Video Offers Modern Ride On Route 66

A nostalgic journey down “The Mother Road,” 2,448 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles over what remains of the legendary Route 66, makes up the interesting new video “Route 66: A Cruise Down Main Street.”

The trip is made by model Hunter Reno, who narrates the 45-minute Goldhil Video ($19.95, 1-800-250-8760). The Mother Road, as John Steinbeck dubbed it, doesn’t take you to your destination; in this video “it is your destination,” Reno says.

With stops along the way on what remains of the old highway, long since bypassed with interstate freeways, Reno revisits the era when the automobile sparked wanderlust. The road lured Americans across eight states and more than 2,400 miles through towns with their no-tell motels, feisty truck stops, neon glitz, family stores and filling stations where folks were downright friendly.

Reno’s stops include the Custom Car Hall of Fame, the Devil’s Rope Museum and the Museum Club Dance Hall as well as pie at Norma’s Cafe and corn dogs at Cozy’s.

Precious few stretches of the road are left for big riggers, romantics, dreamers and Oklahoma migrants, but the video tends to weave what’s left into a one-way ride to a classic American adventure. Route 66 began in downtown Chicago, where it got its name. Eight hundred miles were open by 1926, and it was all paved by 1938. It was called the “gateway to the American dream.”