Route 66: The Myth, the Model-T, and Mobility

The Magellanic Diaries 7, Part II of "The American Road"

Gasconade River Bridge, Route 66, Missouri, constructed circa 1923. Photo credit: Julia Dean.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. Happy holidays to all. Here, some travel writing for what is probably, for most, a stationary day. This is a paid subscriber post, partly visible to all, but you can read it all — Part I from last week and Part III coming New Year’s Day — with a 7-day trial subscription. Maybe you’ll decide to stick around for only $5 a month. If not, it cost you nothing but some romance of the road and thanks for reading!

Part I of “The American Road” left off with the role the transcontinental railroad played in the American Westward expansion and the contradiction it represented to the American mythos of individual self-realization through Westward travel: “And that is how it remained for almost 60 more years.”

Part II: The Myth, the Model-T, and Mobility

But if our world is anything, it is a world of contradiction. However settlers may have arrived – by someone else’s …