Route 66

Day 275

The little town of Barstow appeared to be a sleepy little place; just like all the other small towns we have passed through during our trip. What we didn’t know, Barstow is where the famous Route 66 and Route 99 merged. It was because of this, the town became a resting place for weary travellers before moving on. All along the highway all sorts of hotels, restaurants and business emerged and thrived, the Peggy Sue’s Diner is a surviving example of this time. Wanting to learn more about the evolution on the US highways and the roll Route 66 played, we decided to visit the Route 66 museum in Barstow. 

The museum shared the same building as the Santa Fe railroad museum and NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Network visitors centre. Looking forward to exploring all three, we followed our GPS into the industrial area of Barstow where the rail yard ran. Being a little apprehensive of where we were, I mentioned to Lori, “if the building seemed sketchy, we were out of there”. On our final turn, the building came into sight and I felt a sense of relief seeing it was a clean building complex with a few other tourists in the parking lot. 

We explored the Route 66 museum first. As we worked our way through, I really began to learn the roll this road played, and why it was so significant in the history of the US. The road was commissioned on July 11, 1916 and took a decade to build. Following the route taken by the first settlers heading west in the 1850’s the road worked its way from Chicago to California. When it first opened the road was not entirely paved and took until 1937 for this to be completed. 

For 30 years Route 66 connected the eastern US to the west. Along the road, towns and business flourished carving a mark into the people who were supported by the transient society who traversed the road. After WWII, Harry S. Truman was in awe of Germany’s autobahn highway structure and set out to integrate this highway system into the US. In just a few decades these new highways became the mainstream preference to travellers and shipping companies compared the the smaller Route 66. By the mid 1980’s Route 66 was decommissioned and the business that lined the road along with it. 

After touring Route 66, we headed over to the Sante Fe railroad museum for a quick tour (Meh!) before heading over to NASA Goldstone Centre. The Goldstone Deeps Space Centre is one of three centres located in the world that create a perfect trajectory for zeroing in on signals from space. The other two centres that work in conjunction of Goldstone are in Madrid, Spain and Canberra, Australia. We hoped to see the massive dish complex, but unfortunately that was located at the Fort Irwin military base. The centre itself had a few rooms put aside with information pertaining to Goldstones roll in space communication and the roll it will play in the Artemis missions. 

You know your getting old when you see items in a museum that you had as a kid. 

Route 66 played a huge roll in transporting troops and equipment across the US. 

Old telephone switchboard. 

Wow! Just Wow! 

1964 Ford Mustang. 

Big boy drive through 

Out all the things to collect, some people find the weirdest things. These are nails with dates stamped on them. The railroad would hammer these into railroad ties to mark the date the timber was placed in creosote or when the ties were laid down. It was illegal to remove these but was a common problem to have collectors remove them. 

Goldstone DSN 

Sometime you see things that blow your mind. This ultra light gel has an extremely low density and thermal conductivity. The picture above and below show crayons and a flower sitting on this gel, a blowtorch is being put to the underside of it with no heat transfer to the other side. 

The future of space travel, Ion Propulsion.  

You wonder what kind of face an astronaut would make after farting in their suit?