Saturday 20th September 2008: Go get your kicks, on Route 66 !

It took me 26 years of riding motorcycles to finally do what Petra does on her first biketrip - hit Route 66 !
From Barstow east parallel with the Interstate 40 the historic Route 66 stretches out - at least the imagination of its glorious past does. Those kicks Nat King Cole was singing about in 1946 today straight hit your spine in some stretches east of Barstow to Ludlow - its actually rather suitabe to ride it on the Dakar than on Petras Shadow - reminding me at stages of some roads in western Kasachstan :-) - we keep on riding the 66 all through the hot and dry Mojave desert. It is quite easy to imagine where areas like "Devil's Playground "and thelike got their names from.
Crossing the Colorado at Topock takes us from California into Arizona. Besides its the only really scenic part of Route 66 up to Kingman. Well worth the ride muchmore than trying to do the whole thing up to or from Chicago.
In Kingman we just run into an American Dragster Race - quartermile races with incredible noise and tireburnouts all over the place . Like it or not - its one of many American ways to express a lifestyle - and it is a positively mad atmosphere.surrounding the racetrack - that's for sure.
All along the 66 we follow the traces of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean - ending the day in Seligmen with a sunset at its best before we ride further up into Grand Canyon tomorrow .

Baba ( still counting the endless kicks of Route 66 in his back)