About 10:37 a.m. CST Saturday, the front-page counter on Route 66 News passed the 100,000-hits mark since its inception in October 2005.

I’m very happy with the traffic here so far. At one point, I would have been content with the 200 views I was averaging per day. But in recent weeks, it’s been soaring well past 1,000 daily.

For some, 100,000 hits isn’t a big deal. Heck, there’s one blog that gets that about every eight hours or so. But the steady surge in readership at Route 66 News shows that a one-stop spot for news about the Mother Road was needed and is appreciated. Route 66 News also is among the top 100 sites on WordPress, which at last count has 242,000 blogs.

So … thank you. And please keep reading.

The city of San Bernardino, Calif., is seeing a spike in homicides from the previous year. It has 34 so far in 2006, compared to 58 in all of last year. San Bern isn’t unique; the FBI recently reported a rise in violent crime across the nation.

But the Press-Enterprise reports that the crime spike isn’t adversely affecting the annual Route 66 Rendezvous that’s scheduled for September.

About 1,250 people have already signed up to show off their automobiles, an increase of about 25 percent from the same time last year.

“We’ve never had this many people so early,” Henthorn said.

…

Henthorn said event-goers are kept safe by San Bernardino police, California Highway Patrol officers and private security. Plus, the high-priced car buffs who flock to the Rendezvous tend to look after each other and their property.

“We’ve always had a significant presence during Route 66 and we’ve had relatively few problems for the entire history of the event,” said San Bernardino police Lt. Mark Garcia.

I wouldn’t be concerned, either. When you have upwards of 100,000 people in downtown at any one time and cops all over the place for crowd control, I’m not exactly expecting a drive-by shooting.

The New York Times has added Robert Sullivan’s new book about American travel, “Cross Country,” to its “First Chapter” excerpt feature. The feature includes a photo of the author in front of Amarillo’s Cadillac Ranch.

It looks like a promising book, but somebody better tell Sullivan and his editors that Interstate 70 was never associated with Route 66, except for a tiny smidge of it near St. Louis.

The San Bernardino County Sun ran into Dennis Kinch, who is approaching the terminus of his walk on Route 66 for the National Pain Foundation. He has about 65 miles to go; he’s scheduled to reach Santa Monica Pier on July 14.