The "Old Highway"

Yes, once again I am referring to Route 66, but this time I am talking about a very short piece of the highway that was only used from 1930 to 1937. Mike and I found it when we were out for our "Sunday Drive". The total distance we covered was only about 7 miles and it is located east of Santa Rosa.

When we first took state highway 156 east, we thought it wasn't going to be much of an excursion. Just a 2-lane road, well marked and not well traveled. We were tempted to turn around when we didn't see any evidence of the road signs we had been told about.

An occasional windmill dotted the landscape.

but then we turned off the highway and on to the old road. Our trusty map showed this as an abandoned roadway with a yellow marking so we knew we were on the original Route 66.The road surface was an old style pavement in some places and in others, it had just deteriorated to a gravel surface. Always, it had grass growing in the middle. We tried to determine what the width of the old road may have been and finally decided it probably wasn't much wider than the single lane that remains today.

We passed the ugliest cow I had ever seen and some old rusted parts of something...

And, of course, we saw evidence of what was ... back in the 30's. See the remnants of the old house up on the hill.

This one was closer to the road and in better condition; you can see it was built of the sandstone that inhabits the area.

This is an old petro station. You can see the cement foundations and where the pumps sat out in front. A store or home may have been on the larger cement slab in the back.

And then, of course, there was this... I think it was placed there by the Route 66 Travel Bureau... Mike thinks it was real.

At the end of the stretch of road, someone had painted the sign. Our feet are proof, we were there.