Somewhere just east of the Oklahoma/Texas state line, the West kind of peters out and you realize you've entered the Midwest.

The last actual canyon you see along old Route 66 is just a few miles west of the border town of Texola. From there, the grassy plains of eastern Texas give way pretty quickly to trees, low hills, fields of crops and armies of migrant workers tending them.

In the 1930s, this was the Dust Bowl, the place where the wind literally blew the topsoil away over years of severe drought, leaving thousands of farmers and farm workers stranded. That experience, documented in John Steinbeck's novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," was responsible for much of the mystique associated with Route 66, which was the road of escape for Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl.

Water conservation programs in Oklahoma today supposedly give the state more surface water per square mile than lake-covered Minnesota. What you see from the road, though, still looks dry and dusty -- at least it did when we entered Oklahoma on a May afternoon. But the storm clouds building in the west looked ready to change all that. Oh well, the farmers would be happy.

We'd been on the road a week, riding through the wide-open beauty of the American West. With the scenery changing, the weather closing in and home still days away, it would have been easy to jump on the interstate and skip over Oklahoma. But it also would have been a big mistake.

For anyone interested in the history of Route 66, Oklahoma is a gold mine. The Mother Road stretched nearly 400 miles across the state, roughly following Interstate 40 from the Texas line to Oklahoma City, then paralleling Interstate 44 northeast to Tulsa and Joplin, Missouri. And if you're persistent, you'll find nearly every mile of the old road is still out there, waiting to be ridden.

We were persistent, which meant we got lost a lot. But it also meant we were able to find places like Lucille Hamons' Historic Highway grocery store/carryout/ex-tourist court and gas station in Hydro, Oklahoma, about 60 miles west of Oklahoma City.

You can see Lucille's place from the freeway, but you can't get to it unless you take the old highway, located just north of the interstate. And you'd better not call the road you take to her front door an access road. That's Route 66, Buster.

One more thing. Don't interrupt this charming lady if you've caught her in a talkative mood, or you might miss something.

"This place was built in 1926," she said as she set a couple of cups of coffee for us on the well-used kitchen table in the back of the store. "My husband and I came out here in 1941 and bought it. And now these people want to make it a historic place -- can you imagine?

"When I first came out here," she added, "the country was just getting over the Dust Bowl days and the Depression, and all these people from eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas were still headed to California, where they thought they'd get jobs.

"They had their kids and their cats and dogs with 'em and they were all just about flat broke, with mattresses on the roofs of their cars -- You boys want cream or sugar -- We used to say that you could tell a rich Okie back then because they was the ones with two mattresses on the roof. That made them a little richer than the Arkies, and that's the God's truth.

"There weren't a lot of motels then; just little places like mine, and by the time they got here, whole families of them, sometimes they were so broke . . .

"I can't tell you how many times I give people some gas just so they could get on down the road. I've fed people. I've kept them in my cabins. I used to have a whole yard full of old jalopy cars and trucks that broke down here that I'd buy so they could keep gettin' on down the road.

"Who knows if they ever got jobs, or even made it to California. We just did what we could to help 'em out. Cabins were a dollar and a half a night, and I'll tell you, they were full about every night.

There was another motel across the street. It was a real pretty place, and the man who ran it always kept a real pretty yard, but the highway (Interstate 40) took all that back in 1966. Still, they paid him for his property when they did it, while they just left me high and dry.

"They didn't take my property, but they sure took my business. So my husband and several others went to Oklahoma City to talk to some of them big shots there about why they were taking our business away, and some man told them, `That's what we're trying to do, get those little places off the highway.' Well sir, I stayed on -- if for nothing else just to spite him."

Lucille paused a second, then added: "I'm a survivor. I stayed open when a lot of other business closed. I had to start selling beer back in 1966 when I got cut off from the interstate. If it hadn't been for beer, I'd probably be closed up. Before that, we used to sell a lot of groceries and sandwiches and stuff, but with that new highway, I started selling beer to survive.

I'm here seven days a week, 10 till midnight. Now some people are trying to get back on board with Route 66 and make money off it, but I'll tell ya', I've had a terrible time makin' a livin'."

The bell above the front door rang: a customer. Lucille jumped up and went to see. "Turned out it was a false alarm. A man had run out of gas and just needed to use the pone.

He left, and Lucille returned to her chair.

"Now, where were we? You know, my daughter was born upstairs above the store. We used to live above this place, then a while ago, I had a house built out back -- I don't know why, because I'm just over there long enough to sleep each night. Once we had all the relatives over for a big dinner and I was tryin' to fix a big meal over there in the house and, you know, I just didn't know how to use the stove over there. I'm better off right here -- Want some more coffee? Are you boys hungry?

