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The morning air was sticky and humid. Light fog filled the neighborhood, and the sun was an hour away from rising.
Some may find it odd to hear I made a trip from St. Louis to Springfield in five hours when it can really be done in four.
However, that's when you fly down Interstate-44 at 70 miles per hour.
My trip to Springfield was different, I was traveling down America's most famous highway.
Route 66.
A left turn from my house in south St. Louis and a few blocks down the street, there it was, "The Mother Road," a name christened by travelers when car trips were popular.
There weren't a lot of cars on the road at 5 a.m., those that were had their headlights dimmed by the fog sitting on the ground.
Winding, curving and twisting, Route 66 took me into small cities and ghost towns that at one time thrived on travelers making their way from Chicago to Los Angeles.
It's not like the interstate where you get off at an exit turn left or right and enter a town. On Route 66, you go straight through it. No interchanges, no exit only lanes, just a simple road takes you on a journey.
As I made my way further west out from St. Louis, the fog grew thicker. It sat low to the ground like a graveyard scene in a cheap horror movie. In the distance old motel and restaurant signs cut through the heartland sky.
Years ago, they glowed, blinked and flashed in big letters and shiny neon lights. Simple words like "eat", "restaurant","vacancy" and "motel" were used to attract hungry and tired motorists from a long day of scenic driving.
The name of the restaurant and motel didn't matter, after all, a bite to eat or a night's stay was just a break. What did matter was getting back on the road.
Rusty and faded, many of the signs are dark today. Some flicker struggling to stay lit while others hold onto the past promoting color TV and air conditioning.
Diners and restaurants sit abandoned or barely half full. Huge individual letters that once spelled out the business' name are missing. Their glass block windows are broken and vandalized.
Just outside Rolla, I came across a run down motel. Weeds, tall grass and unkempt bushes overcame its bathtub shaped swimming pool once filled with children attempting cannon balls while parents watched from picnic tables
The sun begins to rise.
It looked like a fireball in the color-changing sky rising over tall trees atop Missouri's grand Ozark Mountains. Red, orange, blue; the clouds and fog vanished.
The day had begun.
Portions of Route 66 is the outer road of I-44, but when the road begins to wind you break away from loud sounds of 18-wheelers, diesel trucks and revved-up Hondas.
Coasting down the historic highway, my car sounded like a roaring crowd at a baseball game as the wind blew against it. Through woods and farmland, the road rises and falls while zigzagging with the land.
I couldn't tell where I was going. Was I heading west, south, southwest? The road kept twisting and changing direction. It was too hard to tell. It was like driving a paved river.
Upon entering Springfield, the road grew wider. From two lanes to four I was accompanied by more cars as I got closer and closer to journey's end.
Motels and restaurants occupy the strip and many of these are still open with steady business. It gave me an idea how things looked back when Route 66 was still a highway and not the unincorporated paths it is today.
Cars crowding motel parking lots, signs flashing atop diner roofs, local attraction billboards standing tall along the curb, I could almost imagine my 2000 forest green Malibu as its long turquoise mid-'50s predecessor with white wall tires and pointy red tail lights as doo-wop played on the turn dial radio.
It was a good place to end my ride, even though the road kept going.
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