SOMEWHERE west of Flagstaff, where new interstate covers the Old Road like a blanket, I’m beginning to think I might need one. The calendar says early spring, but the wind chill suggests that old man winter is keeping his icy fingers on the knob. Snuggling behind my tank bag to escape the blast, I study my mirror for Victor when a big, green Yukon creeps past to my left, its huge tires peppering my face with the leftover sand tossed down to soak up last week’s snow.

Glancing inside, I spot mom and pop staring straight ahead like two comatose manikins. Behind them, I presume, are their equally dumbed-down offspring; her sporting the obligatory iPod headgear while junior punches an electronic game like a monkey dicing for pellets. Overhead, a video plays to its non-receptive audience, its characters uselessly dancing back and forth across the screen. What’s wrong with this picture? It seems like the more gadgets and electronic doodads that become available, the more disinterested we grow. Clearly, the constant need to be entertained— at the expense of becoming uninformed—has dulled this society like a rusty garden hoe. Don’t people talk anymore? Or read? Are our dreams now contained within the confines of a microprocessor manufactured somewhere in Indonesia? ‘Twas a time in the not too distant past, just reaching this spot spurred the excitement of countless traveling vagabonds. Back, I assume, when there was something to travel for. Route 66! The Mother Road, Main Street America. More than just a concrete path, this was the highway that helped build a nation.

The seeds for this little adventure were planted by Publisher Williams, whose call came while I had my nose buried in the oscillator sector of a 1948 Zenith 8-H-845. “What’cha doing man?” asked M-E’s lead dart thrower. “Nothing much,” I replied, lifting the 10x magnivisors that make my eyes look like big brown marbles. “Hey, I got the bikes for the Route 66 trip we talked about. Meet me Friday and dress warm, OK?” It dawned on me that despite living near one of the route’s most famous sections for most of my life, I’d never consciously traveled to it, save for the occasional stretch en route to Las Vegas. That might be surprising to those who know me, for in most ways that count I was retro when retro wasn’t hip, preferring the lazy cadence of a carbureted 90- degree twin and shunning modern like Rosie O’Donnell avoids wheat germ. Based on nothing, my perception of Route 66 triggered an internal tourist trap alert; a dusty stretch decorated with fake nostalgia and cheezy knick-knacks. Would reality alter my suspicions?

Clearing the lunch-time traffic north of Phoenix, Larry and I are joined by the newest member of the M-E team, Victor Castaneda Jr. Meeting Victor when Fast By Ferracci built our V11 Sport project bike three years ago, we’ve since traveled all over the country together. The time spent with Eraldo and the gang at FBF has given Victor a vast knowledge and vital experience in the European motorcycle industry. Trading shushy New Jersey for year-round riding, Victor is informed that his desert rat certification can’t be earned until he makes it through an entire Arizona summer. “No problem,” he says, “I like the heat. The hotter, the better.” We’ll see.

Interstate 17 north takes us to the Sedona exit, which leads through the Red Rock country into Oak Creek Canyon, long known to Arizona riders as the prettiest stretch of road in the state. For our retro revival, we needed the appropriate cache of motorcycles, filled nicely by Ural’s side-car equipped Classic 750, Triumph’s popular Thruxton twin and Ducati’s brand new Sport 1000. Based on a pre-war BMW design, our handsome black Ural sports true vintage specifications, upgraded slightly with modern features like electric start and reverse. The first 100 miles or so pass without drama, but stopping in Sedona for fuel (which on the Triumph, is often), we notice the Ural is leaking oil. Peaking around, we eventually pull the tool kit and managed to tighten a brace of finger-tight sump bolts. Stashing the tools back into the sidecar’s handy storage trunk, Victor notices the fill cap for the rear differential has gone missing. Amazingly, a standard half-inch bolt, sourced at the local Checker Auto threads in perfectly. A metric crossover? Perhaps, but by the time we dump our gear in darkening Flagstaff, nuts and bolts take a backseat to food and the prospect of tossing my bones into our warm and cozy lodging. Drifting off, I make a metal note to give the Ural a onceover in the morning, but don’t. A regrettable omission….

The sloping hills that line both sides of I-40 west of Flagstaff are snowy and grey, and spotting Williams (the city, not the publisher) brings the realization that hot coffee and breakfast is but a downshift away. In the southern tip of town we get our first taste of Route 66 flavor: snow white buildings decorated with red and waiting neon line the main drag. I halfway expect Fabian or the Big Bopper to jump out and greet us with “Hello Baaaaby!” Wall to wall Be-bop-a-Lula. Parking next to a sky blue ’56 Thunderbird, we find some open stools at the Route 66 Cafe where the waitresses wear poodle skirts and the mandatory t-shirt merchandising. Over toast and coffee, we discuss our route and discover the locals are more than happy to offer suggestions. Soon, we’re well informed of the various museums, landmarks and can’t miss attractions that lie ahead.

