This trip is about driving Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica. Its more about its history, the great movement of people Westwards, particularly during the 1930’s, rather than the drive, mind you that is something in itself. Part of that history is the “Grapes of Wrath”, the “Dustbowl” and how the route became to be imbedded in American Folklore.
"Grapes of Wrath” the novel by Noble Prize winner John Steinbeck, traces the flood of dirt poor people from the dust bowl of Oklahoma to the promised land of California during the great depression years. It was a bitter sweet journey and California was more hell than heaven for those that made it. Go read the book.
The flood of people largely followed the roads that became known as Route 66. Steinbeck wrote. "highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66- the long concrete path across the country, waving gently up and down on the map, from Mississippi to Bakersfield - over the red lands and the grey lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the divide and down into the bright and terrible desert, and across the desert to the mountains again, into the rich California Valleys".
Route 66 runs from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Coast. Why has it become iconic? It seems it is more about the movement of people, the quest for people of the mid-west to find a better life out west, it was a massive migration, the first during the Great Depression, and then again after the second World War, when many service men and women returned from the war and landed in California. Many chose to drive home and determined to return to California and new beginnings.
