Old ROUTE 66 is gone now, replaced long ago by Interstate 40, which already has songs of its own written for it. There were lots of highways in the old U.S. highway system that were replaced by Interstates, and indeed at the time, such highways were the Interstates as compared to traveling the local roads. Many, like U.S. 101 running up and down the west coast or U.S. 1 along the east coast have become little more than local roads themselves; some, like U.S. 66, have nearly vanished altogether. But none have had such a nostalgia quotient as U.S. Route 66.

I suppose it's all us baby boomers who are responsible…

Bobby Troupe, Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, and so many others naming towns "from Chicago to L.A."

Todd Styles and Buzz Murdock cruisin' in that Corvette (which, of course, mysteriously happened to update every season to the current year model).

Even the Phillips Petroleum Company's gasoline evoked ideas of vacation and unlimited travel with the name.

All that sweet nostalgia, especially among folks who had become well-established in the skyrocketing business community of the 1980's southwest, was enough to produce the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona, whose mission is to preserve sections of the old route wherever it wasn't actually replaced by I-40, and to link as many of the distinctive local businesses that once thrived along the road into the Arizona travel and tourist industry.

My brother-in-law Lou and I are certainly not resistant to the nostalgia virus. Off we drive, niece Lizzy in tow, to find old Route 66. A piece of it runs through Williams, disguised as Main Street, and we dutifully cruise the length of it, noting that much of what we see doesn't look any different than along the main street of any other small southwestern town.

The headquarters of the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona is in Kingman, near the California border (after all, the song mentions Kingman; it doesn't say a word about Williams), and there are, indeed, more "Old Route 66" signs there. There is also a more modernized version of an old drive-in restaurant, and we stop and eat there. However, the trays that the "carhops" carry are now only for show; they don't actually attach to the open window like the originals did. Lou thinks about this for awhile, then suggests the reason is probably that today's cars aren't built like that anymore and a full tray would likely not be able to be attached and/or bend the sheetmetal if it were. Also, I imagine leaving the window open on an August afternoon in Arizona might be a less attractive idea in this age of air conditioning than it was forty years ago.

But the really unique attractions of Route 66 were never to be found in Williams or Kingman anyway. Nor in most other established cities along the way. No, the things that really fire the nostalgia rockets of baby-boomers are the things that were important to us kids in the fifties and sixties. What I remember about driving Route 66 were the side shows (See Deadly Rattlesnakes & Gila Monsters at Sam's House of Reptiles!). And the endless progression of signs (Only 175 Miles to World Famous Desert Mummy Museum). And the Ice Cream!! Oh, the ice cream. Even ten miles is a really long way to go, riding in the car with your parents - a hundred miles in the back seat with your baby sister whining and your older brother pounding you on the shoulder whenever Mom wasn't watching, and the hot air blowing through the open windows (with the damp washcloths tied up in an attempt to make it a little cooler) can be pure murder on a kid. There just has to be an ice cream place up ahead… Can we stop?...
Please?...
Huh?...
Oh Puh-leeese???

...In the little, thoroughly bypassed, town of Seligman, Arizona, there really is such an ice cream place. Right now. Still. Not a modern reproduction, the real thing. If the Marx Brothers were alive today and had been running an ice cream stand all these years instead of making movies, Snow Cap would have been their ice cream stand, and the Delgadillo brothers would have been them. What a place! Gaudy, ornate, cheaply flamboyant… you couldn't miss this place if you tried. A sign proudly lists among the items offered, Cheeseburgers with Cheese, and Dead Chicken. The store's motto (also posted) is "Eat Here and Get Gas".

Outside, along with the collection of old Chevrolets from the fifties (I'm not talking about your fancy restorations; I mean just old Chevrolets. All of them look as though they've been parked there ever since they stopped running) and the garden of plastic flowers around the outhouses (which contain TV sets and wiseguy notices), there is a working "float" that once was another old Chevy. By "working" I mean that they actually use it in parades and such; it is a convertible that was once hand-painted white (with a paintbrush) and still is, although that was probably in 1969 and it hasn't been repainted since.
It is festooned with all manner of signs and slogans, plastic flowers, and Christmas lights.
There are honky horns mounted all over it.
A Christmas tree resides in the back seat.
Lord only knows what might reside under the back seat...
Lizzy, of course, is completely in love with it.