"Right now, things are slow because of the rain, but there's a lot of new interest in Route 66. I had a girl here yesterday from New York. I've been on TV in Germany, and I'm mentioned in this German book, too. I guess I've had about every TV station in Oklahoma City come out and film me over the years. And I've got more than 1,600 letters from people all over the country who've stopped in this place.

"I've been to New Mexico several times, and I've been all the way to California once, but I do most of my traveling right here. I don't even like goin' to stay with my girls -- right here is where I belong.

"See, people come to me with their memories -- it's a road of memories. One older couple stopped by a year or so back and told me they'd spent their honeymoon right here with me. Then I had a man come by wonderin' if this place was still here. He said he and some other guy was here back in 1944. He said they stopped cuz' they noticed on the pumps that the gas was 17.9 cents. They came in and had ham, eggs and coffee, and when they got ready to pay, it came to 15 cents apiece.

Lucille laughed. "Memories are what keeps me goin'," she said, "and that's the God's truth."

In the early days, most of Route 66 was a narrow two-lane strip of concrete with concrete curbs. The curbs were designed to keep cars from running off the road, and they worked, albeit a little too well.

If a driver got a little drowsy behind the wheel and lost control, instead of running off the road hitting a tree, he bounced off the curb and hit another car head-on.

That wasn't a very desirable quality in a road, so the curbs were taken out as the highway was improved over the years. As a result, you find few original sections of Route 66 left today. But Oklahoma has mile after mile of it, complete with curbs.

J. B. and I cruised along quiet, tree-lined sections of the old road, rolling up and down the gentle hills of central Oklahoma. The rain that had caught up with us in Hydro ended quickly, and our tires sang on the old concrete. The road took us past herds of cows peacefully grazing on what had become a beautiful spring day.

We stopped to take photos next to an antique iron bridge crossing a small creek. The field next to it was ablaze with yellow wildflowers. A path led from the road down to the creek, and it wasn't hard to imagine a family stopping at this spot a half-century ago, perhaps having a picnic lunch next to the water on the way west.

Northeast of Oklahoma City, you'll find Route 66 running alongside Interstate 44 on the way to Tulsa and Joplin, Missouri. The interstate is known as the Turner Turnpike through this stretch, and it's a toll road. As a result, this part of old 66 carries more traffic today than any other surviving section of the road. The locals don't call it the Mother Road anymore -- instead, it's known as the Free Road.

We slowed down in the small town of Chandler, about 35 miles from Oklahoma City, and stumbled across the state headquarters of the Oklahoma Route 66 Society. There, we met Tom, yet another 66 freak. He told us the Oklahoma Legislature had allocated $16 million to help promote the old road and erect signs marking it. It was a story we'd heard from Route 66 Society members in other states. Many people, it seems, are recognizing the tourism potential of the old road.

Unfortunately, we also found ample evidence that this rebirth is coming too late for most of the roadside attractions Route 66 one supported.

Take the Blue Whale amusement park just outside Tulsa, for instance. The trademark whale, once a diving platform in a pond, now lists to port, while a handful of buildings that housed the Dodg'em cars, the shooting galleries and the Skee Ball games are all in various stages of decay.

The Blue Whale looks like the kind of place that would have caught my attention as a kid in the '50s. I can picture myself bugging my parents to distraction as we approached, in an attempt to get them to stop the family car and let me ride the rides and play the games.

Back then, of course, we wouldn't have had the time to stop. And now that I had the time, it looked like I was too late. A faded sign on the ticket booth read: "Shotgun security. Have brains? Use them and get out."

Route 66 barely trespassed into southeastern Kansas in the old days, with no more than a dozen miles of roadway in the state. But the road zigs and zags so much in that short stretch that we spent an hour and a half trying to follow it.

Fortunately, we were well fortified for the search. After spending the night near Vinita, Oklahoma, we got on the road early and stopped for breakfast at the Chuckwagon in Baxter Springs, Kansas. Both the content and the price of breakfast were heart-stopping: a couple of eggs, has browns, two strips of bacon, biscuits and gravy, all for a buck forty-nine, cash money.

Halltown, Missouri, near Springfield, still looks a lot like it did decades ago when its main -- and only -- street was a link in the Main Street of America. We stopped in town to check out an antique store we'd heard about, but before we got there, we found more evidence of Route 66's international popularity. We met a German couple spending their third vacation exploring the road, and watched a young guy go flashing past with a back pack and tent bungeed on the back of his Suzuki two-stroke, right above the Japanese license plate.

