Motor West: A Route 66 Ramble Across America

Thousands of books have sought to capture the American road-trip experience-hundreds of them, over the years, on Route 66 alone.

Why another one?

Authors Barbara Brannon and Kay Ellington, who across decades as journalists, travel writers and preservationists pondered as America approached the 100th birthday of the Mother Road: What is it about this one partly-surviving stretch of highway from Chicago to Los Angeles-much of it paved over and passed by already-that so embodies the dreams of drivers the world over? What compels so many to take the two-lane, seek out the souvenirs, sleep in a tepee or watch the stars beneath multi-hued vintage neon?

If ever there was a time to drive all of Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles and find out, it's now. With partner Kay Ellington, in 2024 she made her first through-drive of the Route, crafting a 10-part newspaper series along the way.

The truths travelers discover are not solely in the giant roadside icons or food-and-beverage specialties or even in the rich array of museums, attractions, and landscapes found on Route 66. They're not found in sunset vistas or interesting people or art and music alone. They are deep within our souls: and given time to flourish along the open road, they bubble to the surface, teaching us as much about ourselves as our history, our nation, and the people with whom we share it.

Award-winning historian, poet, novelist, and songwriter Barbara Brannon figures that over five decades the number of words she's written about equals the miles she's driven. She holds the M.A. and Ph.D. in from the University of South Carolina, where she studied with novelist and poet James Dickey. A former director of the renowned Publishing Laboratory at the University of North Carolina, she now calls Spur, Texas, home. She is coauthor, with Kay Ellington, of the Paragraph Ranch series of contemporary West Texas novels and the 2024 "Route 66 Ramble" newspaper series on which this book is based.