The grant will be used in Flagstaff, Winslow and Holbrook, as well as sites in Coconino and Navajo counties. Many of these long-closed gas stations’ underground tanks leak fuel and contaminate ground water.

Once the problem sites are found, each city can apply for federal funds to clean them. Not only do the cleanups remove potential future problems in groundwater, basements, and storm sewers, but they also make the properties more desirable for redevelopment.

Here’s the radio broadcast of the report:

This edition was updated by author Emily Priddy this week. Previous editions, with the first dating to 2003, came in print and, later, a download.

The Kindle edition is $5.

According to the news release:

Route 66 for Kids is a compendium of kid-friendly museums, amusement parks, aquariums, restaurants, motels, ice-cream stands, petting zoos, picnic areas, photo ops and roadside oddities on or near Historic Route 66. [...]

“For a book like Route 66 for Kids — which requires regular updates and has a target audience that includes people all over the world — Amazon’s Kindle program is ideal,” Priddy said. “The electronic format is convenient for travelers and resolves a lot of logistical issues with publishing and distribution, and because it’s distributed through Amazon, it has a chance to reach a wider audience, which hopefully will translate to more families discovering and exploring Route 66.”

Route 66 for Kids contains descriptions, addresses, phone numbers, Web addresses, hours and admission prices for more than 150 attractions on or near Route 66. A special section in the back of the book offers advice for planning a family vacation on 66, from keeping kids occupied in the car to finding inexpensive but meaningful souvenirs.

Priddy also has a website, kidson66.com, to help promote the book and Route 66.

Readers who do not own a Kindle device can download a free program from Amazon that will enable them to read the book on their computer or mobile device.

Disclosure: I am married to the author. So it wouldn’t be proper for me to write a review of the book. However, you can rest assured that plenty of research and time went into it.

The owners of the recently reopened Boots Motel and other businesses along the Route 66 corridor in town are worried the marked detour will potentially keep travelers away.

According to a story by the Joplin Globe:

The Spring River bridge on Highway 96 will be closed starting May 30 for four to six months for a project to replace the span. The work is expected to take four to six months. A detour will be marked directing drivers to use Route 37, Jasper County Route E and Route 571 to get around the project, but local drivers can use alternate routes.

Hart said the detour will direct travelers away from Route 66 business and could prove confusing to those traveling the route. He said his group and the Boots Motel will publicize an alternate that redirect traffic back into Carthage. The Carthage Convention and Visitor’s Bureau will help distribute that information, Wendi Douglas, executive director, told the council.

Hart also emailed maps for eastbound and westbound Route 66 travelers. You can click on these maps to enlarge them.

First, the westbound map:

Next, the eastbound map:

I’ve also provided an illustration of a Route 66-related detour, via Google Maps. If you’re traveling Route 66 this summer, keep these in mind, and let others know as well.

However, this video for the Route 66 Powered Paragliding club in New Mexico beats ‘em all.

The video was produced by Barak Naggan.

The mile-wide twister killed 161 people, injured more than 1,000, and destroyed nearly 8,000 homes and businesses. It remains the worst tornado to hit the U.S. in 60 years, and is without a doubt the worst disaster to befall a Route 66 city.

CBS News posted this interesting video from yesterday:

You may recognize the featured graduating teenager and tornado survivor, Quinton Anderson. He’s the one who appeared in ESPN’s much-praised episode of “Outside the Lines” a few months ago:

A few days ago, surveillance video was posted online of the emergency room reception area at St. John’s Medical Center in Joplin when it took a direct hit from the tornado. It’s breathtaking:

And the Springfield News-Leader posted these before-and-after images of Joplin cleanup efforts.

More remembrance ceremonies are being held in Joplin as we speak. Head over to the Joplin Globe newspaper for ongoing coverage.

The county made the move at the urging of 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt. According to the report:

“Route 66 is a historical and cultural icon that is celebrated both in America and around the world,” said Mitzelfelt. “It’s also an economic asset that is underutilized in San Bernardino County and this designation will ensure that scenic views are protected and that future development will be appropriate to the spirit of Route 66 and will attract additional national and international tourists.”

Route 66, also known as National Trails Highway in much of Mitzelfelt’s Mojave Desert District, had previously been designated a county scenic highway from Oro Grande to Lenwood in the Barstow area. Today’s action extends that designation along the rest of the desert portion of the route, east to the Arizona state line.

The designation requires that future development projects should not significantly affect the scenic views along the route and must meet certain development standards, including limitations on the size of signs, and a requirement that projects blend in with the natural setting as much as possible.

Mitzelfelt also championed the County Route 66 sign program from Oro Grande to the Arizona border.

