I would be interviewed on radio and once on TV, just telling the Japanese about Route 66. You you get off of the uh bullet train in between uh uh all like Osaka and Tokyo, and walk to the hotel, there'd be a bar that says 66 on it, has signs.
SPEAKER_02Really? Oh, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00You go into their Don Quixote, which is their version of like a huge dollar store where you can get everything, and they would have Route 66 magnets and oh that's funny. This and that, you know.
SPEAKER_02Now uh there's now there's also a lot of preservation groups out there for Route 66. Um do they help you in keeping the guide accurate?
SPEAKER_00So some of the individual members do. Yeah, yeah. Mostly they help by just restoring like the Odell station, or you talked about the painted desert trading post, or the uh Richfield in Cucamonga, California. But yeah, I will hear from some of the members of those, like you know, here's what's going on, or sometimes some of the museums would like there's one lady that sent me a whole two or three paragraphs of stuff she wanted to do in the easy guide. I can only use like one or two because there's no room, you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow. Oh, geez. All right. Uh looking ahead, uh, what updates, expansions, uh, or new projects are you working on for future editions um related to the Route 66 resources?
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, the the Easy Guide, we'll just keep updating it and uh bringing it out every few years, you know. There was three years this time. I'm hoping that uh I can later this year maybe do some running changes, just change a few pages to update them.
SPEAKER_01How many editions are there right now?
SPEAKER_00You're on your sixth, you said the sixth edition comes out April 6th, it will be shipping.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And then I'm going to show you. Oh, they say I have a good face for radio, by the way.
SPEAKER_02I get the same thing.
SPEAKER_00This is my comic book.
SPEAKER_0266 Man. Look at that. This is why this is a that I showed the printer.
SPEAKER_00It's got my family vacations on Route 66. Here's where I'm at the pee in a cut. Here's where dad's not stopping and driving through the night. And you and you drew did all the artwork for this. Here's where we stopped at a stuckies at Keenan, and I remember. Remember that one. Or here's the train we saw in my drawing. This is me losing my cap gun out the window in Arizona and dad wouldn't stop back and get it. Then I have uh stories like uh let's see, here's a zombie version of Route 66 where the interstates killed him and he came back to life. So that's kind of the story of how they decertified Route 66.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's funny. Now, is that something that you're selling separately with the guide?
SPEAKER_00This is my own project.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00I I got the quote from the publisher the other day, I mean the printer the other day, and I'll tell him uh you know how many copies I want, and then I have to finalize it and get it printed out, and I'll start getting gift shops to carry them and sell them myself. You know, it's my centennial project.
SPEAKER_01Oh, there you go. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_0066 men uh here is 66 men.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's awesome. That's really, really cool. And that's gonna be available for the general public, hopefully, within the next couple months.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And we talk about Mark Klein, who builds the giants. Well, I have him guest starring in my book. He is Richard Clinton. And then I have a page of uh where I he gave me a page in his, he's doing a comic book. Mark Klein is doing a comic book, and it's got the giants against this evil person. I guess star in it. Me and 60 are actually in his, so he is in mine. You know, we just uh and I gave him a page in mine with his art, his comic book.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's awesome. I love how you draw the cars, man. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I researched all our family cars. I even got some of the license plates.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Do you remember the old JC Whitney catalogs?
SPEAKER_00Oh gosh, I used to.
SPEAKER_02And they used to show the they used to have the grills of the fronts of the cars in all of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for the years. Oh my god. You could get model A parts, Mustang parts, you could get singular grills, you could get the little gas cheating things. Yeah. I think I've ordered a thing or two for the basically I just read it, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's I would just because my uh my stepfather used to get those all the time. And I would just it would come in, I would just sit there and just look through. He remanufactured starters and engines. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh my gosh. Uh all right, so I'm gonna I'm gonna hit you now. Let me ask you just one more question. How many times have you ridden or driven Route 66 front to back?
