The Blue Whale site on Route 66 near Catoosa, Okla. (map here) was pretty messed up by this month’s historic ice storm. So the Oklahoma Route 66 Association historic preservation committee has set up an emergency work day there on New Year’s Day.

Fallen tree limbs are all over, including one that cracked a concrete picnic table there. The dangling limbs have also created a somewhat hazardous situation for many tourists who might stop there. Fortunately, it looks like the whale itself sustained little to no damage.

The work day starts at 9 a.m. and continues until the job is done or until sundown. Bring your gloves, chain saws, pole saws or other equipment that would be useful for tree-trimming. Those who help can haul away the bigger pieces for next year’s firewood. The smaller branches will be piled up for disposal later.

Soft drinks and homemade cookies will be provided. Participants also will be given a chance to win Jim Ross‘ book, “Oklahoma Route 66,” and a set of “Here It Is!” maps.

If Route 66 News looks a little different in the next week or so, it’s not because of technical difficulties.

WordPress.com added an option on Christmas Day that allows its blogs to have snow floating across the computer screen.

I added it during a “why the heck not?” moment. Enjoy the wintry look while it lasts — it’s supposed to stop Jan. 2.

There was wistful news out of Tulsa Town this week regarding two Route 66 restaurants.

First, the owners of Halim & Mimi’s, a Lebanese restaurant on the 11th Street alignment of Route 66, are retiring after nearly 30 years in the business, reports the Tulsa World. The restaurant will reopen on Jan. 2 with new owners but will have the same food.

Halim and Mimi Abufadil emigrated to the United States from their native Lebanon during the 1970s when that country was wracked by civil war. Halim & Mimi’s isn’t well-known to roadies except for the most devoted. But locals — especially from the nearby University of Tulsa — flock to it at lunchtime.

Also in the World, longtime Ike’s Chili owner William Johnson died at age 84. He ran the business, which has a location on the Admiral Place alignment of Route 66, for more than 50 years. He retired in 2005.

He wasn’t the original owner, however. Ike’s Chili was reputedly started in 1908 — about a year after Oklahoma became a state. William Johnson was a great-nephew of founder Ike Johnson.

Ike’s Chili continues to thrive in two locations in Tulsa. They are run by William’s son, William Zurn Johnson.

Beverly’s Pancake Corner, which has occupied a corner on Route 66 in Oklahoma City for decades, is moving a few blocks down the street, reports the Daily Oklahoman.

Beverly’s, which is at 2115 Northwest Expressway, is moving to Midland Center at 3315 Northwest Expressway. The old site is reportedly making way for a Talbot’s women’s clothing store.

Louis Dakil Auctioneers will sell the contents of the diner and adjacent former furniture store at 10 a.m. Jan. 3. Dakil said the building will be razed to make room for new development at the prime intersection near Penn Square Mall.

Masoudy said she’s packing up all the Beverly’s atmosphere she can, and has a design scheme worked out to try to recreate the ambiance that has made Beverly’s both a local neighborhood eatery and a destination since 1956. [...]

The first Beverly’s opened in 1921. Beverly Osborne and his wife, Rubye, came up with “Chicken in the Rough” — fried chicken served only with a biscuit and honey — and it became an icon of Route 66. The Osbornes franchised their specialty nationally.

“Osborne once said it started when he and his wife were eating fried chicken while traveling west in a Ford Model T on Route 66,” Max Nichols wrote in May in a monthly column from the Oklahoma Historical Society. “This is really chicken in the rough,” his wife said. It stuck.

Masoudy said the transition from a seasoned diner to a new space won’t be too rough. The new location will have a shiny counter, a window to the kitchen and other features and fixtures of an old-time diner.

“I’m making it a ’60s look,” she said. “I’m trying to make it homey — like Beverly’s.”

There’s no word on whether the restaurant’s famed neon sign is making the trip, also.

LA Weekly has revealed its Top 10 Dishes of 2007, and The Donut Man on Route 66 in Glendora has made the cut.

And, holy cow, the strawberry doughnut sounds good:

Have you ever seen a strawberry doughnut from the Donut Man? It is an iceberg of a doughnut, a flattened spheroid big enough to use as a Pilates cushion, split in two and filled to order with fresh strawberries, although only in season. The fruit is moistened with a translucent gel that lubricates even the occasional white-shouldered berry with a mantle of slippery sweetness, oozing from the sides, turning the bottom of the pasteboard box into a sugary miasma in the unlikely event that the doughnuts actually make it home. The tawny pastry itself is only lightly sweetened, dense and slightly crunchy at the outside, like most good doughnuts, with a vaguely oily nuttiness and an almost substantial chew. It is the only doughnut I have ever seen that is routinely served with a plastic knife and fork. It is worth every penny of the $2.50 it costs. It is worth waiting for spring. 915 E. Route 66, Glendora, (626) 335-9111.

And the Grub in L.A. blog has a picture of this creation.

“Sixty-six a highway speaks
Of deserts dry
Of cool green valleys
Gold and silver veins
Of the shining cities …”

– “Heartland,” from U2’s “Rattle and Hum” album. That was a period in which U2 was inspired by America’s landscape, including the Route 66 country of the Mojave Desert.

On a related note, the famed Joshua tree that appeared in the artwork of the band’s breakthrough 1987 album, “The Joshua Tree,” died about 2000. The cause of the tree’s death probably was old age.