TULSA, Okla. — Oklahoma is home to more miles of the Mother Road than any other state, which is one of the reasons Route 66 Road Fest is in Tulsa. The family-friendly event is June 23, 24, and 25 at the SageNet Center at Expo Square and features Route 66 expert Michael Wallis.
Wallis is a storyteller, "The Sheriff," and a son of the Mother Road.
"I was literally born off an original alignment at 66 in St. Louis. It's the road I learned to drive on, of course, a 55 Plymouth. The first car I bought was on Route 66. And as a young reporter, I covered the good, the bad, and the ugly on Route 66. I consequently lived in seven of the eight states. The only one I haven't lived in is Kansas," says Michael Wallis.
So, the most famous highway in America is one Wallis knows by heart.
"It starts in front of the Art Institute of Chicago. You go down in the land of Lincoln, across the Mississippi, St. Louis, down the Ozark plateau, through Carner, Kansas, across Oklahoma, through the Texas panhandle. It breaks up in Northern New Mexico and Arizona. There are great stretches in the Mojave desert. It goes up to Barstow, then hook a left up to Pasadena and Hollywood to Santa Monica," says Wallis.
It's along 66 in Tulsa that Wallis has lived for decades. And it's here he wrote the book he says changed his life and the highway.
"The road was sort of in limbo in 1985. The last town was bypassed. The signs were down. People talked about the road in the past tense, and that is what ignited me because I knew the road so well, and I knew the road was there physically, and I knew, more importantly, the people of the road were there eeking out a living," says Wallis.
So he penned his book, Route 66: The Mother Road, which he describes as a love letter to the highway. And it was a hit.
"It became very clear this had started something. And, of course, I was delighted. The book did spark this revival which I am terribly proud of," says Wallis.
It earned him the first of three Pulitzer Prize nominations. And it led to a phone call from the head of Pixar asking him to be a consultant on the film Cars.
"A hot shot race car he is just full of himself, but he gets lost on an old road, and he finds out that sometimes it's ok to be a racecar, but sometimes it's good to slow down, you know, and he said there's only one road. And that's your road," says Wallis.
So, Wallis took the creative team to get their kicks on Route 66. And on one of those trips, they approached him with another idea.
"They said you've got to be a voice in this film, so listen, we're gonna make you The Sheriff of Radiator Springs, and I said that's tremendous," says Wallis.
These days Wallis is also lending his voice to the Route 66 Alliance, a non-profit he co-founded. "We're all about the preservation, protection, and enhancement of Route 66," says Wallis.
And he's still writing. He just finished his 20th book, the biography of Belle Starr.
"Writers like me don't retire. We fall over dead on our keyboards, that's it," jokes Wallis.
Wallis does a lot of speaking tours too. At Route 66 Road Fest, a three-day interactive experience that looks into the Mother Road's past, present, and future, he'll have a Q & A session.
"We'll be up on stage, we did this last year, and I think it was very successful, and then I'll be prowling around the place to see if I can get in trouble or get someone else in trouble if I can," laughs Wallis.
Because if there's one thing we know about Michael Wallis. It's that he's always up for an adventure, and a good story always follows.
You can learn more about Michael Wallis and Route 66 Road Fest here. Wallis will take the stage Sunday, June 25, at 3 pm.
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