Route 66 Turns 100, Arizona Reveals Cosmic Road Trip Gems

The historic Route 66 is turning 100 years old, and travelers are discovering that America's most famous highway doesn't just connect Chicago to California. It connects us to the cosmos.

The 2,448-mile highway has been drawing nostalgic road trippers for decades. But along its Arizona stretch, a special kind of tourism is taking off: astro-tourism.

Flagstaff sits right on Route 66, calling itself a gateway to both the Grand Canyon and outer space. The town's connection to the stars started before the highway even existed.

In the early 1900s, astronomer Percival Lowell built an observatory on a Flagstaff hillside that locals say looks like a birthday cake. Lowell believed intelligent life might exist on Mars, and while he never found Martians, he sparked a cosmic curiosity that still thrives today.

Then came the big discovery. In 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh identified Pluto right from that same Flagstaff observatory, making history from a small Arizona town along what would become America's Main Street.

The observatory still has the original telescope used to spot Pluto. Today, visitors can see the same equipment that revealed our solar system's most famous dwarf planet.

The Ripple Effect

Flagstaff's clear skies and cosmic legacy caught NASA's attention too. In the 1960s, Apollo astronauts trained at Cinder Lake Crater Field just outside town, preparing for lunar missions on terrain that looks remarkably like the moon's surface.

NASA scientists tested rovers and equipment in the rocky landscape north of Flagstaff, treating the Arizona desert as their own moon simulation. The highway that once carried Americans chasing better lives now carries them toward the stars.

Other cosmic stops dot the route through Arizona. Meteor Crater remains one of Earth's best-preserved meteorite impact sites, giving travelers a chance to see where space literally crashed into the highway.

Route 66 was officially decommissioned in the 1980s, but communities along the way formed preservation groups to keep the spirit alive. Now, as the highway celebrates 100 years, that preservation work means travelers can still follow the same path that inspired generations.

The centennial celebration reminds us that American roads lead to unexpected places. Some journeys take us across the country, and some take us to the edge of human understanding.