As you may I have noticed there was no posting yesterday. The reason (aka excuse) for this is quite simple, after squeezing a full twenty four hours into eighteen there simply was no time left.
I answered correspondence, opened the office and resolved issues there, ran errands and picked up prescriptions for my mother, wrote the rough draft for The Independent Thinker (the monthly column for Cars & Parts magazine), and made several thousand phone calls, or so it seemed. Then came that feeling that a deadline is fast sneaking up behind me which sparked another fevered quest for more research material.
So, I spent another couple of hours with a phone glued to my ear and eyes stuck to a computer monitor as bits and pieces of Route 66 history were added to the pile that will soon, I hope, manifest as a book. Did you know that Wilmington, Illinois, had a population of more than 2,000 as early as the 1870s? Did you know the Riviera Restaurant near Gardner, Illinois, dates 1928? Did you know the two cell jail in Gardner was built in 1906?
This part of the day did double duty. I shrugged off the past six months of rescheduled plans, set my sights on a Route 66 road trip at the end of May, and laid plans to meet with folks that I have come to know through this project.
Come hell or high water I am bound, set, and determined to meet Laurel Kane, see Afton Station, meet the Croc in person, check out Ron the Tatoo Man for myself, and introduce my dearest friend to the old road between San Jon and Glenrio, a thunderstorm on the plains and a piece of pie at the Midpoint Cafe.
As I continued my quest for knowledge about the towns along the old road, I was reminded that dad always told me it was better to fill ones head with useless knowledge than no knowledge at all. When it came to history, its importance, and a fascination with the things of the past we always did disagree.
I also finalized plans for a signing of Ghost Towns of the Southwest http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=widgetsamazon-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0760332215&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrand meet the author event at Barnes & Noble in Prescott, Arizona, on the afternoon of the 21ST of this month. I was also able to finalize arrangements for an interview the following morning on Good Morning Arizona.
This means that if the weather is not to wet we can have another adventure on the Williamson Valley Road for the return trip. This is the best way I know of to relax and avoid the urban sprawl and the traffic it spawns that is consuming Chino Valley but forty miles of back road with stream crossings is not an adventure for a rainy day or one where the snow is melting. At that point this road becomes forty miles of pudding.
