If I had a nickel for every time someone told me I should write a book. A book about our lives in the hospitality industry, I’d be a wealthy woman.  Well, no, actually, I’d have about $1.35 in my pocket but you get my point.

Mt. Rushmore.  After setting up camp in our 3-month rental house, in our new life in Ashland, OR, we had several weeks to call our own before we took ownership of what is now our B&B.  We took care of a few matters of business and spent time scouting out our new town.  When the time was right we packed our son’s car and drove it across country with a plan to cross off Mt. Rushmore from our must see list.

There is something incredibly special about traveling Route 66; The American classic road trip.  I recently connected with someone on Twitter who said he has gone out and discovered something new along the Route over 200 times – very impressive I’d say.

If you’ve been reading this little ole blog of mine for a while, you know that we own and operate a B&B in southern Oregon – and you know that when we’re not hosting guests, we’re out traveling the world.  We’re learning to streamline and we’re constantly looking for the perfect backpacks.

Ah… Julia, I admire you even more now that I’ve read your book, My Life in France. This book had me from the get go and even though I found it to be a little disjointed in places, I understand the reason for it because these were Julia’s words as told to her husband, Paul’s, grandnephew, Alex Prud’homme.

At this point in our trip we had planned to drive the old Santa Fe Loop, which is the section of Route 66 that was used between the years of 1926 and 1937 and it turned out to be an awesome drive.  After this period, Route 66 was constructed near the current interstate.

As we entered Tucumcari, New Mexico, we knew it was going to be one of those places where we wished we had more time so we could stay a day or two.  I’m looking forward to retracing our drive one day so we can plan accordingly based on the unexpected discoveries of this trip.

Following Route 66 while driving across the Texas panhandle was nothing to write home about.  No offense meant to any Texans out there, but whoa… there’s just nothing out there and it’s just how we saw it.  Until we found the infamous Cadillac Ranch.

Leaving Oklahoma City we easily picked up Route 66 and followed it for quite awhile.  We happened upon, of all places, the Fort at El Reno which is on the Chisholm Trail and then we found ourselves in Clinton, Oklahoma.  Both unexpected stops, but both were well-appreciated.

When we drove Route 66 in 2008 we had a basic game plan, but some of the most memorable times on our trip were the unplanned side trips and stops at places we didn’t realize would even fall into our path – such as finding the national memorial in Oklahoma City, or Abraham Lincoln’s home in Springfield, Illinois.