The county’s action will provide at least some protection to scenic areas along the route in the Mojave Desert, especially those that may be developed by solar-energy firms.

The group of five Cubs fans and their pet goat Wrigley are less than a week from strolling into Chicago after a 1,900-mile trek from Arizona, according to the Bloomington Pantagraph.

The newspaper’s photographer caught up with them Monday south of Bloomington in McLean, Ill., along Route 66. The quintet wants to break the infamous “Cubs curse” that has bedeviled the baseball team since 1945. While they’re at it, the guys also are raising money for cancer research.

Gregory hopes to raise $100,000 for cancer research, and so far, about $12,000 has been raised. He believes donations will spike once the group hits Chicago. Already, Cubs owner Tom Ricketts has donated $2,800. [...]

“The amazing thing about this trip is all of the people you meet,” Townsend said. “You find that there are a lot of good people in this world.”

The group hopes to be at Chicago’s Wrigley Field by May 28, when the team faces the San Diego Padres.

To make a donation, go here.

UPDATE: Here’s a video posted today from WMBD-TV in Peoria:

The Motel 6 chain is looking for “Open Road Correspondents” this summer to journey down several classic highways, including Route 66 from Amarillo, Texas, to Santa Monica, Calif. The catch is these road reporters will have to stay at Motel 6′s throughout the trip.

From the news release:

In honor of its 50th Anniversary, Motel 6 is issuing a call for three “Open Road Correspondents” to travel and report on some of the best stretches of American highways. Honoring Motel 6′s commitment to sustainability, Correspondents will travel “green” by using environmentally-friendly vehicles and digital map applications to help conserve fuel and energy. Winners also will stay at predetermined Motel 6 locations, several of which have been updated with earth-friendly features, like 80-percent recycled material flooring, low-flow toilets, high-efficiency heating and cooling units and energy-efficient lighting.

Winning Correspondents – and one companion each – will embark along one of three classic routes, each approximately 1,000 miles long with four to six city stops, including:

• Route 66 (Amarillo, Texas, to Santa Monica, Calif.)
• The Pacific Coast Highway (Tumwater, Wash., to Santa Barbara, Calif.)
• Southern Route (Austin, Texas, to Destin, Fla.)

Each prize package is valued at $6,000 and includes two third generation, 64GB, Wi-Fi enabled iPads.

Entrants must go to Motel 6′s Facebook page here by June 21 to enter. Readers will choose the winners by early July.

On one hand, the eventual winners of the Route 66 trip will provide nice publicity for the road with their reports. On the other hand, these folks — and their readers — are going to miss out on wonderful motels on that stretch of Mother Road.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this. What do you think?

The Admiral Twin Drive-In, a landmark theater in Tulsa that’s still being rebuilt after a devastating fire in September 2010, suffered vandalism to its ticket booth and new concession stand on Saturday, reported KOTV in Tulsa.

Almost every ceiling light in the new concession stand was smashed. Shattered glass covers the floor with broken bulbs hanging down from the fluorescent fixtures. Vandals also apparently climbed on cabinets in the bathrooms, pulling them loose from the walls.

A construction supervisor tells News On 6 that they were hoping to open next weekend, but that looks unlikely due to the damage.

Owner Blake Smith says the theater probably will hold a soft reopening in a few weeks, with a larger grand reopening later this summer.

The drive-in opened in 1951, and its second screen was built a year later. The Admiral Twin sits just off the older Admiral Place alignment of Route 66.

The Admiral Twin also served as an inspiration during a scene in Tulsa native S.E. Hinton’s famous novel, “The Outsiders,” and the film version by Francis Ford Coppola.

No more piecemeal releases. No more half-baked formatting. Shout! Factory has released all four seasons of the acclaimed “Route 66″ television drama of the early 1960s, and they all come in one well-conceived package, in stores tomorrow.

The guts of “Route 66: The Complete Series”: It’s a box set of 24 DVDs, inside four cases divvied up for each of the show’s seasons. It includes a disc of special features, including a Corvette documentary, a 1990 television panel with many of “Route 66′s” principals, and vintage commercials.

The box set was produced by Shout! Factory, which purchased the rights from Roxbury Entertainment last year. Roxbury released the show’s first three years in  half- and full-season increments, but never the fourth and final season. Shout! Factory dispensed with this approach, and is making “Route 66′s” run available in one fell swoop.

Also, Roxbury made the ill-advised decision of letterboxing parts of Season 2, cutting off the top and bottom of images. “Route 66″ fans will be pleased to know that all the episodes produced by Shout! Factory are displayed in a full-screen 1:33 ratio.

The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $129.99, but it can be found for $99.99, including Shout! Factory itself.

