Eckleberg & Grumblecake have added five restaurant reviews to their I8Route66 site, which concentrates on eateries on Albuquerque's Central Avenue.

The restaurants visited were Ragin' Shrimp (8 out of 10 rating), Pop 'n' Taco (2.5 rating — ouch!), the KFC at Rio Grande (3 rating — ouch!), Delicia's (5 rating) and Golden Pride (6.5 rating).

The Boston Globe has written a nice article about tourism and historical attractions in Flagstaff, Ariz., including Route 66 attractions such as the Hotel Monte Vista and the Museum Club.

Check it out.

Bob Moore of Route 66 Magazine informed the Route 66 yahoogroup that the PAC Route 66 Tour for 2006 has started its trip eastward on the Mother Road. The Victorville Daily Press has a story about the group's stop at the California Route 66 Museum. To see the group's schedule, check out its site here.

UPDATE: Moore also has informed us about a swell road journal by one of the participants, Jim Bradbury. 

In the upcoming book "The Art of Cars," Pixar Animation Studios chief John Lasseter — who also is director of the "Cars" movie that's coming out June 9 — says in the foreword:

"Doing research on the subjects of our films has become a matter of principle for us … We ended up doing more research for 'Cars' than we'd done for any other project at Pixar."

This statement speaks volumes on why Pixar is one of the most successful studios on the planet. Pixar does indeed hire creative and talented people. But it's the research that's key. Pixar's research unearths facts; those facts inspire more ideas to enrich the story. Research begets creativity.

That's why the lavishly illustrated "The Art of Cars," by Michael Wallis and his wife Suzanne, is such an eye-opener. (The Wallises generously gave a copy of the book to us weeks before its release.) The 160-page volume brims with hundreds of sketches, storyboards, photographs and paintings. It's gorgeous to look at. Some of the paintings, such as Tia Kratter's (shown below), of an interstate highway cutting through a mesa, wouldn't look out of place in a prestigious art gallery.

But "The Art of Cars" is also special because it shows how Pixar turned motor vehicles into characters and brought the fictional Route 66 town of Radiator Springs to life. The book explains the genesis of the film.

The Pixar crew hung around NASCAR racetracks. It toured automotive manufacturing plants and design rooms in Detroit. It gazed at Don Sommer's extensive collection of hood ornaments. It walked through an abandoned Packard factory. It invited longtime automotive illustrator Dave Deal to preside over a workshop on drawing cars.

The attention to detail is awe-inspiring. There are eight pages of drawings of the interior and exterior of the Cozy Cone Motel (one is shown above). Check out the fictional bumper stickers on the VW hippie van, Fillmore (above). There are two pages of drawings of trees, weeds and cacti. Bud Luckey's aerial map (below) of Radiator Springs is so intricate that one can almost believe it's a real town, not a fictional one. Ditto for the fake tourism postcards (also below) of the Radiator Springs area.

As for Route 66, Pixar's people were led down the Mother Road by Wallis not once, but twice. The book contains photos from the Blue Swallow Motel, the U-Drop Inn, the ghost town of Glenrio, a red-dirt road in Oklahoma, and a rusty tow truck that became the inspiration for Mater. Pixar's people ate in local diners, slept in vintage motels and met the memorable characters of the road.

The Wallises' text also tells of scenes that didn't make the final cut, including one of the sheriff car (voiced by Wallis) singing the Commander Cody hit "Hot Rod Lincoln" during "caraoke night." Maybe those scenes will make it onto the DVD.

Lasseter says the 1952 Disney short "The Little Blue Coupe" was an early inspiration. He also had been thinking about making a cars film since the early 1980s.

But "Cars" was jump-started to life during a long vacation Lasseter took with his family in 1999.

"… The true epiphany came in North Carolina one afternoon when I was about halfway through a rather bland taco at some chain restaurant. I suddenly realized that I could be anywhere in America and here I am eating a taco in North Carolina, when there's plenty of genuine barbecue around us! Why eat Mexican food in barbecue country? We left immediately in search of a hometown eatery were folks go to feast on a local staple — great barbecue."

It was a turning point for John. He had experienced firsthand how America had become overrun with predictable, homogenous franchises. Now, after enjoying regional cuisine, he found himself searching for those special places that still offered the real thing.

…

All the way back to California, John thought about the movie he wanted to make. This time, when he walked into the studio, instead of saying, "One of these days …" John smiled and simply said, "Let's make our car movie."