SPEAKER_00I get that question asked a lot, and it's impossible to answer. Really? Because as a kid, we did nine trips from Southern California through Oklahoma City. That's like Victorville to Oklahoma City, headed east, and maybe at least half of that coming back, you know, sometimes with Vere. Then since '81, I have I never do it all at one time. Right. Like in 81, I did a trip with dad. We went out to California. 83, I did several trips. I did two weeks from Texas to Santa Monica and back.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I did from then on, I'm doing a half or a third every trip. Sometimes I'm doing the whole route every year, sometimes I'm not. And I never thought it important to kind of sit down and think how many times have I driven it. Have you ever done the whole thing front to back? I don't because I've lived in Texas and Oklahoma, and it's more convenient for me to like leave here and go to Chicago and back and then next month to go to California. You know, I'd have to fly in Chicago and you're in a car and do that stuff. I just don't do it. Yeah, I get it. I totally get it. It's to me, it's the experience, quality experience of what I'm driving at the moment.
SPEAKER_01Sure, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, I mean, if you're flying over from Europe, it's your only time, sure you want to do the whole route.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00But if you can, break it up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Break it up. Well, okay, you can try that. Now, as far as it goes for um everybody says, well, the length of Route 66 is this. But that is based on the original route. What is Route 66 today compared mileage-wise, compared to what it was in the beginning?
SPEAKER_00Well, I can't give you the exact mileage because you would have to tally up every dirt road, two-lane road, four-lane section, all those different alignments through the cities. They're all considered Route 66 today.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay. That original mileage, you see everything that says it's 2,448 miles. You could be out on the Santa Monica Pier and it says, you finished 2,448 miles. Except that mileage was from 1926 when it ended in downtown LA. It did not go to the pier. Right. It was 36 before it went to the pier. So there was no ever any mileage of 248 miles from Chicago out to Santa Monica. Oh. And when they extended it to the uh to the corner of Lincoln and Olympic in Santa Monica, they added some miles. But they'd already subtracted miles too the next year when they got rid of the Santa Fe loop. It used to run up to Santa Fe and down through Albuquerque to Las Lunas. And in 1937, they cut that off. Every state was losing mileage as they got rid of dog legs and dirt roads and streamlined the route. I see, I hate that. Yeah, well, see, there's there was never the the only time you could ever say Route 66 was at one specific mileage was like that 1926 mileage. But that wasn't the whole route.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then they started backing up it. One time in the 60s, it backed up to Pasadena. And then maybe in the 70s, I'd have to look up the notes. It moved to the Colorado River. It didn't even go into California, the official sign. Wow. And in the 70s, they got rid of it in Illinois, and then it ended up, it was the 66 signs would begin at an exit wet east of Joplin and run through Kansas and then Oklahoma and Texas. Some places say it ended at uh Sanders, New Mexico. But when I went out in 81 and 83, there was still 66 signs throughout Arizona. Oh, okay. Yeah. Wow. So it expanded, it shrank, it was cut back. In 1985, most of well, in 1983, when I did one of my trips, it went through the road was still Route 66 through McLean, Texas, on Allen Route. They had not finished the interstate there. Then in 84 is when they bypassed the last town that was Williams. And uh by that time, most of the 66 signs were up on the freeway because there were 66 is the concrete road on the left or the right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But they put signs up on the freeway. It was just kind of a mercy killing by 1985.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's that's what that's when they pulled the plug on the whole thing. Don't you think well, it's been what now, 40 years since they did that, but I think now Route 66 is more popular now than ever.
SPEAKER_00Well, yes. Because back then, you know, they were shortening the road every year and putting nothing in on the freeway, and it was getting old and run down, and when they announced its decertification, the newspaper articles all said uh no more kicks on 66 or one article in the Dallas paper, the guy was traveling 66 from Amarillo, and this was like about the time it was decertified. And he was just looking at the sordid and the tawdry and the rundown. Like he described one town as so quiet you could hear two dogs bleeping. You know, that was his take on Route 66. But then you had people like uh Angel and Juan Delgadillo in uh Soligaman, Arizona. They the bypass really hurt their town, and they kind of started fighting back, formed Arizona Route 66 Association, and they put their town back on the map.
SPEAKER_02Wow, see? I just think it's time that the government, just the federal government, should just say, Okay, look, we're gonna recommission Route 66 and put it back in business.
