Here is more news coverage of this weekend’s

• A story about how the festival has thrived despite the city’s troubles.
• A look at the live music that will be at the Rendezvous.
• A story about longtime Rendezvous cruise participant John Merryman, whose classic-car collection was destroyed by a fire in 2003. He’s starting over, with a 1952 Cadillac.

Betty Henshaw and her family once lived in Hominy, Okla., where they picked cotton. In 1947, the family pulled up stakes and drove west on Route 66 to find a better living in California — as many other Okies did.

Henshaw recalled her memories in a manuscript, which was quickly picked up by Texas Tech University and published. The title of the book is “Children of the Dust: An Okie Family Story.”

The Mail Tribune in Jackson County, Ore., has Henshaw’s story.

The Illinois Route 66 Film Festival is set for this weekend at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in Springfield.

Here’s the schedule that’s in the Springfield Journal-Register. The films run the gamut and aren’t always about the Mother Road. But here are the ones that are, both during the Audience Choice Documentaries segment at 1 p.m. Saturday:

• “87 Topaz,” Filmmaker Bill Kersey remembers his grandfather’s life through his love of cars.
• “Illinois Route 66,” Springfield’s Steven Puglia looks at the Mother Road’s sights and history.

More than a year ago, Albert Okura, owner of the Juan Pollo restaurant chain in Southern California, purchased the entire Route 66 town of Amboy, Calif. He was hoping to restore the cafe, gas station and perhaps the motel to some semblance of its former self.

The Ontario (Calif.) Daily Bulletin has an update today about Okura’s progress with Amboy. In short, it’s slow. He’s going to be spending another $50,000 to get electricity restored to the gas station. He still needs to spend money to install septic systems, which the town didn’t have. He’s also trying to get water service in Amboy — no small task for an isolated town in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

“I didn’t buy Amboy to make money, I bought it because I thought it was the right thing to do,” he said. “I don’t view Amboy as a money-making venture. I’ll be happy to break even.”

In the past, hungry travelers on Route 66 could stop at Roy’s for a meal and a cold drink before continuing their journeys through the Mojave. For the time being, drivers can forget about the food, though they can still get that drink. Larry Stevens, Amboy’s caretaker, sells bottled water and commemorative T-shirts from Roy’s dining room.

The water, Stevens said, sells for only $1 per bottle. He could probably charge a lot more, but he said there’s no reason to discourage people from drinking water while driving through the Mojave Desert.

Here’s a Web site devoted to Roy’s, the most prominent business in Amboy.

The Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum in Pontiac will have a new mural painted later this month, reports the Pontiac Daily Leader.

The artist doing the painting will be Route 66 artist Bob Waldmire, who is the unofficial inspiration to Fillmore, the VW minibus in the hit summer movie “Cars.”

Waldmire’s artwork also will be on display. Starting Sept. 30, he’ll be at the museum from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.