Time and again I have tried to explain the mystery, the magic of Route 66 and failed. Mere words are such inadequate descriptors for what takes place on Route 66, and how those experiences transform people, as well as bridge chasms of culture and language.
It is more like a family reunion, every day of the week. Not the family reunion filled with stress and tensions resultant of ex-wives arriving with second cousins, second cousins announcing they are coming out of the closet during the blessing led by the brother who is a deacon at the local Baptist church, and senile aunts who insist on loudly exposing fifty years of family skeletons.
No, the Route 66 family reunions, as with the road itself, are more like a corny, stilted, scripted affair where every one laughs, jokes, teases, and shares tales of the road, or all that has transpired since the last reunion, with but one caveat, they are fresh, alive, and so very real. They are the at the very heart of what makes this road special and impossible to describe.
Last evening, after the second grueling day of the week at the office, my dearest friend and I met with Dries Bessels, his most charming wife, Marion, Karel Kuperus, and Hanneke Wiersema of Holland, and their tour group at the Dambar in Kingman. It was an evening of shared memories, visiting with old friends, and making new ones. It was an invigorating and intoxicating evening that seemed as refreshing as a cold mountain morning, a stunning sunrise over distant peaks and the tantalizing aroma of coffee mingling with the smoke from a mesquite wood fire.
If your stress meter is pegged and feel as though your about to blow a gasket I suggest a Route 66 family reunion. Its a lot cheaper than therapy and with the exception of an ear to ear grin that crosses your face when the memories come to mind, the side affects are relatively minimal.
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