Re: What If????

As a kid of 18 in 1960 BISH (Before Inter-State Highways) and just out of High School, I had the occasion to travel old Route 66 from
Santa Fe to California.

Several of my buddies had enlisted in the Navy right after HighSchool graduation and combined their money and sent it to me to go out to
San Diego and pick them up and bring them home for leave after boot camp.

I drove my old (wasn't so old then...) 1946 Ford V8 sedan (souped up with a 3/4 race flathead engine, dual carbs, dual exhausts, etc,) solo
from Fort Collins, CO down the old US highway to SantaFe NM, thence westward.

As I recall it took about four days, and I got off 66 after Kingman AZ, and headed down toward San Diego.

Picked up my buddies, and we started back.

Lost a water pump on the Ford out there somewhere west of Las Vegas, NV in the middle of the night while running with the heavy 90 mph gambler traffic.

I fortunately had my toolbox along, and a couple of the boys stayed with the car and jacked up the engine to pull off the failed pump while two of us went into LV to get a new one.

Had to hitch in to town with the cops to buy a replacement pump and then hitch back out to where the car was, probably 20 or 30 miles each way.
Somehow we found a parts store that was open in the middle of the night and that had a replacement pump for the Ford.

We got back out there and put the thing back together, filled the radiator with ditch water from along the RR tracks before sunup and arrived in Las Vegas about breakfast time...none of us was old enough to drink or go to the Casinos, but we had a good look at the place anyhow.

Rest of the trip back to Colorado was pretty much uneventful.

Quite a heady trip and adventure for us young bucks.

I am glad I got to "do" old Route 66 in it's original unaltered form once at least. In a few short years it was too late to ever do such a trip again.