CHANDLER, Okla. () — The road to Santa Monica Pier is anything but direct, and on historic Route 66, the GPS apps built for speed can miss the point entirely. The Mother Road bends through small towns, old alignments and stretches of highway where the best trip is often the slowest one. For ABC7 Chicago’s series “Pier To Pier: Celebrating 100 Years of Route 66,” Ryan Chiaverini chose a more old-school way to navigate: the EZ66 Guide For Travelers. Along the way, he met the guide’s author and illustrator, Jerry McClanahan, in Chandler, Oklahoma.
“Sitting in the backseat as a kid, we would hit 66 at Victorville and we followed through Oklahoma City,” McClanahan said, thinking back on childhood family trips along the Mother Road from Southern California to Arkansas. “[I] Looked forward to vacation every year and as an adult I wanted to try to recapture what I missed as a kid.”
That desire eventually became a guidebook. McClanahan researched the route in depth and folded the places he had missed as a child into the first edition of EZ66, published in 2005. Now, with Route 66 marking its centennial, the guide is in its sixth edition, and McClanahan says he takes pride in helping travelers discover the history, landmarks and local businesses that keep the route alive.
“I really love being able to be a part of keeping these places open,” McClanahan said. “It’s great to be a part of that long community of Route 66 shops and people and visitors.”
Inside McJerry’s Route 66 Art Gallery, McClanahan showed Chiaverini a collection of road memorabilia and artwork available for purchase. His paintings, often built with painstaking detail over several days, capture vintage cars parked against some of the most recognizable scenes along the Mother Road.
“I am obsessed by the details. It’s like this one with the reflections in it,” McClanahan said, pointing to a piece featuring a ’57 Chevy. “Halfway through I’m saying, why oh why did I put on the reflections in that painting?”
Before leaving Chandler, Chiaverini made sure McClanahan signed his copy of the EZ Guide. But first, McClanahan added fresh Route 66 detour notes—updates Chiaverini would need as his journey continued west toward the Pacific Ocean, with many more roadside stops still ahead.
“Pier To Pier: Celebrating 100 Years of Route 66” is sponsored by Hyundai
