“Get your kicks on Route 66.”

Nat King Cole recorded that little ditty three times, in 1946, 1956 and 1961, and performed it hundreds of times. The song romanticized the lure of the road, to visit far-flung places from Chicago to Los Angeles and St. Louis was a stop along the way. Post-World War II prosperity and the growth of automobile ownership made the trip appealing.

Recently, St. Louis American Contributing Editor Fred Sweets set off on one of his cross-country treks, traveling east from Tiburon, California, north of San Francisco, to Washington, DC. He convinced his old friend Michael Dutton to fly to California from DC to accompany him.

Starting at dinner with Publisher Donald Suggs and artist Oliver Jackson at film director Francis Ford Coppola’s restaurant Café Zoetrope, in Sa

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