Our Route 66 Odyssey: How It All Started
It was sometime in late 2006 when our firstborn son brought up the subject of a road trip. A male-bonding kind of thing, he said, a father-son event where we could explore the Great American Highway. Route 66 was his first idea and, as it turned out, the best one. My response was that there was only one proper way to do 66 and that was in a Corvette. “Yeah, right,” he said. You have to understand that I have typically driven squarish sedans and minivans for most of my adult life so a Vette is way out of the box; it’s a car that is too cool for the likes of me. But I was serious.
So sometime in January 2007 I started browsing the paper and online ads for used Corvettes. This was new territory for me and it was fraught, I’m sure, with dangers for the unwary buyer. Heedless to all that, I pulled money from savings and started car shopping in earnest by April. Saw a beauty of a 1984 Corvette, electric blue, parked a few blocks from our church, with some flyers under the left wiper. I nabbed one and took it home to contemplate; but by the time I gathered the nerve to call, I was too late. It had already been sold. So also with the next one I checked on, and the one after that. There was no rush, other than the need to get one and road test it before our trip which was now tentatively planned for mid-September. Our resolve was such that come hell, high water or three bucks a gallon, we were determined to make this trip even if not in a Corvette.
