“If we don’t tell these stories, they’ll be lost,” Grundy said. “And sometimes, stories are all we have left.”
Motoring west from Springfield, Illinois faded in my rear-view mirror. And as I sank into Missouri’s Ozarks, I delighted in how the flat, barn-specked fields at the roadside morphed into rippling, redbud-covered crags. Across the entire route, the original two-lane highway was elusive, playing out in scattered fragments.
Occasionally, I ran into a dead end and was forced back on the raging highway. Signage was inconsistent too: I got by with a combination of verbal directions and paper maps and by setting my navigation app to “avoid motorways”. Apple routinely told me that my way was the slow way – and that, I realised, was the point.
Eventually St Louis’ gargantuan Gateway Arch, a long-time symbol of western movement, rose before me like a mirage. I spent a few days soaking-in the city’s energy – queueing at Mother Road staple Ted Drewes Frozen Custard and wandering Maplewood, a hip Route 66 district with microbreweries and bookshops – before continuing southwest.