“Route 66″ co-starred George Maharis and Martin Milner as Buz Murdock and Tod Stiles, a couple of pals drifting around America in a Chevy Corvette (Glenn Corbett as Linc Case filled in during the final third of the show’s run when Maharis became ill). The show became notable for Oscar-winning writer Stirling Silliphant’s smart scripts and its on-location shooting. “Route 66″ is widely regarded as one of the best television dramas of the 1960s.

"Route 66" stars George Maharis (left) and Martin Milner.

“Route 66″ also hired a lot of up-and-coming actors, including Robert Duvall, Burt Reynolds, Cloris Leachmann, James Caan, Lee Marvin, Leslie Nielsen, Martin Sheen, Robert Redford, Ron Howard, Suzanne Pleshette, Walter Matthau, Ed Asner, Rod Steiger, and William Shatner.

I didn’t have nearly enough time to watch all 116 episodes with my advance copy of “Route 66: The Complete Series” (such a feat would have required nearly four days of nonstop viewing). Instead, I viewed a smattering of the series’ most acclaimed episodes:

• “Lizard’s Leg & Owlet’s Wing” — This whimsical episode featured horror-film veterans Lon Chaney Jr., Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre. It included Chaney in werewolf and mummy makeup, and Karloff donning his Frankenstein Monster getup for the first time in a quarter-century.
• “The Thin White Line” — Tod literally freaks out after accidentally drinking a beer laced with an LSD-like drug. It was one of Milner’s most-praised performances.
• “Birdcage on My Foot” — While helping Tod detox a heroin addict portrayed by a young Robert Duvall, Buz dramatically reveals that he once was an addict himself.
• “Good Night Sweet Blues” — Todd and Buz try to fulfill the wishes of a dying singer, portrayed by Ethel Waters, to reunite her old jazz band. Waters was nominated for an Emmy — the first such honor for a black actress.
• “Even Stones Have Eyes” — Buz is temporarily blinded during a construction accident and falls in love with a fellow student at a school for the blind. Maharis later said it was one of his favorite episodes.
• “I’m Here to Kill a King” — This is the infamous “lost” episode scheduled to air only a week after President Kennedy’s assassination. The intricate conspiracy plot to kill a visiting Saudi king prompted CBS to pull the episode. (It later aired in syndication.)

My observations from those shows:

• Maharis and Milner provided a good balance with their divergent personalities. Maharis was a street-tough heart-throb who was wound too tight, while Milner took on more of an aw-shucks attitude.
• “Route 66″ was subtly informed by Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” and the Beat Generation, and foresaw restlessness and social activism arising in the late 1960s.
• A script by Silliphant absolutely is worth watching for dialogue alone. And “Route 66′s” writing was way ahead of the curve when it came to social issues (drug addiction, racism, religious extremism).
• The show’s on-location shooting provided a welcome dose of realism. Some of “Route 66′s” melodramatic moments have become dated, but its “voodoo of location” remains compelling even now.

It’s apparent Shout! Factory was unable to secure all the original film in remastering “Route 66″ to DVD. One episode, “A Fury Slinging Flame,” contains a disclaimer that it was taken from “best available sources” — a syndicated version that had a few minutes edited from it.

On the whole, however, “Route 66: The Complete Series” looks sharp and clean. You can even count Milner’s freckles on close-ups.

On the special-features disc, the 45-minute discussion panel at the 1990 William S. Paley Television Festival – featuring Maharis, executive producer Herbert G. Leonard, casting director Marion Dougherty, director Arthur Hiller and director Elliott Silverstein — reveals fascinating tidbits about the show. Leonard said “Route 66″ often got crosswise with CBS censors, but Chevrolet’s strong support smoothed things over. Only one scene wasn’t shot during the show’s entire run — Jim Crow laws in Florida prevented the filming of an interracial scene at a kitchen table.

Because of the logistical challenges of shooting on location, actors and film crews for “Route 66″ sometimes worked seven days a week. And when filming wrapped, Leonard said he parked himself in the editing room from after dinnertime to 9 a.m. the next day to make sure deadlines were met.

And here’s something Leonard revealed that boggles the mind — Robert Redford screen-tested for what eventually became Milner’s role. Redford was rejected because he was deemed too young.

The 25-minute film “Great Cars: Corvette,” which originally aired on PBS in 2004, delves into the fascinating history of the fabled sports car. The Corvette came out of postwar prosperity, Streamline Moderne design, and the MG sports car. And it’s hard to believe now, but the first Corvettes of the 1950s contained an anemic six cylinders.

The disc also includes commercials by Chevrolet, Bayer aspirin, and Milk of Magnesia that aired during “Route 66′s” run.

Highly recommended.