Back to Oregon from Missouri via Route 66

Hi All! Thank you for the great advice on getting to my family reunion in Missouri. I'm planning the trip home & decided to head south & take Route 66. I'll be leaving St. Louis on July 5th and have to be in Oregon by the 12th so I have some time to wander. I've been to a few of the major cities so I have some ideas already but I'd love to hear other ideas of what to see (I like everything from cheesy to historical). Any advice on where to stay & best local cuisine is also appreciated. Lastly any ideas of where to head north from Nevada in case I don't have time to drive all the way to LA then north.

Thanks!
GF

You might want to take a little time and poke around the map center here. Chances are you'll find a lot of things that tickle your fancy. Here are some things off the top of my head: Oklahoma City Memorial; Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, TX; Tucumcari is full of Rt 66 history; Albuquerque - Petroglyph Natl Mon, Rio Grande State Nature Park, the Smithsonian's Nuclear Museum; western NM - Bandera Volcano and Ice Caves Park, El Morro National Monument, Gallup is full of Rt 66 history; eastern AZ - Petrified Forest National Park; western AZ - Grand Canyon NP, and some of the longest remaining stretches of US-66.

As for getting back to Oregon in the event you are ready to go north sooner -- US-93 from I-40 west of Kingman to Las Vegas, then US-95 to US-395 into Oregon. If you are ready to go north sooner, get out a US map or atlas -- there are many combinations of routes that you can use to move northwest.


Donna

By starting your homeward journey from St. Louis and wanting to follow a bit of US-66, you are 'condemning' yourself to backtracking for the first couple of hundred miles until you pass Springfield or so. But that's not a terrible thing, and with seven days or so for the return drive not such a major detour either.

To add to the quite complete list of possibilities that Donna gave you... The Salinas Missions (three sites in the Albuquerque area), Walnut Creek National Monument (requires that you drive a bit of Historic Route 66), a drive down Santa Fe Ave (old US-66) in Flagstaff and while there visiting Lowell Observatory and the Museum of Northern Arizona, the longest stretch of old US-66 (now marked AZ-66) from Seligman to Kingman through Peach Springs, and a bit off the beaten path Oatman AZ.

I agree with Donna that this would be a generally good place to turn north and head for home. US-93 over the Colorado River at the Hoover Dam and into Las Vegas would be the logical choice, then US-95 up to Reno (and perhaps Virginia City) and US-395 into California. At Johnstonville CA-36/CA-44/CA-89 would take you through the Lassen National Forest to I-5 at Mount Shasta. I think you can find your way back to Eugene from there.


AZBuck

As well as the above, you could cut across Death Valley from Beatty - call in at the ghost town of Rhyolite - to Lone Pine, and take 395 north from there. It is a most scenic route. Call in at the lovely town of Bishop. It also passes just by Mono Lake, on the way to Carson City.

Whatever you do, try not to miss Oatman AZ.

Lifey