Here’s a few odds ‘n’ ends I collected during our journey from Tulsa to Albuquerque and back for the Route 66 festival:

• We’ve seen a marked decline in Clines Corners, the Route 66 stop that dates to 1937. In the last couple of years we’ve visited there, prices on merchandise have gone up while the quality of amenities have gone down. With the latter, that’s especially true with the bathrooms, which are a borderline disgrace and need remodeling in the worst way. If you need a make a stop in that area, try the Flying C Ranch about 20 miles east. It’s a competitor to Clines Corners, and the Flying C appears to be winning.
• Tucumcari is a town in transition. The Blue Swallow Motel and the Motel Safari have new owners, while the Pony Soldier Motel has closed. Del’s restaurant reburbished its main sign with neon lighting, and it looks nice. There is a new Route 66 Motel in town, but they took down the Royal Palacio neon sign that came with it (Aaargh!!!). The closed Apache Motel continues to languish. La Cita, the famous Mexican restaurant housed in a giant sombrero, is open but is having management and employee problems, according to one local we talked to. The food there was OK, but not as good compared to the previous operators.
• Albuquerque continues to look more vibrant with each passing year. Occasionally a historic neon sign is lost, but it seems to be replaced with two or three new ones that add to Central Avenue’s allure at night. Nob Hill and the downtown area are especially thriving. The Duke City, once long-overlooked, is now becoming a hot spot in the Southwest.
• I’ve already weighed in with my dim view of Hotel Albuquerque. However, the Hotel Blue and Monterrey Non-Smokers Motel certainly made the grade with their amenities and moderate prices of $55 to $75 a night. Subjects of further research on a future trip: El Don Motel, Silver Moon Lodge and La Puerta Motor Lodge.
• This isn’t on Route 66, but it’s worth a mention to two-lane roadies. Instead of taking I-40/Route 66 back home, we took U.S. 412, which traverses virtually all of Oklahoma. This is where we encountered the Glass Mountains, aka Gloss Mountains, near the northwest Oklahoma town of Fairview. It’s spectacular. If you want a fix of the Painted Desert in Arizona but can’t travel that far, the Glass/Gloss Mountains are a good alternative. Red Fork Hippie Chick will have photos of them and other images soon.

It sounds like the folks who wanted to have the city of San Bernardino, Calif., drape a 30-by-22-foot flag on the side of City Hall are abandoning their efforts, reports the San Bernardino Sun.
Attempts to pass the proposal failed twice, mostly because of logistical problems and that it would cost $3,000 to $5,000 in taxpayer money. The proposal also seemed redundant, as several American flags already fly in front of City Hall.

One of the pro-giant-flaggers, Lyman Stucky, threatened a boycott of the annual Route 66 Rendezvous over the flap. But he wisely called it off. 

Instead, the group says it will try to raise private money to defray the cost of draping the giant flag. Considering the meager attendance of a pro-giant-flag rally last week, it may take them awhile to get the cash.  

The Albuquerque Tribune reports that the city is drafting a proposal to limit the size of free-standing signs in the city. Those that are over the proposed size limit of 5 feet in height would have 10 years to replace them.

Fortunately, there's this item in the story:

Details being worked on include how to handle historic Route 66-era signs and signs for businesses that rely on tall signs to draw interstate traffic, Dineen said.

Most neon signs along Central Avenue are not free-standing, so this proposal wouldn't affect them. However, the plan should be closely scrutinized. The Environment Planning Commission is scheduling a meeting about it Aug. 17, and the city council will address it after that. 

Here's an item from lifestyles columnist Alan Peppard of the Dallas Morning News:

For former Grand Prix of Dallas executive director Buddy Boren, the 1994 discovery of 30 tumors in his body was the crucible that moved him from the speedway to the slow lane.

Since 2000, he has been making long-distance bicycle rides to celebrate his survival and raise money for cancer research.

July 8, he'll leave Chicago on his bike, retracing the old Route 66 to LA.

