By Christiane Oelrich
Chicago - Jeff Lessenberry stops off at the Launching Pad drive-in restaurant in Wilmington, Illinois, and places his order.
"Two eggs with ketchup, a coke and an extra-large T-shirt," he asks before sitting down in a corner of the diner.
"That's America the way it used to be," he says. "Today everything has been standardised: Burger King, Wal-Mart. But here the good old times stayed around awhile."
Lessenberry is travelling along Route 66, which runs about 4 000km from Chicago to Santa Monica in California.
Every year hundreds of thousands of people just like him travel the same route hoping to get a taste of how the United States used to be, when a trip from Chicago to St Louis was a real adventure.
"One day last summer we had 9 000 Harleys in front of the door, says Jerry Gatties, who owns the Launching Pad. "Motoring clubs and bikers from all over the world come here."
The Launching Pad is about 80km south-west of Chicago. For anyone who starts their journey right at the beginning - at the junction of the Windy City's Michigan and Adams Avenues - it's regarded as one of the prime breakfast joints.
Highway 66 was the most important road traversing the US until 1960. In 1984 the last original stretch near Williams in Arizona was replaced by Highway 40 and the old route was almost forgotten.
That changed when enthusiasts in love with the romanticism of the highway began to repair the original signs, renovate derelict petrol stations, write tour guides and tend to the mythos of Route 66.
The road is now a designated "historic route" and appears as such on maps.
After Wilmington and about 40km of apparently endless country road, the route begins to follow railway and power lines.
A signpost outside the town of Dwight (population of 4 300) welcomes visitors to "the friendliest town in the US". Right behind, a second billboard informs still-peckish travellers of another approaching diner, "Big Al's Chicago-style Hot Dogs".
In between diners and small towns, the landscape is dotted with old-time red timber farmhouses. A fresh breeze blows across the farmlands, and anyone in a hurry will probably be annoyed by the many slow tractors on the road.
However, it's unlikely that anyone in a hurry will be on Route 66 in the first place. This is one road that is not about the end goal: the route itself is the destination, the journey is the trip.
Grain silos on the horizon announce the approach of Odell, "the small town with a big heart". Odell is 140km from Chicago; there are another 3 800km between the town and the Pacific.
Another highlight of Route 66 can be found here: Odell's restored gas station. Originally built in 1932, it fell into disuse in 1975 but was restored to its former glory by enthusiasts nine years ago.
Further down the road in Springfield, Illinois - the former home of Abraham Lincoln - is another icon of Route 66, this time a living one.
Bill Shea, 85, ran an auto workshop in the town for 50 years. After retirement he turned it into a shrine to Route 66 memorabilia; old gas pumps, photographs, posters and the like, and will also regale visitors with tales of times past.
Construction work on Route 66 began almost 80 years ago. Joining a road building crew became a lifesaver to tens of thousands of people during the depression years.
When the Midwest turned into a dust bowl and thousands of acres of land became unusable, the road became the exit route for many impoverished farmers heading west.
The road came to symbolise everything that distinguished the nation: mobility, the desire for a new beginning, the move west.
The author John Steinbeck created a memorial to the road in his novel The Grapes of Wrath. "The mother road, the road of flight," Steinbeck called it.
Motels, gas stations and diners have sprung up along the highway to supply the needs of the nostalgic seeking a trip back in time.
The Midwest proper begins after Springfield and endless fields of corn greet the traveller. "A wonderful place to bring up a family," boasts the sign outside Farmersville, Illinois.
A little further down the road is Litchfield and its 50s-era drive-in cinema, the Sky View, while in Pontiac, across the state line in Missouri, the Route 66 Hall of Fame museum provides yet another diversion for drivers.
Shortly before St Louis, a stop-off at Ted Drewes Frozen Custard store, where ice cream in all its guises has been made since 1929, is a must.
Highway 66 passes through eight states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Each one has its own association dedicated to preserving the highway's heritage and is willing to give tips to any traveller that asks.
The final 600km from Flagstaff in Arizona to Los Angeles and then the Pacific Ocean are regarded by some as the best along the whole route.
The highway passes close to the Grand Canyon, the artists' city of Sedona, casino city Las Vegas and the Mojave Desert. - Sapa-dpa
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