Route 66 Ruined Me
I used to be a ballpark chaser. I'd travel from city to city, visiting baseball stadiums, trying to get from one destination to the next as quickly as possible. The driving was simply something I had to do to get where I wanted to go. Sure, I enjoyed a good road trip, but the miles between destinations weren't really part of the attraction. They were just something to get through.
Then Route 66 ruined me.
Somewhere along that old highway, I learned to slow down. I stopped worrying so much about how quickly I could get somewhere and started paying attention to everything I was passing along the way. The little towns, the old buildings, the businesses that had somehow survived for generations, and the people whose stories were connected to those places became just as interesting as whatever destination I had originally set out to reach.
Eventually, I realized something that changed the way I looked at traveling. Driving wasn't simply the empty space between the things I'd traveled to see.
The drive was one of the things I came to see.
I don't say that to sound dramatic. It's simply the truth. Route 66 changed the way I travel, and I can't imagine going back to the way I did things before.
A History Nerd and a Mythical Highway
I've always been a history nerd. As far back as I can remember, I've been fascinated by the past, especially the ordinary people who lived through events that we now read about in history books. I enjoy learning what their lives were like, what they experienced, and how the places they called home have changed over the years.
Growing up in Washington State, I would occasionally hear stories about an almost mythical highway called Route 66. It was the road families traveled west on vacation, heading toward the sunny shores of California. It was also a road that had played an important role in American history, carrying people across the country during some of its most difficult years.
Every two years, my family would travel from Washington to Oklahoma to visit relatives. Those trips were a regular part of my childhood, and Oklahoma was a place I associated with family and the people we loved. When I eventually learned about the Dust Bowl and the families who had fled Oklahoma during the Great Depression, many of them traveling west in search of better lives, I was fascinated. Here were people leaving the very state my family kept returning to, and Route 66 had been one of the highways that carried them west.
I wanted to understand what those journeys had been like. What did those families encounter along the way? What were the towns like back then? How much of that old highway was still out there? The more I learned, the more questions I had, and the more I wanted to see those places for myself.
For years, though, actually driving Route 66 remained one of those things I planned to do someday. Someday when we retired, when there was more time, when it made sense to take a long trip across the country. It was something I genuinely wanted to experience, but it always seemed to belong to a future that was still a long way off.
That began to change in December 2021, when my wife, Yvonne, and I moved to the Oklahoma City area for our jobs, bringing our three pups along with us. Not long after we arrived, I started noticing Route 66 signs around the area. They seemed to be everywhere. I'd spent years thinking of Route 66 as this distant highway I might eventually travel, only to discover that I was now living about five miles from it.
Suddenly, someday didn't seem so far away.
I started researching the highway and learned about its various alignments through Oklahoma. I also discovered that Oklahoma has more drivable miles of historic Route 66 than any of the other seven states. There was an enormous amount of the road practically in my backyard, and I didn't need to wait until retirement to experience it.
So I started exploring. During those first couple of years, I'd get out whenever I could and drive a few miles here and there, following old alignments and seeing what I could find. Sometimes it was a historic building or a roadside attraction. Other times, it was simply another stretch of pavement that had once carried generations of travelers through Oklahoma. I enjoyed all of it, and each new discovery made me more interested in seeing what was farther down the road.
In 2023, my love of baseball provided the excuse I needed to go farther. I wanted to see my Seattle Mariners play the Arizona Diamondbacks, and while planning the trip, I realized I could drive Route 66 from Arcadia, Oklahoma, to Flagstaff before heading south to Phoenix. That sounded like a pretty good plan. Then I started thinking that with another day or two, I could continue west to the Arizona–California border and come back to finish California on another trip.
Of course, the more I worked on the itinerary, the more the trip grew. Before long, I'd decided to continue all the way to Santa Monica. I figured that someday I could drive the remaining portion from Chicago to Arcadia and finally say I'd traveled the entire highway.
That particular someday arrived just a couple of months later.
By the end of 2023, I had driven Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica in two separate trips. What had once seemed like a distant retirement dream was something I'd actually accomplished. I suppose I could have considered that the end of my Route 66 adventure, crossed it off the bucket list, and moved on to something else.
Instead, it made me want to go back. There was so much I'd seen, but even more that I'd missed, and I was beginning to understand that this old highway had a lot more to offer than a collection of famous attractions.
The People Who Keep the Road Alive
For a long time, if you'd asked me what kept drawing me back to Route 66, I probably would have said the attractions. I love the vintage gas stations, roadside giants, old motels, neon signs, and diners that have become such an important part of the highway's identity. I've always enjoyed the history, too. There is something special about standing in a place where people stood generations before you, knowing they traveled that same pavement under circumstances very different from your own.