Then we met Thelma White, who runs the antique shop now located in the White Hall general store, which dates from the turn of the century. Thelma taught school for 25 years, and you can still hear a bit of that background in her voice when she discusses Route 66.

"Are you riding the old road?" she asked with a smile. When we said we were, she responded, "And what you liked best?"

I only had to think for a moment of the encounters we'd had since California.

"No doubt about it," I said, "meeting the people who live and work along it."

"It's really always been that way," she said. "Route 66 has always been about nice people in small towns wanting to meet new people and help them out. I've met the nicest people from all over the world, just because I was lucky enough to have lived alongside that road."

Well, the last thing I remember, Doc, I started to swerve and then I saw the Jag slide into the curve."

Jan and Dean's song, "Dead Man's Curve," came vividly to mind on the way to Rolla, Missouri, where old roads and a bit of spirited riding combined to nearly end this story early,

Between the small town of Waynesville and Rolla, there's a beautiful old four-lane stretch of Route 66 that follows the meandering path of a river. And one of the highlights is a sharp turn in the river and the road ominously named Devil's Elbow.

That curve started me thinking about Jan and Dean, but it wasn't the one that almost got us. Having been warned by guide books about the Devil's Elbow, we took it easy there.

But after hundreds of miles of picking our way down old, crumbing two-lane road segments, we gave in to the temptation to pick up the tempo a bit on this rare stretch of four-lane. As a result, we were at full interstate pace as we leaned into another curve and discovered that the wide road we were on turned into a 1½-lane gravel farm path about 20 feet ahead.

All I can say is, thank goodness for luck, long-travel suspension, lack of traffic and more luck. Somehow, we both made the transition, but it was a reminder than on a road as old as Route 66, there are no guarantees.

The Chain of Rocks Bridge is one of the most impressive and enduring symbols of Route 66. It's also one of the most inaccessible parts of the road today.

While several bridges carried Route 66 traffic over the Mississippi River during its long run as a U. S. highway, the most famous, or infamous, was the Chain of Rocks Bridge, linking Illinois and Missouri just north of St. Louis.

Built as a money-making toll bridge in 1929 by the town of Mitchell, Illinois, the Chain of Rocks became the official Route 66 river crossing in 1930. To accommodate unusual water currents and barge traffic, the bridge was built with a 45-degree kink in it, which combined with its narrow width, earned it a reputation as the biggest bottleneck between Chicago and Los Angeles. Large trucks would sometimes get stuck trying to pass each other at the kink, and would need to back up, as would the long line of traffic behind them.

The bridge was abandoned in the '60s, but it still stands. You can see it clearly from the wide, modern Interstate 270 bridge that now takes traffic over the Mississippi.

Trying to get a closer view, we ran into a maze of obstacles on the Missouri side, where the whole bridge area is fenced off, keeping you from even seeing the towering old structure. So we crossed the river on 270, took the first exit south and discovered Chain of Rocks Road, formerly Route 66.

A few old neon signs remain, marking long-gone motels, gas stations and cafes. The road turns to gravel near the river and eventually seems to end at a fishing area with a great view of the old bridge and a classic, castle like pumping station.

On closer inspection, though, we were able to trace the old road, now choked with weeds, right up to the bridge entrance. It was worth effort. The view of the road surface disappearing into the distance on this steel-girdered landmark was moving.

Illinois is truly the home stretch of Route 66, and it's easy to speed along state Route 4, which exists today on much of the roadway that was 66, without paying much attention. You can just follow the line of huge grain elevators marking the approach to each small town.

But was we'd learned elsewhere, there's always more to find on old 66 if you're willing to slow down and look. We discovered literally dozens of short pieces of the old road off Route 4 just by watching for telltale concrete sections veering to the right or left. Often, these quickly dead-ended, but at times we were rewarded with great old stretches of curvy road dating from the origins of Route 66.

J. B. lives in Springfield, Illinois, where he sells advertising for this magazine from an office in his home. Conveniently enough, old Route 66 goes right through Springfield, so I planned a night on his couch and a visit with his family.

Actually, though, my trip to Springfield had an ulterior motive: I needed a Cozy Dog.

Way back in Hackberry, Arizona, six states and nearly a week before, J. B. and I had awakened former Springfield resident Bob Waldmire early on a Sunday morning (see our February issue) and talked to him about Cozy Dogs. In addition to being a noted Route 66 artist, historian, philosopher and dreamer in his own right, Bob is the son of a Route 66 legend -- Ed Waldmire, creator of the corn dog, aka Cozy Dog, aka hot dog on a stick.