SPEAKER_00There are have been pushes to get it designated a National Historic Trail. Exactly. Yes. Recommission it would be a tan of worms. Like we're gonna say if there's another official US 66, Witcher version, which roads, all of it, even the dirt roads, you have that we don't want that. We have official US 66 is dead, bless its heart. It died in 1985. But just like in my zombie story, it came back to life because of the heartbeat of America, all the people that started bringing it back to life. And now it's historic route 66, better than ever, more miles than ever. There's probably 85% of road that was ever 66 still drivable. And you can enjoy the dirt road, the two-lane, you can enjoy different routes of the cities, you can do any of those tangled different alignments and routes that you prefer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Wow. That's it's a shame. But uh, I I hope I've never been on Route 66, and I hope to get out there soon.
SPEAKER_00Well, you need to do it.
SPEAKER_02I definitely need to go from Chicago all the way to LA and back. You know, I'd love to do that.
SPEAKER_00Look for maps, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Are you ready for some rapid fire questions? These are short answer questions. You ready?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's hard for me to give a short answer.
SPEAKER_02Do your best. It happens. All right, here we go. You ready?
SPEAKER_00Me. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Number one, favorite stretch of Route 66.
SPEAKER_00From El Reno to Hydro, Oklahoma. All right.
SPEAKER_02Uh number two, most underrated town on the mother road.
SPEAKER_00Excuse me. I'm gonna have to step away for just a second. You'll have to hit it, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02As he steps away from the computer, he's getting something. This is a great interview. Love that.
SPEAKER_00All right, here we go. Back, back, back. Most underrated town? Yeah. Gosh, that's hard for me to decide to decide. Uh big city, small city, I don't know. Underrated. Circle back to that one. Maybe my brain will cogitate on it. Okay, we'll come back to that. Uh highly. What's that? I rate all the towns highly. Okay. This is small, not them all.
SPEAKER_02Uh, number three, best pie on Route 66.
SPEAKER_00I reckon the Midpoint Cafe in Adrian, Texas.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Good pie, huh? Yeah, they've got their Elvis peanut butter and chocolate pie. Oh, geez. Yeah. Peanut butter and chocolate pie.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh uh number four, most surprising landmark you've ever stumbled upon.
SPEAKER_00Most surprising. Probably the painted desert trading post when I first saw it in the early 1990s. The one mile of dirt road to get to the old abandoned Route 66, and then a few miles of just rough as a cob pavement, and then you go around the curve, and there's this white bleached skull of an old building with a purple mesa, and a bridge, a concrete bridge down below over deadwash. And it was just the the interstate, the trucks were like an eighth of an inch long. That's how far away they were. Wow. And that is probably it.
SPEAKER_02Uh, favorite era. This is number five. Favorite era of Route 66 history.
SPEAKER_00Well, for me personally, it would be the 60s because that's when I experienced it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh, there might be other reasons, like the 50s is your classic vintage vacation era. Yeah. I'm also fascinated by 26 to the late 30s about the construction.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I could see that. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, number six. Um, one place everyone should photograph. One place.
SPEAKER_00Gosh, that's like, which is my favorite screen? Yeah. I can't I can't answer that question. I could say take a picture of everything you see, even if you've already photographed it before, because the next time it might be gone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's I like that. That's a good answer right there. Uh, number seven, best time of year to travel the route.
SPEAKER_00Well, when you can, but uh I like it in like September or early October. It seems like you know, September the weather's cooling down, not too cold yet. And uh it's a nice season, but and not too hot. If you go in the fall, there's beautiful trees. Yeah. If you go in the spring, there's wildflowers. Uh July and August are pretty hot. It just, you know.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, I like fall.
SPEAKER_02All right. Uh now, number eight is a tough one because I we've kind of already covered this, but uh paper maps or GPS?
SPEAKER_00Well, I would say not GPS. I would say paper maps and one of the special Route 66 purpose-built apps.
SPEAKER_01There you go. Okay.
SPEAKER_00We're made to guide you on 66, not just Google, you know, the GPS wants you to say 30 seconds between towns. That's not good. Yeah. Use both of these if you can.
SPEAKER_02All right. Uh number nine, most memorable traveler story you've ever heard.
