Last last month, a friend and I embarked on trip to the USA. The journey to even getting to the point of flying out to the USA was filled with visa hurdles, uncertainties and contingencies.
In around January, the visa worked out and the planning started. Given that we’re both engineers to a fault, the planning was near perfect with everything having worked out just as planned, with planned room for uncertainty and unplanned adventures.
The trip was incredible. It was my first time in the USA, and I had a long list of other first-time experiences in the trip. More on that some other time. In this article, I wanted to specifically focus on something unique; finding a specific highway and how the rest of the trip revolved around it.
The setup
The trip included a week long stay in Florida driving between Miami, Cape Canaveral, Orlando, Tampa, Key West and then flying to Las Vegas, visiting the Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree and finally LA.
Except for the flight from Miami to Vegas, we planned on driving the rest of the route and staying in different hotels, lodges and airbnbs along the way depending on how the trip fitted. Some experiences were planned, like seeing a rocket launch at Kennedy Space Center, while others were left open, like how we spend the days we have in Arizona and California.
Discovering Route 66
During the journey, as we were driving from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon, we decided to do something we’d been doing often during this trip; finding local diners to eat at. The hunt for such a diner led us to a small town called Seligman in the state of Arizona. The diner itself was slightly off of interstate 40 that we were driving along, so we decided to take the slight detour.
We spoke briefly about the highway being called the Route 66 and I immediately started connecting the dots between the name and the road from the Disney Pixar “Cars” movie.
And it was indeed the case. The movie was based on the Historic Route 66 that we were driving on. Recognizing the coolness of the road (albeit not fully) we decided to go the other direction from our diner and drive around a bit. It was almost sunset, so we decided to find a nice stop to witness the sunset from the road. We were treated to one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve had the privilege of viewing.
We even “launched” our sporty Ford Mustang on the Route 66 to check its performance, but were left underwhelmed for most part. The car itself, in its glossy red, looked very pretty and got compliments on the streets.
Route 66
Dubbed the “Mother Road”, “Main road of the US” and currently one called the Historic Route 66, the road is probably one of the most popular routes in the US. It is over 100 years old and doesn’t exist in its full glory today having been replaced at most places by modern Interstate Highways.
Regardless, the road has a lot of fandom associated with it. Personally, the fact that the Cars movie mentions it, and the town of Radiator Springs from Cars is loosely based on Seligman among some other towns on this route makes it iconic for me.
After nerding out over the last week on many details about this route, I’m determined to make a road trip happen covering the entirety of the 3,700-ish kilometers of this route.
Living a night on Route 66
To make the experience even more special, we decided to find a little town with a little model directly on Route 66 on our way back from the Grand Canyon. We decided to pick a little motel in Kingman, Arizona as a pitstop. The town was industrial but not too big, with nice local diners next to our motel.
Having stopped for a spontaneous game of Golf on the way there meant we didn’t have much time to explore the town itself, but living on the Route 66 was a bucket list item tick in itself.
Yet another thing coming together
Route 66, as we learned sitting in the Seligman diner, is massive. It goes all the way from Chicago in the state of Illinois to Santa Monica in LA, California.
Our original plan to make the USA trip happen was to attend a friend’s wedding. Coincidentally, as it hit us in the diner, the couple came from Chicago and LA, roughly the path of the route 66. It was a eureka moment as we discovered that this makes for such a beautiful story and gift idea.
We picked up some presents from the souvenir shop for the friends and thought of a way of presenting it like the way we discovered this route and the nice connection with the trip’s goal. It couldn’t have been more perfect, we thought.
Last day of our trip, Route 66 says goodbye
A side quest for me during this trip was to visit the Santa Monica beach in LA. I had seen it in video games like GTA, and another video game called Life is Strange features an in-game track called Santa Monica Dream by Angus and Julia Stone. I wanted to see a sunset at the Santa Monica pier and touch the Pacific Ocean for the first time in my life.
When we reached the pier, I saw an interesting sign. It said, “Route 66 – End of Trail”. Fascinated, I asked the friend from US we were with what is that about, and he explained that this used to be the end of the Route 66.
Incredible! Even on the very last day of my trip, the route was somehow there to bid goodbye. I know it is a mere coincidence, but it did feel much more than that, and I got back to the hotel filled with gratitude for the whole episode with the route.
In conclusion
This USA trip was unique. It exceeded any measure of awesome I’d have expected it to have. From driving a red convertible sports car through the Arizona deserts and California, watching not one but two Falcon 9 launches in the same evening at Kennedy Space Center, an NBA game, feeding crocodiles and turtles, reaching the southernmost point of continental USA, a great wedding day celebration with friends and countless other memories. I returned home sad that the trip ended, and grateful that I could experience it in the first place. It was a real privilege.
Thank you for reading!