Route 66 in California (Images of America) Paperback – October 17, 2005

Having been born in Los Angeles, like my father, and having a grandmother who left Kentucky with her husband when she was but 19 years old in 1918, and DRIVING out west to Los Angeles on the National Old Trails Road I remembered her telling me of her trip.The ENTIRE road out was but a trail in most places and Grandma got REAL good at patching inner tubes, which she would do several times a day. They camped out at night and when it rained slept in the car. They would refuel and resupply at each town or village they came to. How I envied her sojourn.I have the complete series from Illinois to California and some selected towns like where I live, Kingman AZ, and California. Actually living on old Route 66 makes the series come alive and I've explored many places found in the books and photo documented them. They are a good read and the photos are good quality. I highly recommend the entire set if you are at all interested in the Mother Road.

If you’re interested in Route 66 and/or the California towns along Route 66, then this booklet should be on your shelf. I have often pulled it off my shelf to reminisce about the old highway. It is well-written and nicely organized; the author has done a fine job. However, I would like to make one correction. On Page 39, the Richfield Hi-Octane service station photograph is dated as being about 1947. It was actually taken during the Summer of 1938. The gas station was located on the corner of 4th Street and Route 66 in Victorville. The fellow standing in front on the left is my father. (I donated the photo to the Victorville Route 66 Museum.)

The photography and the caption writing in this book are the best -- very well documented and researched. But I would have liked to see more maps of various Route 66 alignments and more of the history of building and traveling the highway itself. Still, the book is worth the money. I'm glad that I bought it.

This book was a big disappointment. I was expecting (and hoping for) a book similar to the other Arcadia Publishing books on various Route 66 states. But not so. Whereas the other books from Arcadia Publishing are focused directly on Route 66 sights and businesses, this California book is not. Route 66 is kind of a theme around which the book loosely revolves.My favorite part of Route 66 in California is from Barstow to Needles. This book is 125 pages long but less than 20 pages cover this entire area and some of the pictures are from Death Valley, Calico, Grapes of Wrath publicity shots, auto accidents and a dead body that have little or nothing to do with 66. My next-favorite part of Route 66 in California is from San Bernardino north to Barstow but only 15 pages cover this region. There was so much more history that I was hoping for along Route 66 east of San Bernardino that I did not get. About three-quarters of the book is about metropolitan Los Angeles.On page 9 the author actually prepares you for what is to come, stating that he chose not to "limit the viewpoint to resources actually on the roadside . . . " but to "take a broader view to include common side trips and tourist destinations". So that's what you will get: many photographs and captions of sights and business off of 66. You will get sports like the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dodger Stadium, the Rose Bowl, the Olympics at the Coliseum, and you will get Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland. And you will get a lot (a lot!) of Hollywood movie studio shots and details, like young actor Ronald Reagan schmoozing with Dean Martin, Bob Hope and Rita Hayworth, and Sammy Davis Jr. on a movie set, and you will see famous Hollywood hotels and restaurants on Wilshire or Hollywood Blvd., etc. In fact the author begins referring to the "Route 66 corridor" when it comes to greater Los Angeles, abandoning a more strict Route 66 interpretation.The author does say on page 10 that "A great majority of the images are nonetheless actually along the Route 66 roadside." It might be just semantics about what a "great majority" means. I took a piece of paper and marked little dashes for the images that were or were probably on 66, those that definitely were not, and the rest unknown, and found more than half were on 66 but that required considering all the alignments, including very early and brief ones like Broadway downtown for example.This book has accuracy issues. There are errors. For example, on page 19 a picture of General Patton's army troops on maneuvers in the California desert preparing to fight General Rommel in North Africa is shown with the date of "around 1944". Well, that's not right. General Patton's desert training was principally in 1942 and Rommel was driven from Africa in 1943.I'm very dubious about the picture of page 31 showing a bus and automobiles approaching Barstow from the east, the caption says. I don't buy it whatsoever. I have been on old Route 66 dozens of times east of Barstow and I can tell you there is no place where it is so curvy and no place where there are so many trees. Then I wondered if the scene could be on old 66 west (or south if you will) of Barstow between Barstow and Victorville, so I drove the stretch with a copy of this photograph in my hand trying to align it to the terrain, but even there the road is not curvy and there are almost no trees either. The scene may not even be on Route 66 at all.Page 33 has a photograph titled "Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Streamliner" which is identified as UP M1000. Any railroad buff will tell you that it is a Union Pacific Railroad train headed up by the M-10000 (not M1000) locomotive. This locomotive had the distinct round grills in the front. The streamliner had nothing to do with the Santa Fe Railroad at all except that it could have been on the Santa Fe tracks. Ever since the Union Pacific Railroad acquired the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad, the Union Pacific inherited trackage rights to share the tracks with the Santa Fe from Daggett to Barstow and Victorville to San Bernardino via Cajon Pass.Page 37 has a photograph titled "Sagebrush Annie's" but the structure in the photograph is really Popatov's (since razed). Sagebrush Annie's was a completely different building.Anyway, I'm always bummed out when I can see obvious factual errors in any book. In such cases, many readers like me will question the validity and accuracy of the entire book, which is where I stand now.

For my homework

LONG TIME AGO, MY DAD TOOK US KIDS ON ROUTE 66. FROM EAST TO WEST. THEN BACK FROM WEST TO EAST. WHAT A FEAST. NOW FOLKS ARE DOING IT, IN CAR CLUBS. GO ROUTE 66. THANKS TO IMAGES OF AMERICA. AND GLEN DUNCAN FOR AN AWESOME JOB. LOVE THIS BOOK AND SO WILL YOU.

This book was not a trip down Route 66. It is a mishmash of side journeys. I was hoping for more pictures of places along 66, with pictures showing the "now" look. The book needs to be retitled, it is misleading.This is a good book if you are looking for Hollywood photos, amusement parks that are NOT along the old 66. Not so great a book if you are looking for photos that travel along Route 66. This book misses the mark. The photos are great, but not what I was seeking I will be donating this book to the library.

Part of the next trip

Hubby loves Rt. 66 books..he enjoyed