“You’ll never understand America until you’ve driven Route 66—that’s old Route 66—all the way,” a truck driver in California once said to author Rick Antonson. “It’s the most famous highway in the world.”

With some determination, grit, and a good sense of direction, one can still find and drive on 90 percent of the original Route 66 today. This travelogue follows Rick and his travel companion Peter along 2,400 miles through eight states from Chicago to Los Angeles as they discover the old Route 66. With surprising and obscure stories about Route 66 personalities like Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, Al Capone, Salvador Dali, Dorothea Lange, Cyrus Avery (the Father of Route 66), the Harvey Girls, Mickey Mantle, and Bobby Troup (songwriter of “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66”), Antonson’s fresh perspective reads like an easy drive down a forgotten road: winding, stopping now and then to mingle with the locals and reminisce about times gone by, and then getting stuck in the mud, sucked into its charms. Rick mixes hilarious anecdotes of happenstance travel with the route’s difficult history, its rise and fall in popularity, and above all, its place in legend.

The author has committed part of his book’s proceeds to the preservation work of the National Route 66 Federation.

Born in Vancouver in 1949, Rick Antonson attended Simon Fraser University and started Antonson Publishing and Nunaga Publishing in the early 1970s. In the mid-1980s Rick worked as vice-president and general manager of Douglas & McIntyre, also serving as president of the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia. He left publishing to become vice president of the Great Canadian Railtour Company Ltd., operating a train service between Vancouver and the Canadian Rockies. This led to his role as president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver. Rick has also served as chairman of the Oceans Blue Foundation, a group that works to encourage a more environmentally responsible approach to tourism in the Pacific Northwest. Rick was on the Board of Directors for Vancouver/Whistler 2010 Olympic Winter Games Bid Corporation and has served as co-chairman for the BC Special Olympics.

Rick Antonson's profile page