You know you’ve heard the song before…

Now you go through Saint Looey
Joplin, Missouri,
and Oklahoma City is mighty pretty.
You see Amarillo,
Gallup, New Mexico,
Flagstaff, Arizona.
Don’t forget Winona,
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernandino.

Won’t you get hip to this timely tip:
when you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.

We rented a car to drive from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon and the quickest route turned out to be by way of old Route 66! For those of you that know me, I am what people refer to as a “road trip” kind of guy. I’ll take three days in a car over a plane flight any day. There’s a charm in trekking across a stretch of highway and seeing the small bits of America along the way. I’m a sucker for a good tourist trap and I live for discovering old things that are new to me.

(Thus my current Man v. Food obsession.)

Driving on Route 66 was a dream come true. There were three key things of note during our ride on the fabled stretch of highway:

KINGMAN, ARIZONA
As noted before, Kingman is one of the towns mentioned in the popular song about Route 66.  Driving down Highway 93, you pass by Interstate 40 and enter the town.  The place is pure classic America… sadly, though, many of the shops down the main strip were closed and boarded up.  It seems that once the Interstate was built, folks would hop on and didn’t make it far enough into Kingman anymore to see what a gem of a town the place was.

Does that sad tale sound familiar?  It should.  Kingman is one of the towns that Radiator Springs is based on from the Pixar movie Cars.

ROUTE 66 MUSEUM
I opted to drive past the Interstate since we had time to kill and drove around Kingman for a while.  There we discovered the Historic Route 66 Museum.
Kingman Arizona on Route 66
That’s right, kids: ZANY!

The museum was full of classic items from dating back to the 1950s.  You can check out some photos we took starting with this one (click here.) The museum was worth the couple of bucks each and I walked away with a snazzy Route 66 key chain which now holds my Mustang’s keys.

IN-N-OUT BURGER
Legends have been recounted to me about the sheer awesomeness of In-N-Out Burger. The closest thing I’ve been told that exists on the east coast is Five Guys Burgers & Fries.

And I loves me some Five Guys!

We stopped in Kingman on our way back from the Grand Canyon and tried our very first burger from In-N-Out. The first thing you notice when you walk inside the restaurant is the menu:

Kingman Arizona on Route 66

That’s it folks.  No chicken sandwiches of McSomethingorothers – just burgers, fries, drinks and shakes.

Get in, place your order, and get out really quickly… thus the name makes sense.

The place had some pretty big hype to live up to, so I was nervous when I ordered my #3.  The nervousness was for nothing, though, BECAUSE THE BURGER WAS F***ING AWESOME.  Seriously.  The payoff was there.  It was great.  The fries were great.  The soda tasted better because the food was so epic.

I had died and gone to food heaven on Route 66.

Thus, I will now make the time for a pilgrimage to In-N-Out whenever on the west coast again.  The place is worth it. :)

Added note: In-N-Out Burgers are only found in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah.