Road Trip

 

Route 66 is one of the essential icons of America, both for Americans and for people abroad.  It represents a multitude of ideas: freedom, migration West and the loneliness of the American heartland.

The highway was first opened in 1926, although much of the route was not paved for decades afterwards.  It soon captured America's imagination.  John Steinbeck, in his 1940 novel Grapes of Wrath, chronicled the migration along Route 66 of thousands of farmers leaving the Dust Bowl of Kansas and Oklahoma during the Great Depression, trying to reach a better land in California.  Steinbeck posited the road as an almost hostile force, draining money, energy and enthusiasm from the optimistic Okies.

Later representations of the road were a little more upbeat.  Probably most famous is musician Bobby Troup's eponymous tribute song, which enjoined listeners to "get their kicks on Route 66".  A TV show in the 1960s, also called "Route 66", featured two young men exploring America's highways.  Although Jack Kerouac only mentions 66 briefly in his book On the Road, it acquired something of the aura of Beatnik cross-country driving.

 

In the 1980s, the aging highway was decommissioned.  Much of its stretch had been overlaid or routed around by broader, newer interstate highways.  But the embedded idea of Route 66 refuses to die – as demonstrated by the 2006 Disney/Pixar movie Cars – and thousands of kicks-seekers continue to follow the remnants of the road from Chicago to Los Angeles to this day.

Many Towns, such as Strafford, Missouri, have festivals (Route 66 Days) and Motor Cruises (Route 66 Cruise) each year which keep the history alive, along with providing excellent opportunities for enthusiasts to drive the existing road.

 

Cadillac Ranch

Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation and sculpture in Amarillo, Texas.  It was created in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, who were a part of the art group Ant Farm, and it consists of what were (when originally installed during 1974) either older running used or junk Cadillac automobiles, representing a number of evolutions of the car line (most notably the birth and death of the defining feature of early Cadillacs - the tail fin) from 1949 to 1963, half-buried nose-first in the ground, at an angle corresponding to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.  The piece is a statement about the paradoxical simultaneous American fascinations with both a "sense of place" — and roadside attractions, such as The Ranch itself — and the mobility and freedom of the automobile.

 

“Art is a legalized form of insanity, and I do it very well." - Stanley Marsh

Who would have thought that burying ten old Cadillacs in an Amarillo dirt farm in 1974 would make such an indelible mark on Texas roadside attraction maps?  The product of helium millionaire Stanley Marsh 3’s eccentric mind, Cadillac Ranch was designed with a California-based artist collective called Ant Farm as an homage to the Golden Age of American Automobiles (1949-1963) and to the historic Route 66 which passes by Marshs’ palatious West Texas ranch.