Route 66 owns its existence to a pair of early 20th century visionaries: Cyrus Avery of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and John Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri. By 1916 governmental reasoning meshed their long-term lobbying with the appropriate legislation, but when Congress introduced a more comprehensive act in 1925, national highway construction boomed. Designed and commissioned to link midwestern Chicago to farwest Los Angeles, by 1926 Route 66 had already established itself as a life-giving artery to a changing nation. Linking hundreds of predominantly rural midwestern communities, Route 66 offered local farmers the much needed opportunity to transport and distribute, which fueled the economy. In addition, the diagonal, temperate configuration of Route 66, which stretched across easy to navigate flatlands greatly aided a young trucking enterprise that eventually displaced the railroads for shipping superiority.

But if Americans were grateful with the commerce-friendly nature of Route 66, John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” forever canonized it. Released in 1939, this biting social commentary was transposed onto film (starring Henry Fonda) and played in theaters one year later. Symbolizing depression-era life, the story told of a mythical 1930s family–the Joads–who left their Dust Bowl-ravaged farm for a better life in California. It was Steinbeck who coined the “Mother Road” phrase, a moniker that aptly described the route’s promise as a path to prosperity and happiness. Over 210,000 people migrated from America’s dried, eroding plains to California during this period, and chronicled along the route are the many hardships they endured. The global and economical healing that followed World War II made for better times along Route 66, thanks in part to a rapidly advancing auto industry that provided splendidly modern and stylish transportation for America’s west bound “barbecue culture.” It is this period that now dominates what remains of the highway, and serves to exact Route 66 with the filling station, soda fountain and endless rows of sleepy motor lodges for which it will always be remembered.

Dotting modern with dated architecture, 20 miles later what’s left of flagstonerich Ask Fork appears before you’re forced back on Interstate 40, which now covers most of the west-bound portion of the old highway. The Crookton exit leads to a long, lonely and relatively untouched portion of the original Route 66, which connects with Seligman before sweeping northwest and dropping down into Kingman. Offering—by far—the largest, most varied amount of classic Route 66 atmosphere we encountered on our tour, Seligman’s main drag stands frozen in time with saloons, gift shops, old time service stations and a heaping dose of nostalgic flavor. Proclaiming to have “The World’s Best” root beer, the Snow Cap drive-in, manned by the youngest son of the late Juan Delgadillo (the Snow Cap’s comedic founder) squirts fake mustard on my shirt before showing me a picture of his sister Cecilia posing with Steeler’s quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. But the Route 66 celebrity guest list contains much more than just Super Bowl heroes, as Hollywood’s elite used it extensively during the glamour years between 1939 and 1955.

As journeys like this usually go, the farther we traveled the deeper and more reflective our mood became. As for pure riding bliss, somewhat missing was the awe-inspiring scenery we’ve witnessed at other, more exotic locations, yet the historical importance of where we were caused us to perhaps pay a bit more attention to our surroundings. Climbing through Sitgreaves Pass, with its sharp elevation change and narrow switchbacks certainly must have claimed its share of vintage automobiles, but it was hilarious watching Larry lift the Ural’s sidecar through many of its winding curves. I was keenly appreciative of his skill, as earlier I’d tried my hand at the thing and scared myself silly. Not so humorous were the various mechanical challenges the Ural provided during our jaunt, but those–again–provided us a real-world taste of Route 66 verses machine. Ours won, but many didn’t, and again we pondered the despair of being stranded in this remote place. Stopping in Old West Oatman, Victor and I are happy to trade between the Triumph and Ducati, but in the end the Sport’s more rider-friendly ergos and blitzing performance made it the clear choice. Looking at the two, who would have guessed that?

I’m glad to say that wasn’t the only thing I discovered during our brief tour of Route 66. If, after reading my opening rant you didn’t skip to the next story, I thank you. But choosing to vent is something we should be able to do and clearly, I was in need. As the saying goes, life is the stuff that happens when you’re making other plans, and I was in a pretty serious funk because of it. For those of you that may find yourself in a similar rut; the realization that you’re desperately chasing things that don’t really matter and chasing away the things that do, now is the time to break free. What makes Route 66 so great, so important to us as a nation, and as individuals, isn’t what’s there, but what’s been accomplished because of it. Citing a now overused and stale term, those souls with the courage to “think outside the box” created opportunities that they never could have imagined, and it’s this spirit that once made us great. Anyone can follow the towns and landmarks dotting its remains, but the definition of this old road is more important. Do you believe in Route 66 magic? I do. I’m thankful because it took me to a place I didn’t expect to go.