In 2003, the Hampton Inns hotel chain sponsored a caravan of film crews and assorted RVs down America’s “Mother Road,” as they produced a documentary-style road trip for home DVD consumption. The resulting 5-disk set, Route 66 Marathon Tour: Chicago to L.A. is a great resource for those planning their own Route 66 trip, or simply for those who’d prefer to experience this icon of American travel from the comfort of home.
Route 66 Marathon Tour Makes 75 Stops
Released in 2005 by Madacy Entertainment (available at most DVD outlets, like Best Buy or Amazon), the Route 66 Marathon Tour makes more than 75 stops along the 2400+ mile highway, traveling through eight states in just over six hours of viewing.
Most of the better-known roadside icons—from the Cozy Dog Drive Inn to the Funk's Grove Maple "Sirup" farm to the Wigwam Motel—are visited, as well as numerous intriguing lesser-known sites. In fact, it is those more “hidden” places that ultimately make this set a real find, giving the trip-planner new ideas and promoting the notion that a trip down 66 is a real adventure.
DVD Highlights Lesser-Known Route 66 Roadside Icons
Among those intriguing stops? An Erick, Oklahoma couple dressed in matching red-striped overalls, calling themselves the Mediocre Musicmakers, and singing your requests for tips. A gorgeous old 1930’s Harvey House hotel —the La Posada—now a combination art gallery & upscale hotel, responsible, to some degree, for the revival of Winslow, Arizona. And many more.
While the cinematography in this collection is decent and the pace fairly even, what really distinguishes it from other Route 66 travelogues is its focus on the people of the road. Not only do the longtime road folk—motel & diner proprietors, entertainers and writers—tell their own stories, but they do so in a relatively unscripted manner.
The result is sometimes a little awkward, but always authentic, as if you’d just bumped into them along the route. It gives this DVD-collection a credibility that might be missing from a scripted, narrated film. Extras included in this nicely tin-boxed set include a cool Route 66 map (with every town along the way!) and six postcards, both by 66 artist Jerry McLanahan.
While the 5-DVD set Route 66 Marathon Tour: Chicago to L.A. is no Emmy-winner (it sometimes has the feel of an infomercial), it is an informative and entertaining tour of America’s Mother Road. Anyone planning a trip down the old highway will benefit from viewing this film as they do so.
Dale Van Every - Dale Van Every is a freelance and fiction writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He earned his Masters Degree in English Literature from ...
Join the Conversation