I made the trip four times - pre Navy twice hitchhiking, [[1970-71) and post Navy twice, driving.[[1976-77), Pre Navy I was fifteen with roving feet, went with two local girls as far as Bakersfield, and then by myself north to San Francisco. I rolled a sleeping bag next to the Will Rogers expressway, and met the guy who insisted he wrote and recorded "Their coming to take me away Ah-Ha" in Joplin, Missouri." Route 66 is pretty much gone, and I never headed to Vegas at the time. I just bought nice stereo's and the like from the Vegas losers that crawled home to the San Diego Navy Base from a bad weekend in Sin City. Not much help, but I wanted to put this out into the Internut.