Route 66 -- immortalized, but mortal

National Park Service provides funding to document California's portion of the Mother Road as a step toward preservation of the cultural touchstone.

Stanley Marsh III leans on one of the 10 Cadillacs buried on his ranch west of Amarillo, Texas, along Route 66, in this June 1984 photo. (Evans Caglage/Dallas Morning News)

“It was, John Steinbeck wrote in "The Grapes of Wrath," the "Mother Road" of Dust Bowl sharecroppers heading to the promised land of California. It was where George Maharis and Martin Milner got their 1960s kicks in a Corvette and the highway that brought families to Disneyland and the original McDonald's in San Bernardino.” Go here to read the story.