SPEAKER_00A story of a traveler that visited here?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, that that road six Route 66. Oh, jeez. You've probably heard hundreds of stories.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, everybody tells me their whole life story of their trip on Route 66. And they tell me, they tell me about what maybe they grew up on 66, or maybe their family did the vacation and experienced many of the same things I did, like, you know, using the coffee can instead of cop stopping for the bathroom, you know. Yeah. It's just tons of stories like that of how travelers uh enjoyed the route. Oh wow. Like Texas is flat and hotter than heck and has nothing, you know. So they're like somebody from the east who likes trees, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. All right, number 10. One Route 66 site you wish more people appreciated.
SPEAKER_00Except me. Okay. Except you. I'm gonna throw a bone to the round barn in Arcadia, which is just about 25 miles away.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00A lot of people stop there, but it's such a cool place. It's a historical round barn with an upstairs loft where you can walk around and look at the dome of the roof, and they often have music there, and and they have great volunteers, a little gift shop, and it's all it's all country red dirt, Oklahoma stuff.
SPEAKER_02All right. All right, Jay. Well, that's all your rapid fire questions. Um, the couple of questions that's left, and that is um, how can people learn more about uh the Easy66 Guide and uh learn more about Route 66?
SPEAKER_00Okay. I do have a crummy little website which I've been meaning to fix, but I've been too busy. But McJerry66.com. M-C-J-E-R-R-Y66.com. And that's kind of a little online gallery. It's where I post my updates and news. So if they want to see updates about road constructions and bridges being out, or if they want to see about when my comic book comes out, it's on uh there are a bunch of worthwhile pages on Facebook. Uh historic Route 66, Route 66 World, many others I've got that have a lot of information.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Of course, you see the same questions. Is it pet friendly? Do I have to plan my stops ahead? How many days will it take? And they get answered over and over. Or what's your your one best thing between Chicago and Santa Monica?
SPEAKER_02That's hard to pinpoint. Oh, geez. Um great. Uh well, any closing words uh about Route 66 or people who should travel it.
SPEAKER_00Travel it as soon as you can. Uh we lose our historic people every day. Uh not every day, every year, you know, someone passes away. That's one of our Route 66 icons.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00We also uh sometimes lose old buildings. Yeah, it's a shame, but you know, uh we're Centennial is setting it up good for the next 100 years. There's lots more eye candy and attractions and reasons to stop along the route. There's something for everybody. There's music in the old west, and then there's uh uh cities and small towns. Uh people that travel from overseas say they can't believe how friendly the people they met on Route 66 are.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00They say it it upends all their prior expectations of what Americans be like. Wow. So the people on Route 66, I consider ambassadors to the world. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Well, Jerry, listen, I want to thank you very much for being on the podcast. You've been an absolute wealth of information and actually a pleasure to talk to. Uh thank you very much again, and uh hopefully we'll talk to you again soon.
SPEAKER_03All right. Excellent.
SPEAKER_02All right, don't go nowhere. I want to talk to you when we're done, but thank you very much for being on the show. And that wraps up another episode of the Motorcycleman Podcast. Huge thanks to Jerry McClanahan for joining us and sharing his passion, knowledge, and decades of experience documenting Route 66. If today's conversation inspired you to explore the mother road, pick up the Easy66 guide and start planning your adventure now. It's the most trusted companion you can have on America's most storied highway. And you can find out more about that by visiting Mick Jerry66.com. Links will be in the show notes, and of course, on the motorcycle man website. Oh, as always, boys and girls, thanks for riding along with us. Stay safe, stay curious, and remember, the best stories are found between the lines on the map. And don't forget to ride over to the Ride with Ted YouTube channel. Watch some of the many videos I have there, and if you'd please also like and subscribe. That would be a tremendous help to the channel, and of course, to the podcast. And don't forget, you can get a copy of my book, The Road Most Travel, now direct from me, on the Motorcycle Men website. Of course, you can still get it on Amazon and on Audible if you like the audiobook version. And just let me know if you want, I'll sign it for you. And that's it, boys and girls. Thank you very much for stopping by and listening to the podcast. I really appreciate it. This has been episode four sixty-eight. And for the rest of the Motorcycle Men team, thanks for listening. And remember, we say stupid crap so you don't have it. Ride safely, kids.
