Get Your Kicks on Route 66

Did I ever tell you about the time I drove down Route 66?

This is a question which causes many humans I know to cringe with fear and seek hiding or even seek easy-at-hand methods of suicide to save them from hearing my adventuresome tale of my quest for America again. And again. And...........again.

Back in August 2007 I flew to Chicago, Illinois where I met my sister and her youngest son Brian, who had driven there from their homes in Missoula, Montana and Great Falls, Montana respectively, and we spent the next 10 days riding down historic Route 66.

"The Mother Road".

"Main Street of America".

"The Will Rogers Highway".

From Chicago to L.A. (Santa Monica to be exact) more then 2,000 miles all the way.

We were in search of America so to speak. But mainly we were just looking for a nice drive.

Here's my sister in front of "The Art Institute of Chicago" at the beginning of the route and our adventure. Her real name is Vickie, but our family has 6 boys and 1 girl, so she became "Sister" early on. I tried calling her "Vickie" once after I'd grown up. It felt creepy.

And here's Brian and myself all ready and rarin' to go.

You'll note the smiles and good natured camaraderie expressed in these photos. 10 days later, after spending every waking AND sleeping hour no more then 10 feet from each other, we weren't quite as hail and hearty as we began.

And that's the story I'd like to tell you all.

Buckle up readers...the next bundle of blogs (what IS a collective of blogs called anyway?) will be full of tales of heartache and woe, happiness and joy, history and legend.

The story of how 3 people made the ultimate road trip, nearly killed each other and lived to tell the tale.

This will not be your father's vacation slide show...though there ARE 3900 photo's documenting the spectacle.

Talk to you soon!

"Sister", Gary and Nephew Scotty

Happy Monday everyone!

You're probably all at work on this fine day, but I took the day off. My sister is in town and I came up to Los Angeles to visit with her and my brother-in-law Gary at their son, Scotty's house.


You may remember seeing Scotty here on my outing to the Todd Snider concert (Scott being the one who was booted out after the opening act) and he was also the director/cinematographer on the "I Love Rachel Ray" video found here. Scotty moved here from Montana around 1990, just a few years after I made my trek. Though while my goal was to get some place where it didn't snow 7 months of the year, Scotty ventured here to find fame and fortune in big time show business! He's done well for himself and makes a respectable living doing what he loves. You can check up on some of Scotty's credits here at his imdb page.

A few years ago Scotty played a song for me called "That's My Life in Amarillo" written by a friend of his Brad Hunt that I really like a lot and he promised to sing it for me on this trip.

We had an attempt last night to get it down on video and we will get it down for real today, but for now here's that rehearsal footage.



See y'all tomorrow!