A few miles west of Springfield, IL we saw a broken down gas station and an old man sitting out front. The property was loaded with photo opportunities, so I had to stop. The man introduced himself as Gary then stood to give us a tour of his old Sinclair station. He showed us photos when the service station was open to Route 66 travelers, then pictures of things we were going to see, places we should stop, people we should meet, and restaurants he recommended (or didn't recommend). 

He told me to turn and open up the mini fridge sitting on the floor behind me. "Take two of those and save them for a special time," he said. The fridge was full of bottles of root beer with a Route 66 road sign on the label.

"One's to drink, the other is to pour over some vanilla ice cream."

Gary gave us a new appreciation for the road. His parting words reminded me of the many wonderful people we met on the Appalachian Trail last year.

"Folks from all over the world say it’s the dream of their life to travel Historic Route 66. It’s the dream of my life to meet those folks."

He wished us luck on the rest of our travels and added, "It's an adventure through time and history."

Thank you Gary!

A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.