I think about the families heading west during the Dust Bowl, hoping to find work and a better life in California. I think about the vacationers who came later, loading the family car and setting out to see the country. I enjoy imagining what those places must have looked like when Route 66 was a major highway, filled with travelers stopping for gasoline, meals, and a place to spend the night.
All of that still matters to me, but over time I've realized that the biggest reason I keep returning is the people.
I've met fellow travelers from across the country and around the world, sometimes spending only a few minutes talking with them and other times getting to know them well enough that we stay in touch long after the trip ends. I've met motel owners, restaurant workers, shopkeepers, and volunteers who care deeply about preserving the history of this highway. Many of them have stories that are every bit as interesting as the attractions they've spent their lives looking after.
I love hearing a museum volunteer talk about growing up in the gas station his parents owned along the route. I enjoy visiting with business owners and learning what it takes to keep their doors open, sometimes in towns where the interstate took away much of the traffic decades ago. And I appreciate those unexpected conversations with complete strangers, when a simple greeting turns into an opportunity to learn about somebody else's life and what brought them to Route 66.
Those experiences have become some of my favorite memories. I might set out in the morning planning to visit a particular attraction, but there's no telling who I'll meet or what conversations I'll have before the day is over. More often than not, those unexpected moments are the ones I find myself remembering long after I've returned home.
One thing I've come to believe is that the Mother Road is never the same thing twice. We only get to see what she decides we should see each time we travel her.
I know that sounds a little corny, but it's how I feel about this highway. Route 66 isn't frozen in time, no matter how much we might enjoy imagining what it looked like during its heyday. Businesses open and close, historic buildings are restored or disappear, and communities continue to change. New people discover the road while others dedicate their lives to keeping its stories alive. Even when I return to a place I've visited several times before, the experience is different because the people, the circumstances, and sometimes even the place itself have changed.
In that sense, I think of Route 66 as something almost alive. It's still evolving, still collecting stories, and still giving travelers reasons to come back. I'm certainly one of them.
Bringing You Along for the Ride
Another important part of my story is Adam the Woo.
I never had the opportunity to meet Adam, but I spent countless hours watching his videos. Through his camera, I traveled across the United States and around the world, visiting places I might never have known existed otherwise. What appealed to me most was that he didn't need anything particularly fancy to make an adventure interesting. Sometimes he would simply go somewhere, turn on the camera, and show us what he was seeing.
He demonstrated that exploring didn't have to involve elaborate plans or expensive productions. You could go somewhere simply because you were curious about it, and there was value in being present and experiencing whatever you found.
Sadly, Adam passed away on December 22, 2025. Although we never met, he left a lasting impression on me, and his videos played a major role in inspiring me to start my own YouTube channel.
When I created Ken's Route 66 Adventures, I wanted to document the highway and share what I was experiencing with others who loved it as much as I did. I also hoped I might introduce the Mother Road to people who didn't know much about it. My goal was to make videos that were entertaining but also informative, giving viewers an opportunity to learn something while enjoying the adventure.
I've since heard from subscribers who tell me they've watched several of my videos, sometimes binge-watching entire stretches of the channel, while planning their own Route 66 trips. I can't tell you how much I enjoy hearing that. Knowing that something I filmed might help another traveler decide where to stop or what to see is exactly the kind of thing I hoped would happen when I started.
Of course, I also recognize that not everyone watching will have the opportunity to drive Route 66 themselves. Some people live too far away, while others may not have the time, money, or physical ability to make a trip like that. I want them to be able to experience at least some of the road through my videos, too.
That's one reason I particularly enjoy making my No Talk, Just the Road videos. There's no narration or running commentary, just the experience of traveling down the highway. Viewers can watch the pavement roll beneath the car, see the towns and scenery as they pass, and get a sense of what driving those stretches of Route 66 is actually like.
With my regular adventure videos, I hope people feel like they're right there with me as I explore. I'm not trying to put on a television show or pretend to be some professional travel host. I'm simply sharing what I'm seeing, what I'm learning, and whatever happens along the way. Sometimes things go exactly as planned, and sometimes they don't. Either way, that's part of the experience.
More than anything, I want people to feel like they're riding shotgun with me. If watching one of my videos inspires somebody to get out and explore the Mother Road themselves, that's wonderful. If someone can't make that trip but enjoys spending a little time traveling along with me from home, I'm every bit as happy to have them there.
After all, there's always room for one more in the passenger seat.
Making Up for Lost Time
There's another part of my life that helps explain why getting out and experiencing these places has become so important to me.
I've lost nearly 300 pounds.
For much of my life, my weight limited what I could do and where I could go. There were things I wanted to experience that simply weren't possible, or that required more effort than I could manage. I missed opportunities, put off adventures, and spent years thinking about things I hoped I might be able to do someday. Losing the weight has made many of those experiences possible, but it hasn't given me back the years I lost.
I think about that quite a bit these days.
