I Got My Kicks! Advent Calendar [3] Quiz

The Blue Whale is located near Catoosa, Oklahoma. It was built in the early 1970s by Hugh Davis. He wanted to make a surprise for his wife because she collected whale figurines; the finished product ended up measuring 20 feet (6.096 m) tall x 80 feet (24.38 m) long! It took two years to build out of an estimated 20,000 pounds (8.9 long tons) of rock, 15 tons (13 long tons) of sand, 2650 feet (808 m) of metal rods, and 126 sacks of dry concrete!

Originally Davis intended for the Blue Whale to be a private getaway for his family; however, it became a favorite along Route 66. People could take a dip in the pond, play in the sand, or just enjoy a picnic lunch. After the owners died, the Blue Whale fell into disrepair, but today it has been restored and is still open to the public. There is a small snack stand and gift shop located on the premises, along with a short hiking path.

Fun Fact: Route 66 was one of the original U.S. highways. It was established in 1926, but it was 1938 before it was completely paved.

Cadillac Ranch is located near Amarillo, Texas. It was assembled in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez, and Doug Michels, two architects and an art student. They took ten old Cadillacs from 1949-1963 and buried them in a wheat field front first. The tail fins that showed identified year of manufacture of each of the cars.

In 1997, the cars were moved to a cow pasture a bit farther from the growing city. They are located on private land and can be seen from I-40, which either runs parallel or lays on top of the old Route 66 from Oklahoma City to Barstow. Visitors are encouraged to decorate the cars with graffiti, but they are periodically repainted so that the process can be repeated over and over.

Fun Fact: Route 66 went through eight U.S. states, running from Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles, California.

Constructed in 1929 as a toll bridge, the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge was the first path used by Route 66 to cross the Mississippi River. Traveling west on Route 66 took commuters through downtown St. Louis. By the late 1930s, it became part of the Bypass US 66 that was used to avoid traveling through the downtown area. The bridge stretched from northern St. Louis, across the river to Chouteau Island, which is part of the city of Madison, Illinois, its current owner. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

The bridge was named for the natural feature - the Chain of Rocks - that made crossing the Mississippi at that point of the river very dangerous. That is why you see the twenty-two degree bend in the picture; using a straight path the bedrock could not support the bridge's weight.

Fun Fact: Route 66 was approximately 2,448 miles (3940 km) long.

El Morro National Monument is located in Cibola County, New Mexico. Estimated to be 155-165 million years old, the top of the rock was the home of Ancestral Pueblans c. 1275 AD. Located along an important ancient trade route, what really made the site attractive for a stopover was the pool of water at the base of the rock; it was created by water running off the formation.

Evidence of the traffic that went through at one time is still apparent. Many people carved their initials into what white explorers called Inscription Rock. The oldest that can be read belong to Juan de Onate, the first Spanish government of what was then called Santa Fe du Nuevo Mexico. He visited the location in 1605.

Fun Fact: The Interstate Highway Act closed Route 66 in 1985. It was largely replaced by five interstate highway systems.

The Gemini Giant is located in Wilmington, Illinois. In 1965, John and Bernice Korelc bought the Muffler Man 30 feet (9.1 m) statue, a prop that was commonly used for advertising, thinking that it would help more people to stop at their restaurant, appropriately named The Launching Pad. The put a helmet on the man and a rocket in his hands, and it just took off! A local contest was held to give the man a name, and the Gemini Giant was born!

In 2024, the Juliet Area Historical Museum bought Gemini Giant and donated it to the City of Wilmington. Plans have been made to begin displaying the statue in a city park by the end of the year.

Fun Fact: Although Route 66 was no longer officially included on travel maps after 1985, many areas of the highway are marked with Historic Route 66 signs.

The Lowell Observatory was constructed in Flagstaff, Arizona, due to its elevation, dark night skies, and nearness to the railroad. It was completed in 1894, and is one of the oldest in the United States. Named for astronomer Percival Lowell, its founder, the observatory has been the site of many important discoveries. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto there, and the rings of Uranus were co-discovered there in 1977.

It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1965, and in 2011 it was chosen by "Time" as one of "The World's 100 Most Important Places".

Fun Fact: The construction of Route 66 stalled during the Great Depression. It was revived by FDR's New Deal Program. Workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration completed the project by 1938.

Meramec Caverns, located near Stanton, Missouri, became a tourist attraction in 1933. It has long been rumored to have been a hiding place for the famous outlaws Jess and Frank James. There is no evidence other than folklore to prove this notion.

It is believed to be the oldest stop along Route 66 at approximately 400 million years old! Formed by limestone deposits, the 4.6 mile-long cave system was used by Pre-Columbian Native Americans, and explored by Europeans as early as 1722. It was an important source of saltpeter, which was used for the manufacturing of gunpowder.

