Funny how some things in life just kind of sneak up on you. Route 66 did that to me. Perhaps I had driven on parts of it when I was a child. Most certainly I had, but if you asked me to recall specific places, I couldn't. My first memory of Route 66 was on a trip I took to Arizona and New Mexico in 1993. I drove parts of Route 66 through Needles and around Kingman. I liked it, but not enough to make a conscience decision to ride it or anything.
So what was it that finally convinced me to ride my bicycle the length of Route 66? I'm not quite sure. But somewhere during the winter of 1996 I decided that was my goal, as part of a larger trip that one day would connect the west coast of the U.S. with the east coast.
And so my journey begins...