We all only get a certain number of sunsets. We just never know how many it is until it's too late.
I'll turn fifty-four in October 2026, and I understand that I have more years behind me than ahead of me. That's just basic math. I also know that however many years I have left, not all of them will necessarily be years when I'm physically able to travel and explore the way I can now.
I've become much more conscious of that as I've gotten older, and it's changed how I approach the time I have. I'm not interested in spending another twenty years waiting for the perfect opportunity to do something I've always wanted to do. I've already done enough waiting, and there are still far too many things I want to experience.
I want to spend time with my family and friends, of course, but I also want to get back out on the road whenever I can. I want to visit the small towns, meet the people who call them home, and learn the stories that might otherwise be lost. I want to share tears with someone over a slice of pie, enjoy a storm rolling through Missouri, and stand on the beach in Santa Monica listening to the waves crash against the shore.
I want to exchange a smile with a complete stranger and then spend the next half hour listening to his life story and learning why he's on Route 66. I want to hear a museum volunteer describe what it was like growing up along the highway and talk with a business owner about the challenges of keeping a historic place open. Those are the kinds of experiences that have become so meaningful to me, and I want to have as many of them as I can while I'm still able.
I know there will eventually come a time when I can't explore Route 66 the way I do today. I don't know when that will be, and I don't spend every day worrying about it. But I am aware of it, and that awareness gives me another reason to take advantage of the opportunities I have right now.
I'm making up for lost time, knowing full well that I can never actually get that time back. What I can do is make the most of the time I still have.
It's Not Just an Old Highway
If you've never driven Route 66, you might wonder why someone would spend days traveling an old highway when the interstate can get them across the country so much faster. I understand the question because I used to be the guy who wanted to get from one destination to another as quickly as possible.
There are still times when I need to take the interstate, and I certainly appreciate being able to cover a lot of miles in a relatively short period. But those tend to be some of my least enjoyable days behind the wheel. The scenery often feels repetitive, and much of what you're seeing is designed around moving traffic efficiently from one place to another.
When you take an exit and get back onto the old road, things change. You're suddenly driving through towns instead of around them, passing buildings that have been standing for generations and businesses that still depend on the people willing to leave the interstate behind. You notice little things that you'd never see while traveling at seventy-five miles an hour, and sometimes those little things turn into the most memorable parts of the trip.
Consider the difference between Chicago and Oatman, Arizona. Chicago is a massive city filled with skyscrapers, busy streets, and millions of people. Oatman is a little former mining town in the Arizona desert, a place that has managed to survive long after its busiest years should have been behind it. They couldn't be much more different, yet both are essential parts of Route 66, connected by the same highway and the generations of travelers who followed it.
Between those two places are large cities, small towns, wide-open plains, mountains, deserts, and communities where you might wonder whether anybody still lives there at all. You encounter different landscapes, different cultures, and people whose lives bear little resemblance to those living just a few hundred miles away.
That's part of what makes Route 66 so remarkable to me. The highway gives you an opportunity to see this country in a way that's difficult to experience when you're racing from one interstate exit to another. It isn't always pretty, and not every stop is going to be spectacular. Sometimes you'll find something wonderful, and sometimes you'll wonder why you bothered getting out of the car. Both experiences are part of traveling the old road.
Route 66 isn't just an old highway. It's America, and traveling it gives you a chance to experience some of the best this country has to offer.
I still enjoy visiting ballparks, and I still have destinations I want to reach. The difference is that now I look forward to everything that might happen between leaving home and arriving wherever I'm headed.
The road itself has become part of the reason for going.
At the End of the Day, I'm Just Ken
For all the miles I've traveled and the places I've visited, there's nothing particularly fancy about me. I'm not one of those big YouTubers who gets paid to travel around the country for a living. I work a full-time job, have a wife and two pups waiting at home, and deal with the same everyday responsibilities and challenges as everybody else.
I'm just Ken.
I'm a guy who loves history, enjoys exploring, and has developed a pretty serious attachment to an old highway. I like discovering places I've never been, returning to places I've come to love, and meeting people whose paths happen to cross mine along the way. I enjoy sharing those experiences, partly because I think they're worth preserving and partly because it's simply more fun when somebody else gets to come along.
I don't know how many more adventures I'll be able to take or how many miles of Route 66 I'll get to travel. I hope there are a lot of them, but I've learned not to take that for granted. What matters to me now is getting out there when I can, enjoying the experiences that come my way, and spending whatever time I have doing things that make life worth living.
If my videos entertain you, teach you something new, help you plan your own Route 66 adventure, or just give you a chance to enjoy a little time on the Mother Road, then I'm glad you found your way here.
And if you decide to come along for the next adventure, I'd be happy to have you riding shotgun.
After all, I'm just a guy who loves to explore, and I'd love to share the Mother Road with you the only way that really matters.
Mile by mile.
