On Thursday, the Clinton (Okla.) Chamber of Commerce announced that because of the success of the National Route 66 Festival in June, the city will have an annual Route 66-themed event.

The Clinton Route 66 Festival: Hot Dogs and Hot Rods on Route 66 is scheduled for June 27-28, 2008.

According to the chamber’s news release:

The event, headed by the Clinton Chamber of Commerce, will combine the best of the National Route 66 Festival and elements of Clinton’s annual Hot Dog Daze event. Tentative activities planned for the 2008 Festival include a Friday night cruise down 66 and concerts in McLain Rogers Park. Saturday activities will include a car and motorcycle show, free Bar-S hot dogs, the Wiener Nationals dachshund races, poker run, special extended hours at the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum and a possible large, evening concert. Other events may be added in the coming months. Sponsorships for the Clinton Route 66 Festival are currently being sought.

Clinton already has an Internet domain for the festival, ClintonRoute66Festival.com, although it hadn’t gone live as of late Friday.

The state of New Mexico has installed electric fencing and a sort of cattle guard in the Tijeras Canyon area east of Albuquerque to prevent wild animals from crossing in front of motorists traveling on Interstate 40 and nearby old Route 66, reports the Santa Fe New Mexican.

The 7-foot-high fence will deliver a mild shock to animals that touch it, discouraging them from passing through. It’s made of several horizontal strands of ropelike material about a half-inch in diameter that can deliver a quick shock that is enough to sting, but not seriously harm, a human.

The $750,000 project also includes 8-foot wildlife-proof fencing, passages under overpasses, warning signs and solar-powered motion-detecting cameras that turn on highway caution lights, alerting drivers to slow down. Twelve specially designed escape ramps also were built in case animals become trapped inside the fencing along I-40.

The project’s seven 4-foot-wide electro-mats are built into the roadway in five places along N.M. 333 (Route 66) and across the I-40 on-ramps and off-ramps at Tijeras.

The mats won’t shock cyclists or pedestrians who wear shoes, officials said.

The measures are designed to lower the number of traffic collisions with deer. Wayward cattle and horses also are common. And I recall a brown bear being spotted in Tijeras a few weeks ago.

It should create safer travel for two- and four-legged animals.