A travel advisory for roadies planning on driving through Oklahoma: an abundance of rainy weather is causing flooding in eastern Oklahoma County, which is part of the Oklahoma City metro area.

According to KOCO-TV:

This large square area and many of the roads within it, including Route 66, are currently affected by high water. The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office asked the public to use extreme caution traveling within this area.

The state of Illinois broke records for tourism revenue during 2006, reports the Pontiac Daily Leader.

Livingston County saw an 8.8 percent increase. The reason?

“I think part of the increase in numbers for our county are related to the Route 66 phenomena,” Ellie Alexander, Pontiac’s tourism director, said about the Illinois figures. “The cooperation with the Red Carpet Corridor communities in advertising and events brings more awareness to our area. The museums in Pontiac, as well as the movie ‘Cars’, all contribute to the increased tourism numbers.”

“Cars,” an animated movie released in 2006 by Disney/Pixar, had as one of its working titles “Route 66,” according to the movie-related Web site imdb.com. One of the frequently asked questions on that site about the movie is “Was Route 66 a real highway?”

Emily, who is in charge of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association’s preservation committee, supervised the preservation project during the past weekend’s National Route 66 Festival in Clinton, Okla.

The mission: To pretty up the long-closed Ray’s Motel in Clinton over a three-day period. More than two dozen volunteers showed up.

Emily has more details and photos from the weekend here. As a preview, here are before-and-after images of the motel.

Ray’s Motel after the scraping was done and painting was starting in earnest.

Ray’s Motel, after all the painting was completed.