The elder Waldmire invented this portable meal concept way back in 1946 for a booth at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. And by 1948, his invention was so popular that he and his wife, Ginny, decided to open a restaurant.

Ed had been calling his creation the "Crusty Cut," a name that may have come up a bit short in the appetizing department. But when his wife renamed it the Cozy Dog and designed a logo showing two hot dogs in love, the business blossomed. In fact, the original Cozy Dog restaurant, right on old Route 66 in Springfield, is still run by Buzz Waldmire, one of Ed's other sons. In addition to good food, the Cozy Dog has a well stocked little museum in the back devoted to Route 66 and the history of the corn dog.

Buzz and Bob, the Cozy Dog heirs, are about as different as night and day. While they both worked in the restaurant as kids, Bob elected to drop out of college and roam the highway in his VW bus, while Buzz stayed home, enlisted in the military, and eventually took over the family business. Bob's a strict vegetarian who spends his time building a "bioregional center" in Arizona, while Buzz cooks up hot dogs, sells firearms on the side and has a business card that reads: "Go ahead, buy a gun, make my day!"

Amazingly, though, they both fit right in at their opposite ends of Route 66.

Between frying Cozy Dogs and waiting on customers ("I've got three people working for me and they all called in sick today," he told us), Buzz talked about life on Route 66.

"My wife, Sue, helped make the decision for us to take over the restaurant when I left active duty in the military after 23 years," he said. "We didn't want to do it as a lifetime career, but we're still at it today.

"It's pretty tough to stay afloat with all the regulations and the competition from the chains. I can't hire a manager to run this place and survive, so I do it. Sue helps a lot, as do the kids, and my mom still helps out at lunch, but I probably end up putting in about 60 hours a week here. We survive by serving a lot of older customers who grew up with this place, plus we have a lot of foreign travelers on the old road."

He filled two glasses with soda, dropped a basket of french fries in the deep fryer and flipped a grill full of burgers in one fluid move.

"We always have and always will serve fresh food," he said, "and people know quality. Plus, you get to watch us cook the food, and hear me and my wife bicker or joke with the customers -- all for no extra charge!"

Dishing out three more lunches, he pointed to a baby bed behind the counter.

"Our youngest child is a year old," he noted, "and sometimes the customers babysit when we get busy. Where are you going to find that at a place like McDonald's?

"Route 66," he added, "reflects the independent spirit of the American people -- the little people who want to make it on their own.

"That's what we're doing, but believe me, it's hard work."

There's so much more to tell. J. B. showed me a section of the old road that's now under the water of Lake Springfield, just outside of town. We visited the Dixie Truckers Home truck stop and Route 66 museum up the road in McLean, Illinois. We stopped at the site of the legendary Pig Hip restaurant near Broadwell where, for more than 50 years Ernie Edwards served pork sandwiches "always from the left hip, since when a hog has an itch he has a tendency to raise the right leg to do the scratchin', and that makes the meat tough." Sadly, the Pig Hip closed in 1991.

We ate a "burrito as big as your head" in Normal, Illinois and I can vouch for the fact that it was as big as advertised. We saw the Polka Dot Drive Inn and the green giant standing guard outside the Launching Pad Restaurant in Wilmington.

And then we arrived in Chicago, riding to the corner of Lake Shore Drive and Jackson Avenue in Grant Park. Another 50 feet east and you'd be in Lake Michigan.

There we found a sign commemorating the end (or is it the beginning?) of Route 66. After some 2,400 miles, the journey was over. There were no more tourist courts, no more drive-ins, no more roadside attractions and no more fascinating people to look forward to.

What was it Lucille Hamons told us back in Hydro, Oklahoma?

"It's a road of memories."

Yeah, that's it.

Many readers have asked where they can buy maps and guide books covering old Route 66. Bob Waldmire offers a great overview map that is a work of art for $6,including shipping. For more detail, his set of 42 post cards depict scenes and locations for $10, including postage. Send a check or money order to him c/o Box 46, Hackberry, AZ 86411. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope if you want info on other items he has created.

"The Route 66 Traveler's Guide and Roadside Companion," By Tom Snyder as well as "Route 66: The Mother Road" by Michael Wallis, are both excellent guides. People Centered Programs, 2024 Heatherbrook Drive, Grapevine, TX 76051 stocks the Snyder book ($14.95 including shipping) and St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 is the publisher of both titles.

For a list of state Route 66 associations that offer more information, please drop me a note at American Motorcyclist magazine, P.O. Box 6114, Westerville, OH 43081-6114; or call us at (614)891-2425 and ask for Thelma Hardy, extension 212 -- Greg Harrison