Christmas Life Along the Route

It was early December of 2004 and I had just gotten my son to bed. I decided to sit down at my desk and read the December issue of Arizona Highways. I had a few hours to kill till my wife got home from class, so I was able to get lost in that issue. It wasn't the usual Arizona Highways fair of stunning photos and little story's and history's from Arizona's many wonders but a collection of Christmas memory's about life in Arizona. Their where wonderful stories from all over the state, from Bisbee, Tucson, Yuma, and of course stories from along Route 66. 

There was a story from about life before Christmas vacation at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, another story about a Navajo women making her way from Gallup to fight deep snow on the Navajo reservation to be with her family over the holiday break, and another about a women remembering a bitter-sweet bus trip from Kingman during World War 2. It was a fantastic read that put me in a Christmas state of mind, and really made me think about life elsewhere over Christmas. 

Chicago sky scrapers adorned with red and green lights for the holiday. 

At the same time though I have to believe that there are folks dreaming about life on my end of the route too. Dreaming about the glitz and glamour of Chicago during Christmas. Suddenly understanding the full meaning of the lyrics to Silver Bells. Growing up in someplace like Elk City, Oklahoma, or Needles, California the lights of State Street, the rush of the shoppers, and the dressed up windows of Marshell Fields (yes I know its Macys), and other stores would seem almost intoxicating and fill one with Christmas joy especially when you never even imagined anything like it before. 

You see as I always say that's the thing about Route 66, there is so much territory and so many different ways of life, yet one road links everyone. For Christmas unlike Thanksgiving though each region, and it's cultures and beliefs have their own traditions and takes, on the holiday. 

Throughout the Southwest for instance the the festival of the La Posada takes place, a nine day festival celebrating the coming of Christmas, and culminating on Christmas Eve with the La Posada reinactment in which a young couple wonders from house to house looking for shelter the same way Mary and Joseph did before Christ birth. This is followed by midnight Mass and then Tamales and Posola into the wee small hours of Christmas. 

In the Midwest on the other hand we jump into Christmas on Black Friday. From there on in the small towns along the route have weekends filled with parades, craft shows, Christmas pageants, breakfasts with Santa, and cookie exchanges. In suburbia houses are decorated to the hilt with lights to help break the darkness of Decembers long cold nights. Midwesterners also turn the oven up to give the house a little extra heat, and to bake batch after batch of cookies shaped like Christmas icons. While midnight masses here are only followed by coffee or hot chocolate and folks get it bed right after so Santa can deliver his goods in the wee small hours. 

Town squares across country combine small town life and down home Christmas spirit. 

In the miles of desert that Route 66 covers through California,  Christmas is often marked by folks making special trips to towns far away to do the Christmas shopping since there own towns are too small for much of anything. This gives shopping day a special feel of  excitement as one must manage to hide gifts, while trying to peak at what was just bought for them all when traveling in the same vehicle. But although snow is an uncommon visitor to these areas the nights do get cold, and the winds get bad. While on the coast Christmas and beach life mingle to create the odd images of Santa on a surf board. Considering that many of the areas in California along 66 have been settled by Midwestern transplants it's not uncommon to see the same traditions of baking and Christmas light insanity pop up in the usually snowless warmer terrain. 

The terrain, the cultures, the history, and the miles all play a role in how Christmas is celebrated on Route 66. There are many traditions and many other celebrations I missed here. But I have no doubt one could fill a book with such Christmas time legacys, by just traveling from town to town. 

So no matter where you are take a few minutes to lose yourself along Route 66, and imagine how Christmas in celebrated from Chicago to LA, and all points in between. 

I hope you have a Merry Christmas, and in case I don't get another article out between one and then I wish you a Happy New Year too! 

Thanksgiving on Route 66

It’s the day before Thanksgiving can you feel the excitement? The day before Thanksgiving has always been one of the busiest travel days of the year and has been by tradition for the number of years. When you look up in the sky tonight look for the lines of lights in the sky of airplanes in the landing patterns. Around O’Hare we can almost read by these lights. Or if you choose to look at the train stations for any larger city and see the crowds fighting their way off trains, and you will see this travel holiday is very much alive. Of course the highways are also loaded to the brim as well. 

It’s a fair guess that Route 66 will see some traffic in many spots today too, but probably no where near what it use to see. 

When it comes to Thanksgiving I have always had a love for the holiday. Not because of Turkey and all that even though that helps, but because of the day before the holiday and all the energy the need to travel generates that in essence kicks off the holiday season. It’s also one of those times of year when you find yourself able to get into the spirit of things, and even begin to feel the way things use to be. I think it has a lot to do with Thanksgivings traditions, and maybe the fact that I have traveled portions of the route on this holiday as well. 

Thinking back on my own memories of following the route from Chicago to Rolla as a kid on the way to Mountain Home, AR to see my grandparents, I can channel the feelings so of what must have been. I can imagine folks traveling home to here and there to towns on the route or relatively not that far from it. In my minds eye I can see the fall foliage which in the milder climate around Missouri all the way to Texas clings on the trees a little later then it does in Chicago. I can only imagine driving the route in each era, and being homeward bound. Fighting the traffic and rolling through small town after small town, anxiously waiting to see home and everyone I love again. 