Lizzy explores the Snow Cap Mobile, Seligman, Arizona

Inside the shop, the brothers Delgadillo have put together a well rehearsed act that they put on for every customer who comes in…

"Hi! Our special today is chicken", shouts one of three guys behind the counter, waving a rubber chicken around in the air. We order ice cream Saturdaes, after being informed solemnly that they are out of Sundaes.

"Can I take your order?", says the second guy, right after the ice cream is delivered; he then promptly removes the ice cream that was just placed on the counter. So the first guy grabs it and puts it back.

The third guy then asks, "Would you like mustard on that?", as he squeezes a mustard container and a stream (which is really a yellow string) "squirts" all over your ice cream and shirt.

This causes the second guy to respond, "Oooh, You need a napkin?", as he brings out a wad of used and gooey paper napkins.

"Look!!" shouts the first guy, and tosses an old Look candybar on the counter (doubly nostalgic to us, as Mary and I had just two days ago been reminiscing about Look, Big Hunk, and AbbaZabba candybars).

The act continues with each guy trading off punchlines like Three Stooges without the violence. The guys are very entertaining. The entire customer area, which is enclosed, is covered with photos, notes and business cards, some very recent and other dating back for years. Stuck in among them, I notice the business card of one Robert Ito, Judge, Los Angeles Municipal Court.

These guys just have to be show business retirees, and probably rich ones at that. They must be making their living from investments, not from this ice cream stand. Tourists just don't drive through Seligman, Arizona anymore. The freeway bypasses it by a mile. You don't even have to go into Seligman to get gasoline. There is a gas station at the offramp and no reason for a tourist to think there would be any other facilities in town. In fact, you have to drive another mile or so just to get into town. There can't be enough people stopping at that ice cream stand on a daily basis to make it a viable income source - they have to be doing it for the fun of it.

Well, it is sure fun for us. We won't soon forget the Snow Cap Ice & Burger stand.

The drive back to Las Vegas is a real study in the vast scale of the southwestern desert. Miles and miles of… miles and miles. The distances are so great that we can see different weather in different directions. We spend a long time watching individual thunderstorms march around the countryside like medieval knights, swords of lightening flashing and riding armored horses with their skirts of heavy rain trailing along. One crosses over us, and the downpour is so heavy that it is frightening - I have to slow down and pull over because I can't see to get around the truck in front of me. The storm doesn't last long, though... off it rides in search of another target to joust.

As we cross back over Hoover Dam, coming into Las Vegas on the same road that we took when we visited Hoover Dam only three days ago, a strange feeling washes over me. The feeling is made even stranger by the sheer absurdity of it. I feel the warm, friendly glow of, well… coming home. It is really bizarre to find myself so overwhelmed with the odd and ever-changing surroundings we've seen in such a short timespan that the first time I recognize a familiar road could make me feel this way.

Our wives, meanwhile, have already checked into our new rooms. Well, that didn't turn out to be quite as simple an idea as we'd imagined. Mary didn't have any problem, but our "lodging voucher" was made out in only my name. When Linda tried to register they had no record of her. It took some rule-stretching on the part of the desk clerk to let her get a room at all (remember that, especially in Las Vegas, hotels are a bit sensitive to releasing room keys to spouses whose presence may or may not be expected or desired). They were able to check in, though, and upon our arrival we are given room keys. Our new rooms are in exactly the same locations, except two floors up (and also reversed). Mary and Linda are still at the the casino, just finishing up when we locate them. Mary, Lou, and Lizzy go off to spend some time at the children's arcade, and to have dinner at the Excalibur, another lavish casino within walking distance of the Monte Carlo. The theme of the Excalibur is a Fantasy Castle from the medieval days of Merlin the Magician, and it is one of the more family-oriented resorts. There is a much more extensive arcade section, and there are puppet shows and a spectacular fire-breathing dragon which emerges from the moat at various times, only to be banished by the sorcerer, to the delight of crowds of onlookers. We, too, go to see the dragon show after we get back together with Mary and Lou, they suggested we go to see it. We do that as our last event before going to bed for the night.

Linda and Mary drove 398 miles today.

Lou, Lizzy, and I drove only a few miles further; not all that many, really.

... We just took about 30 years longer.

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Story and original photography copyright ©1996-1997 by John Lipman. All rights reserved.
Descriptions, observations, and characterizations expressed are solely those of the author.
"Get Your Kicks on Route 66" by Bobby Troup - copyright ©1946 Londontown Music; sequenced by Dick Anderson.

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