Monday, December 24, 2007

Route 66: A Great Project Source


From three years ago: Another slide show I created as a "teaser" for a never to be done transportation themed technology/social studies units (death due to the reading/writing process gestapo and collaborators). The original sound file was corrupted, Bing Crosby substituted.I thought Route 66 would be a great "resource mine" to make use of. I see others have similar views and last years great "Cars" movie would have been a terrific stimuli for the kids. The folks at Alvarez and Marsal don't have ideas like that. There's a great blog devoted to Route 66, some excerpts:
Emily recently renovated a couple of Route 66 sites she owns — Route66Food.com and SpringBreak66.com. Route 66 Food is a guide to restaurants, and Spring Break 66 is an online resource for college students considering a trip on the Main Street of America.Both were moved to Wordpress.com. Here’s her explanation on the Route 66 yahoogroup on why: Spring Break 66 likely will not receive tons of updates, as it’s pretty stable, but the blog format is A.) free, and B.) easier to update than a standard Web site. I’ll probably post travel tips and what not on there from time to time. Route 66 Food should improve dramatically with the new format, as it is now manned by a team of reviewers whose names will be familiar to y’all: Mike Ward, Ron Warnick, and Kip Welborn will all be contributing restaurant reviews to the blog. I’m still ironing out some techie-type stuff there to get the non-Wordpress junkies set up with Wordpress IDs. I am still in need of some assistance in the form of additional reviewers, so if you are on 66 often and are interested in helping, please e-mail me … and let me know. I am particularly in need of volunteers in Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, and California, but I will also be accepting guest reviews from folks in other locales, so don’t let geography deter you from volunteering.
Review: “Dinosaurs Across Route 66″ comic December 23, 2007 Posted by Ron in History, Movies, Publications, Road trips. add a comment
Many Route 66 aficionados are, to put it gently, a little long in the tooth. So many of them fret about whether there will be enough young people interested in the Mother Road to keep it viable in the future. That’s why many roadies rejoiced at the 2006 release of Disney-Pixar’s animated movie, “Cars,” which introduced Route 66 to millions of kids. Roadies have reason to celebrate again with the publication of a comic book, “Dinosaurs Across Route 66″ (32 pages, $3.95). It was created by California artist and literacy advocate Phil Yeh, whose previous comic, “Dinosaurs Across America,” has sold almost 200,000 copies. So Yeh already has a sizable audience that can be informed about the Mother Road. In “Dinosaurs Across Route 66,” the ever-patient Mrs. Mills drives a flying convertible west on or above the Mother Road. Accompanying her is Patrick Rabbit, an oaf on a “fact-free diet” who has no motivation to read or learn or aspire to anything except host a television show and become famous. Every so often, the duo comes across a “magical time hole” where they can go back to another era and visit figures such as Abraham Lincoln or see defunct Route 66 landmarks such as the Trails Restaurant in Duarte, Calif. They also meet the “Dinosaurs Across America” crew, who escaped extinction by learning to read and building a flying time machine.
The book is available here

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