There’s a sense of people all experiencing the holiday in their own ways, and with foods that are traditional to them. I can see tables with foods made from local ingredients, honeys, peppers, avocados, mutton, beef and etc. I see pies off all types made with local flare, and wines and beers of all types. The holiday is about sharing and giving thanks and people up and down the route all do that but in their own way that is all still uniquely American. 

Lets not also forget many of the little towns along the way too, many of which probably have traditions of there own for Thanksgiving. Look at Winslow, AZ for example which has a Thanksgiving parade dating back to the 1940's. How many other town have there own little things they do, such as community Turkey dinners, and adopt a serviceman programs, or even goofy odd little things that are just fun traditions. 

The thing is when we think Route 66 we are often filled with images of Summer, and station wagons, Disneyland, California Beaches, and Cubs games. We never see the route that exist outside of Summer, that year round home for people who live with the route daily 365. There is something really splendid about seeing the route at a different time of year, and I think Thanksgiving on into Christmas is probably the best times to see Route 66 outside of its pop culture box.  

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving, and if you are traveling be safe!

Thanksgiving Memories of Rail Travel

For me there is no single holiday that is so quintessentially American and synonymous with travel as Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving or should I say the day before Thanksgiving has long been held as one of the busiest travel holidays of the year for decades, well back to the golden age of railway travel. 

 

If you have never traveled by train cross country then you don’t know the sense of community you get on such a trip. There is something really unique about traveling a long distance in the limited yet communal space of a train. You eat with your fellow passengers in the dining car, relax with them in the lounge car, and hop off the train with them to get some fresh air, and maybe hunt for souvenirs at those exaggerated stops here and there. It’s a unique experience that makes you feel like a human in our modern world of social media and disconnection. You see its not like car travel where your off in your own compact little world, and its also not like airline travel where it’s pointless to talk to your fellow passengers because you will only be with them for a few hours and likely never see them again. With train travel though, you will see your fellow train passengers over and over again possibly for a few days based on your destination.

 

My reason for talking about the joys of train travel not only has to do with the fact that this is a train travel related blog, but because I want to talk about my own experiences traveling on the Southwest Chief the day before Thanksgiving.

 

The year was 2000 and I was on my way back home on the Southwest Chief. I had traveled from Chicago to Barstow, CA about a week and a half earlier to see my girlfriend (now Wife). It was the second time in my life I had traveled cross country by train, the first time was also on the Southwest Chief but I only went as far as Flagstaff, AZ. This time in 2000 would mark the first time I would travel by first class though, an experience I would suggest to anyone.

 

My story starts on November 20, 2000. The Southwest Chief rolled into Barstow about two hours late. After a long teary goodbye with my future wife in an almost classic movie style, I climbed onboard the train and was taken to the transition car at the front of the train. Here the conductors tried to sort out my printed first class reservation with Amtrak, compared to their passenger listings that showed me as coach. Luckily this didn’t take to long and by the time I got to my room it was set up for the night, and considering it was shy of 12AM that was a good thing. I feel asleep talking with my future wife via a still new technology called “texting”, making sure she made it from Barstow 30 miles back to her hometown.

 

The next day was a Tuesday and I began to meet some of my fellow passengers at breakfast. It was at this point I could begin to feel the excitement of the oncoming holiday. That Wednesday though November 22, 2000 is when everything really came alive on the train. Breakfast and lunch conversation from all over the dining car where about Thanksgiving, people talking about who they were going to see, and how much more traveling they had to do to get there. With the train running late there was concern that some people wouldn’t make connections in Chicago with other trains. I remember having breakfast with one couple who where going to have Thanksgiving with family in Pennsylvania and they where a little concerned we would get in too late for them to hop the next train to Pennsylvania. For the most part though there was just this joy and light I saw in everyone something I hadn’t seen in people as an adult.

 

As the train rolled on one of the most entertaining things to hear where announcements from the conductor about goings on at back of the train in coach. Apparently the coach seating was beginning to fill with college students, some of who in their excitement to get home where beginning to become a bit mischievous. Announcements came warning passengers at the back of the train to “Not play with the PA system, or they will be put off the train at the next stop!”, this was followed up about an hour and a half later with “Use of alcohol by minors is strictly prohibited on trains, anyone under the age of 21 caught drinking will be put off at the next stop and turned over to the local Sheriff”. Don’t worry it gets better, about an hour later we hear “Smoking and controlled substances are both prohibited on trains, any passenger caught smoking on board, or having just left a bathroom that is filled with smoke will be put off the train at the next stop, and turned over to the local Sheriff”. I later choose to ask my porter what was going on in back of the train, and thats when he explained the glut of college students picked up here and there and the sudden party atmosphere that had broken out. I was half inclined to join them.

 

The train sadly rolled into Union Station Chicago 3 hours late and yes some of the nice folks I had met on board did miss their connections. Union Station itself was a madhouse just from Amtrak passengers alone, remember back then the economy was good and folks traveled more. I was sad to step off the Southwest Chief in a way that night, since I found the excitement of my fellow travelers about going anywhere to celebrate Thanksgiving intoxicating. But on the long car ride home I realized something, in a way I celebrated a special Thanksgiving with a different kind of family in a more communal sense. Living, talking and eating with my fellow passengers I got to learn about what they give thanks for, and what was important to them and it wasn’t all that different from what was important to me. So if you want to experience Thanksgiving in a different sense try a train trip one day.

I wish you a happy a joyous Thankgiving!!