If you have a chance to visit, be sure to view the rare formation there, which is called the Wine Room. It holds the Wine Table, an onyx table 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, that was formed when the cavern was under water. Trust me! It's well worth climbing up the 58 steps that it takes to get into the room!

Fun Fact: Located about an hour southwest from Stanton, Missouri, between Interstate exists 169 and 163, you may want to have a look at Hooker's Cut. Out in the middle of nowhere there is a four lane highway that was part of Route 66. It was constructed during WWII to carry traffic to and from Fort Leonard Wood, a U.S. Army training base. The road still has its concrete curb at the edges.

Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the KiMo Theater was built in 1927 in the Pueblo Deco Style, which blends elements of the Art Deco movement with adobe architecture. Oreste Bachechi and his wife, Italian immigrants to the United States, wanted to build it to express their appreciation to the Native Americans who had welcome them to New Mexico.

The "Albuquerque Journal" held a contest to see what the new theater would be named and KiMo was chosen, as it is a combination of the Tiwa words, still spoken today by the Pueblo People, for mountain lion. Renovated and restored in 2000, the KiMo Theater belongs to the city of Albuquerque today.

Fun Fact: Another name for Route 66 is Will Roger's Highway. The popular entertainer wrote quite a bit about traveling the road from his home in Oklahoma to Hollywood.

Calico Ghost Town is located in San Bernadino County, near Barstow, California. The town was founded in 1881 as a silver mining town; the miners thought the nearby mountain peaks looked like calico-colored cloth. They named the town and opened the Silver King Mine. Wealth attracted settlers, and at the height of its production from 1883-1885, it has been estimated that about 1200 people lived there and had established about 500 mines.

The town grew larger after colemanite, a boron ore, was discovered, but by the turn of the century, the area was mined out and became a ghost town. It was purchased in 1951 by Walter Knott - of Knott's Berry Farm fame - and he set about restoring many of the buildings. He donated the ghost town to San Bernadino County ---and it became a County Regional Park.

Fun Fact: John Steinbeck called Route 66 the Mother Road in his "Grapes of Wrath" (1939).

The Blue Hole is located near Santa Rosa, New Mexico. It is the result of an artesian well filling in a sinkhole, and at the bottom is a collapsed cavern. Popular for swimming and scuba diving, the hole is approximately 80 feet (24 m) in diameter at the top, and 80 feet (24 m) deep. It maintains a constant temperature of 62 F (17 C).

Local legend says that the cave passages at the bottom of the hole are connected to Carlsbad Caverns, some 200 miles (322 km) away. While that probably isn't true, there have been a lot of divers who have tried to explore the passages in the past. Since 1976, the entry has been off to the public in an attempt to keep out inexperienced divers. Visitors can still, however, enjoy swimming in the Blue Hole. There are also picnic grounds and a visitor's center located close by.

Fun facts: "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" (1946) is a song that was written by Bobby Troup. It's about a road trip that he took while traveling from Pennsylvania to Hollywood, hoping to make it big there. The King Cole Trio first recorded the song, which mentioned several towns along the way.

The closest city to the Petrified Forest is Holbrook, Arizona, about twenty-six miles away. The trees that are now petrified lived some 225 million years ago, but it is believed that the first Native Americans to arrive did so about 13,000 years ago.

They were hunters who used spears with Clovis and Folsom points, but they were not the only ones to live there. There have been over 1200 archaeological sites discovered in the 346 square miles (896 square km) of the park. In 1906, it became a national monument, and was elevated to national park status in 1962. Route 66 was constructed to pass through the park.

Fun Fact: An estimated 85% of the old Route 66 is still drivable today!

As it was constructed in 1926, Route 66 ended at 7th Street and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, California. In 1936, the end point was changed to the intersection of Lincoln and Olympic Boulevards in Santa Monica in order to intersect the historic route with the Pacific Coast Highway. This is considered to be the "official" end of the highway.

Fun Fact: There is a famous sign that says, "End of the Trail" that was placed at the end of the Santa Monica pier, and leads one right out into the ocean! It is considered to be the symbolic end of Route 66.

A railroad that passed through the middle of nowhere was constructed in 1871 in what is Galena, Kansas today. Galena did not become a town until 1877 when lead was discovered there. The towns named was changed from Cornwall to Short Creek to Bonanza, to finally Galena that same year. It was named after the galena, the lead ore, that was mined nearby.

At its peak, Galena is estimated to have had a population of 30,000 people - compared to only 2761 according to the 2020 U.S. census. When the lead mines closed in the 1970s, however, there is still as ammonia nitrate company, formed during WWII, that exists today. At one time it was the largest ammonia nitrate company in the world.

The Galena Train Station was built for the M-K-T (Missouri/Kansas/Texas) Railway, and is currently used as the Galena Mining and Historical Museum.

Fun Fact: Kansas only has thirteen miles of Route 66 within its borders, but within those thirteen miles there are three historic towns - Galena, Baxter Springs, and Riverton.