IT IS an American icon, 2,400 miles long, thousands are drawn to see it every year – yet it doesn't actually exist. When John Steinbeck gave Route 66 its memorable tag – "the Mother Road" he called it in The Grapes of Wrath, the road that carried the poverty-stricken and their meagre belongings in the 1930s from Dust Bowl-ravaged farms to a new life in California –a legend was made.
It had been built a few years earlier, in the late 1920s, from a hotchpotch collection of dirt roads, stretching, as we know from the song made famous by Chuck Berry and The Rolling Stones, from Chicago to LA. It was the gateway to a land of milk and
honey, and it became a Mecca in its own right, the garish neon signs of the often quirky motels, gas stations and cafes becoming must-see attractions for the travellers who took to it.
But it was remarkably short-lived. The beginning of the end came after the Second World War, when the need for a new road network across the US was recognised. The bypassing began in 1953 and by 1976 Route 66 had ceased to exist as a continuous stretch of road, replaced by interstate highways.
Now it is enjoying a revival. Stretches of the road that remain are attracting a new generation of travellers wanting to enjoy the kicks, among them celebrity Route 66ers such as Paul McCartney, who drove it last year. Signs that proclaim you are on the "Historic Route 66" mark the way – no more so than in Oklahoma, where 400 miles of the original route can still be driven.
There are three Route 66 museums in the state that help tell its story. The best, the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum at Clinton, 84 miles west of Oklahoma City, documents the building, demise and folklore of the road, with plenty of artefacts from its heyday. You can learn the lingo of the truck drivers: "grandma" is slang for the lowest gear; "hauling post holes" is driving an empty truck. Or the language of the diners: "Drown one, hold the hail" is a glass of Coke without ice; "burger with breath" a hamburger with onions, and "burn the British" a toasted English muffin. There are reminiscences and horror stories from the Dust Bowl years, and family vacation movies from the Fifties.
The Route 66 Interpretive Centre at Chandler, midway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, is fun: it mostly consists of short films of the Mother Road from the 1920s to today. The gimmick is that you watch them while sitting in car seats or, best, while lying on mock motel beds. At the National Route 66 Museum at Elk City, near the Texas border, you can watch trailers for drive-in movie classics such as Creature From the Black Lagoon from the back seat of a Fifties-era car.
It is not easy to stick to the route with any precision. A dip into a detailed guidebook produced by the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, reveals the difficulties: near Oklahoma City, it warns, most markers are missing: "Key places that are not marked are the westbound jog from Broadway to Memorial, then under Highway 77 over to Kelley, 23rd and Lincoln, westbound 23rd and May and the May/SH 66/39th Expressway/I-44 interchange". A test for any satnav system. In Tulsa, you are advised not to follow Route 66 signs at all.
Tourists don't have to be purists, however. And there's more to be found in Oklahoma than just driving along an extinct road.
There's its place in history as cowboy country: the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum at Oklahoma City pays homage to ranching, Stetsons and sharp-shooters (and, somewhat bizarrely, contains a collection of more than 2,000 different types of barbed wire). Cowboys remain a feature to this day: the city is home to the world's biggest cattle stock market; 70,000 heads of cattle were sold there in one week recently, though the average is more like 10,000. Anyone can wander around the catwalk above the pens to see the cows herded in by cowboys and cowgirls on horseback, and to visit the auction room. The market is in the Stockyards area of the city, undergoing a renaissance, where on a walk down Agnew Avenue you can join the throng at the Cattlemen's Steakhouse – the oldest restaurant in Oklahoma state – for one of the biggest breakfasts you are ever likely to see, and browse the enormous western-ware shops. Boots and hats, they've got 'em.
And there's the state's place in history as American Indian country. Oklahoma has branded itself as "Native America", and a visit to the Cherokee Heritage Centre at Tahlequah, 70 miles east of Tulsa, is a good place to find out why. The centre has a recreated American Indian village, where staff in traditional costume demonstrate arts and crafts such as bow-and arrow-making. But it is in the museum where the glimpse into the past is told best. It relates the story of the Trail of Tears, an unedifying moment of American history when, in an illustration of man's inhumanity to man reminiscent of the Highland Clearances, five Indian tribes were sent packing from the east to the unloved, empty land called, then, just plain Indian Territory. (Most agreed to the move, signing treaties with the US government, but then they knew there was no alternative. One of the tribes, the Cherokee, were led by a one-eighth full-blooded Native American named John Ross).
