One summer before I was old enough to drive, I traveled sections of Route 66 with my grandparents in a VW bus. We planned the trip for more than nine months. I read every AAA state guide cover to cover. My grandfather and I sat with the local agent and built the TripTik stop by stop. That Christmas before the trip, my grandmother gave me a Kodak Instamatic, and I photographed everything along the road that my allowance would support. Not all of my film was developed. Kodak lost out. We went from one A&W drive-in to the next. There was always a megaphone of root beer on draft in the Coleman cooler. The trip ended at Disneyland. I came home with a scrapbook of souvenirs, and my hometown newspaper ran the story: "Western Traveler's Very First Roundup Includes 23 States." That embedded memory is still with me.
In the 1990s I went back to Route 66 several times with a photo crew, found local classic cars, and made the pictures that became the Car Culture calendars and books. The bindings are gone. The images are not.
Route 66 Kicks is a numbered series of 6×9″ art cards, each an archival print of one of my photographs of a roadside stop — a way to hold the memory in your hand and pass it on. If you grew up near one of these featured Route 66 places, drove that stretch, or stood at the stop itself, collect the card and tell the story to someone you love. The first sixteen places will be released one at a time; more will follow.
We are looking for sponsors who want to help keep the series going past the Route 66 Centennial. Great trips take time. Take the slow road with me. Perhaps you will be inspired to get your kicks on Route 66 with a loved one soon!
Follow along: route66kicks.com/subscribe
More from the series: route66kicks.com · start with The Mother Road We Forgot
That Instamatic summer was the same road as the VW bus: grandparents, Trip Tik, A&W root beer in the cooler, Disneyland at the end. The pictures never left the undeveloped rolls — but the bus, the maps, and the miles never left me either.
I wrote that VW bus story earlier — TripTik, Montana, the grizzly at the dump — in Low Tide.
Route 66 Kicks · Car Culture, Inc. · Centennial 2026–2027
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