"Everyone says, 'Oh, how fun,' when I tell them about Route 66," Buddy says. "Fun would be doing it in a 1966 Corvette. My rides are never fun. But getting my message out to people with cancer to 'Never give up hope, survival is possible,' makes every step of the way a joy."

Here's Boren's Web site, which gives more details about his upcoming Tour de Route 66.

Here's an interesting story form the Naperville (Ill.) Sun about the Dairy Queen restaurant chain in 1940 in Joliet.

What many people don't know is that the first DQ was a mom-and-pop restaurant born on Route 66, on North Chicago Street. The story has a photo of that first one.

It now has more than 5,000 stores in the U.S. and several foreign countries.

The Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune interviewed Becky Ransom of the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo about her role in meeting the Pixar crew during its research for its "Cars" movie and her attendance at the world premiere in North Carolina last month. Ransom is a native of the Jackson Hole area.

That's how Brent Hopkins of the Los Angeles Daily News essentially ended up on the Mother Road in Southern California driving his old Mustang.

It's a good article, and it's especially intriguing to read about the the improvement of the Green Spot motel:

The Green Spot, just a bit off the slice of the route that's called Seventh Street in Victorville, used to be a fun oasis for celebrities and weary everymen alike. It had a bar in which you could drink away the stress of the road, a little stage for entertainment and quaint, private rooms.

When Interstate 15 came in, the once-charming Green Spot became a popular site for prostitutes and meth cooks to ply their trades. Patel, who bought it five years ago, has been in a long process of trying to restore it to its former snazziness. It's still far from swanky, but a walk around its courtyard evokes the prototypical motel of years gone by.

"This used to be a big place for the movie stars - they'd come here and go to the restaurant or put on shows on the stage," Patel said. "When we bought it, it was all drug dealers, but we got rid of them. We're making it better again."

Maybe some of our Route 66 friends in Southern California can check it out. It might be a good new option for travelers seeking an overnight stay. In the meantime, here's a vintage postcard image of the motel.
The Daily News also has an interactive page of music and interviews from his story.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a story about Route 66 attractions from Albuquerque to the Mojave Desert just outside of Los Angeles. Included is a list of recommended lodging.

I spent a night at the Hotel Albuquerque, which was the host hotel of the Route 66 Festival. Based on what I saw and heard, I have advice for future hotel hosts of Route 66 festivals:

• If you have to shut down an elevator for cosmetic remodeling, please do it at a time when dozens of people aren't trying to get their luggage and themselves up to the 10th floor. Creating a long line of people trying to use the sole remaining elevator doesn't leave a good impression.
• Please make sure you have washcloths and operational exhaust fans in the bathrooms.
• Please ensure that you air-condition the common hallways, especially in desert regions.
• Please don't charge 50 cents for each local phone call. That's bush league, especially when rooms are $100 a night when taxes and fees are added.
• Please don't renege on the exhibition site for the authors and artists because of a doggone wedding, especially when you knew months in advance where the exhibition would be.
• Please don't charge the event organizer hundreds of dollars for the simple feat of turning on additional track lighting in the exhibition room.
• If you tout the fact you have wi-fi, please make sure it works in all areas of the hotel complex. One exhibitor from Sweden couldn't even connect to the Internet, even though he was in the same ballroom as me.
• Please don't charge $14 a person (which was a discounted rate) for a group breakfast and expect satisfaction by serving a few muffins and pastries, a little fruit, snack-size yogurt and orange juice — especially when a restaurant down the street was having a special on $2 breakfasts.
• Ultimately, please make sure your rooms and amenities justify the higher price for rooms, or attendees will instead go for the nearby, lower-cost, mom-and-pop motels — like we did.

The Monterrey Non-Smokers Motel — along with at least four other motels along Central Avenue — offered free wi-fi, free local calls and all the stuff we needed in the bathrooms for at least $40 less per night. We stayed there one night earlier in the week, then returned again later because we were more satisfied there than the host hotel.

(I'll have more thoughts about the festival and what we saw on Route 66
after I get some sleep.)