Day 6

Day Six – Sunday 20^th April

Route 66

(Route 66 sign)

Nostalgia seems to play a huge part in American history, in particular the longing for perceived better times, such as the freedom of the road and driving just for the sake of it that Route 66 seemed to offer. Perhaps this because America is still a relatively young country and therefore all its history, especially in the West which was still being settled just over 100 years ago, seems much closer than it does in Europe where we have thousands of years of history. As we drove along Route 66 we passed multiple examples of this nostalgia being displayed in the towns that the road travelled by, such as Oatman, AZ and Siegelman, AZ.

            This sign also demonstrates the way America has exported its history around the world, after all driving down Route 66 and following in the footsteps of travellers such as the Joad family has been sold as a must do event the world over, the same certainly can’t be said for the A19. When we arrived in Williams, AZ in the evening there was a group of German bikers, dressed in Harley-Davidson gear from head to toe, who wanted to replicate the true American experience of travelling Route 66.

(Oatman Information Board)

Oatman, AZ is a historic mining town which has turned itself into a tourist destination, selling the idea of it being a genuine Wild West frontier town, with wild burros wandering the streets and midday gun fights outside the historic Oatman hotel. Unfortunately because it was Easter Sunday the show wasn’t running disappointingly, but aside from that the town did have the iconography of a western film, it looked like the kind of place one of John Wayne’s characters would hang his hat. However if you look at the board above, which provides information on the history of Oatman, AZ, the town was formed in 1912, long after the end of the frontier, meaning that gun fights between cowboys would have never taken place in the town ever. Oatman has manufactured this alternate history for tourists to draw them in, drawing on the vast nostalgia and mythology that surrounds the Wild West. It is like Las Vegas a fabricated experience.

(A Gift Shop in Siegelman, AZ)

Similarly the town of Siegelman, which also lies on Route 66, uses nostalgia to sell itself to tourists, but instead of the Wild West it uses the 1950s, which is always looked back on with fondness in American culture as the glory days almost. The town used a lot of cut outs of movie stars from the era, such as James Dean seen above, as well as John Wayne and the characters from the recent Pixar film Cars, obviously trying to draw a parallel between itself and the town of Radiator Springs from the film which had been by-passed by the highway and was dying, much like Siegelman. Outside the main strip of gift shops, the town’s main source of income, there wasn’t much aside from a few run down houses; it was a very depressing place.

            Once again notice the sign promoting American made goods, suggesting that you can only get US made clothing and goods in tourist towns because that’s the only market who are willing to pay the extra money for a genuine American souvenir, in particular the foreigner tourists like the bus load of French people who turned up while we were exploring the town.