The 'Main Street of America' and the 'Mother Road' it has become a motoring icon. So where else would you find Geoff Hill.
It was once the 'Main Street of America' linking a remote and under-populated region with two vital 20th century cities - Chicago and Los Angeles. Commissioned in 1926, it crosses eight states, three time zones and runs for 2,448 miles long.
With the dramatic growth in car ownership in the US, Route 66 quickly became one of its principal east-west arteries. It was a highway spawned by the demands of a rapidly changing America. Contrasted with other highways of its day, it did not follow a traditionally linear course.
This appealed to motorists and truckers who preferred to travel in more temperate climates than the northern highways.
In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck proclaimed US Highway 66 the "Mother Road". His classic 1939 novel served to immortalise it in the American consciousness. According to the National Historic Route 66 Federation, an estimated 210,000 people migrated to California to escape the despair of the Dust Bowl. For them, Route 66 symbolised the "road to opportunity".
By the end of the Second World War Americans were more mobile than ever before and thousands abandoned the harsh winters of in the north and east for the "barbecue culture" of the Southwest and the West. Again, for many, Route 66 was the road to new and sunnier climes.
One such emigrant was Bobby Troup, who penned a lyrical road map in which the words, "get your kicks on Route 66" became a catch phrase for countless motorists. It symbolised the renewed spirit of optimism that pervaded the US after economic catastrophe and global war.
Sadly, the outdated, poorly maintained vestiges of US Highway 66 completely succumbed to the interstate system in October 1984 when the final section of the original road was replaced by Interstate 40 at Williams, Arizona. A motoring and cultural icon was gone, but not forgotten.
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I woke at dawn and went to Milwaukee to see a man about a motorcycle. It was sitting in the sun outside Harley HQ when I got there.
It was hard to believe that here I was standing beside it, wearing a brand new leather jacket, holding a box containing a waterproof riding suit, baseball cap and knife which Harley had given me, and looking at the Road King which they had given me for a month to ride Route 66.
Feeling like a kid who in a spell of absentmindedness had somehow mislaid all his Christmases, then found them all at once, I threw my leg over the saddle and pressed the electric start button. If you can imagine a pair of flatulent hippos making love underwater, you have some idea of the sound of a big twin-cylinder Harley-Davidson starting up.
You also need psychiatric help, but we'll leave that aside just for the moment.
I adjusted the mirrors and looked up at Mike Hennick. For some reason I felt like Hardy Kruger in the scene The One That Got Away where he tries to steal a Hurricane only to be caught out as a fraud at the last minute.
Thankfully, Mike showed no sign of producing a gun and escorting me to the clink, so I kicked up the side stand and found first gear more by luck than judgement.
"Splendid," I said. "Now how do I get back to Chicago?"
"Well," said Mike, "the nicest way would be to go south on 41 then hang a right on Mitchell and stop for a frozen custard at Leon's on 27th and Oklahoma."
I love the way Americans give directions, even though I haven't the faintest idea what they're talking about. So I went south on 41, hung a something on somewhere, hung a something else on God knows where and tootled along - completely happy and completely lost.
I find that several wrong turns often cancel each other out and become a right one. Eventually I turned a corner - sorry, hung a right - to find Leon's famous frozen custard shack right in front of me.
Like many famous American food outlets, it was a hole in the wall from which customers ordered, then sat in their cars and tucked in. Sort of like a drive-in movie without the movie. I took my place in the queue and finally arrived at the window.
If you've ever eaten in America, you will know that the cheaper the joint, the more complex the menu. The only solution is to decide what you want, order it decisively and not change your mind no matter how many choices you are offered. Otherwise you'll end up like the man who went into Marks and Spencers to buy a loaf and came out two hours later having spent £70, but without the loaf.
"I'll have a Special Super Sundae with pecan nut and cherry on top," I said firmly.
"You got it - what flavour topping?"
"Topping?" I gulped. Nobody had mentioned topping. "Sure. What flavour topping?" she said, looking up at me as if I was an imbecile. Which in the circumstances wasn't far off the mark.
"Em, what toppings do you have?" I said, knowing in my heart exactly what was just about to happen.
"We got butterscotchchocolatestrawberryraspberrymaplecinnamonbutterpecanandmint," she said in, oh, about half a second.
"Was there vanilla in there somewhere?" I squeaked optimistically.
"The custard is vanilla, sir. The flavours are not."
In my head, twin searchlights of hope and despair scissored around the vast empty darkness for words describing flavours, but they were all hiding in the corners, the cowardly little buggers. Some time passed.
"Chocolate?" I said suddenly, surprising both of us. "Chocolate we got," she said, tripping off across the tiled floor.
Frozen custard, you will be pleased to hear, is like very good vanilla ice cream which has just started to melt, allowing all the flavour to seep out, mostly over your shirt.
And, although I had ordered the smallest portion, I was quite unable to finish it, yet all around me people were waddling to their cars with tubs ranging from a pint to several gallons.
Still, I could see now what Route 66 was named after. It was the size my waistline was going to be by the time I got to Los Angeles.