At Ponca City, a small town in the north of the state, the Standing Bear Museum tells the story of a historic court judgment that set a benchmark for Native Americans' civil rights.
And the American Indian, too, remains a feature of present-day Oklahoma. Every June, the Red Earth Festival is held in Oklahoma City, the biggest tribal gathering of its kind in the country, where hundreds of Indians of all ages, in brilliantly-coloured feather, buckskin and bead outfits weighing as much as 80lb, parade through the streets and over three days compete in dancing competitions. In a neighbouring hall, 200 artists have wares on show ranging from oil pictures painted on feathers (from turkeys, not eagles, these days) to pots, clothes and jewellery.
The state has an eclectic mix of other tourist attractions. In Oklahoma City, they include Bricktown, an old warehouse district given a makeover – including the addition of a picturesque canal – that is now the chic place to dine. Or there are esoteric destinations such as the Gymnastics Hall of Fame (Nadia Comaneci, the Romanian star of the 1976 Montreal Olympics, lives nearby).
The most dramatic, and moving, place to visit in the capital, however, is the result of a 27-year-old man's drive into town on 19 April, 1995. Timothy McVeigh parked a hire truck packed with 4,800lb of explosives outside government offices; the blast killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured 850. The road outside the site of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building is now a reflecting pool; at one end an arch is inscribed with the time 9:01, a minute before the explosion; at the other a second arch bears the time 9:03. Where the building stood is a lawn containing 168 bronze, glass and stone office chairs, laid out in rows representing the building's nine floors. It, and the adjacent no-holds-barred museum, are haunting. Half a million people visit each year; go there just about any time of day or night, and someone will be there. The memorial to the biggest terror attack on US soil before 9/11 remains an irresistible draw.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma's second city, Art Deco buildings and two major art galleries, the Gilcrease Museum, with its huge collection of western art, and the Philbrook, a highlight of which is its collection of Native American artefacts, are big attractions. A few miles out of town, Discoveryland stages open-air performances of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma. Ponca City is home to the Marland Mansion, an oil magnate's grand 1920s home with 55 stunningly decorated and furnished rooms and the biggest home between the Vanderbilt's Biltmore estate in North Carolina and Hearst Castle on the California coast.
And then there are the ranches: no visit to Oklahoma would be complete without a stay at one. Ex-Beatles, it appears, prefer the dude variety – Meadowlake Ranch outside Tulsa, is a huntin', shooting', fishin' resort run by larger-than-life Tom Warren, a man who would make a good Santa if it were not for the stogie (cigar) in his mouth and the gun (for killing snakes) on his belt. "Paul McCartney stayed in one of my log cabins last year," he says. "He was pretty good at throwing tomahawks."
Just off Route 66 near the village of Stroud, Sandy and David Sarette run what they call a family ranch, 1,000 acres of rolling pastureland where guests can feed the deer, swim in the lake, take a quad-bike trail or – as everywhere – go horse riding. Breakfast and dinner are served at the Tatanka Ranch's communal table; Monday is spaghetti night; Fridays and Saturdays, it's steak. The Sarettes' children and those of their friends help run the place during holiday time; the ranch has a friendly, homely, relaxing get-away-from-it-all feel. It's what a visit to the American heartland is really all about. sm
Factfile OklahomaHOW TO GET THERE
- Continental Airlines fly direct from Edinburgh to Newark, New Jersey. Connect there to Oklahoma City. Return fares from around £725 (
www.continental.com).
Where to stay- Rooms at Tatanka Ranch in Stroud, Oklahoma start from 110 a night (
www.thetatankaranch.com).
- Rooms at the Courtyard by Marriott in Tulsa start from 89 (£55) a night (
www.marriott.com).
And there's more
- Oklahoma City Convention and Visitors Bureau:
www.okc.comTulsa information at the Chamber of Commerce:
www.visittulsa.com- Oklahoma Route 66 Association:
www.oklahomaroute66.com- Recommended restaurants include: Cattlemen's, Oklahoma City,
www.cattlemensrestaurant.com; Mickey Mantle's Steakhouse, Oklahoma City,
www.mickeymantlesteakhouse.com; Spudder, Tulsa,
www.thespudder.com; White River Fish Market, Tulsa,
www.whiteriverfishmarket.com; Head Country Bar-B-Q, Ponca City,
www.headcountry.com