Music to drive by

The first track is obvious: Route 66, as recorded by the Rolling Stones in 1964 and released on their album "England's Newest Hit Makers" (the CD is ASIN B000003BDV).

Then I found an interesting cover of Route 66 by Depeche Mode. In fact, there are three different mixes on their CD single "Behind the Wheel/Route 66" (ASIN B000002M2O).

As we're starting in Chicago, we'll need some Blues. Pete will wax lyrical about Big Walter "Shakey" Horton, Buddy Guy, Earl Hooker, Jimmy Johnson and Muddy Waters. I suspect the girls will prefer the Blues Brothers. Since we're ending in Santa Monica, we'll need some West Coast Blues as well. Check out Daniel Castro (www.danielcastro.com). Jane and I saw him live in San Francisco a few years ago at Lou's Pier 47. He was brilliant. "No Surrender" is worth the $15 + postage.

In between we'll need some great rock (this list could get long!):

Deep Purple
Thin Lizzy
Led Zeppelin
Jimmy Hendrix
Queen
Black Sabbath

Always begin with a little light reading

We dropped onto Amazon.co.uk to see what books we might want to start reading and ordered...

• "Route 66: Traveller's Guide and Roadside Companion" by Tom Snyder (ISBN: 0312254172)
• "Hogs on 66: Best Feed and Hangouts for Road Trips on Route 66" by Michael Wallis and Marian Clark (ISBN: 1571781404)
• "Travelling Route 66: 2250 Miles of Motoring History from Chicago to L.A." by Nick Freeth (ISBN: 0806133260)
• "Route 66 (Lonely Planet Road Trip)" by Sara Benson (ISBN: 1740595807)

Then it was onto Amazon.com to get some maps as they weren't available through the UK site (maps are a man thing, I know :-) )...

• "Here It Is! The Route 66 Map Series" by Jim Ross and Jerry McClanahan (ISBN: 0967748143)

We'll provide a review of each book as we read it.

Next, some music to drive by...

So what's this blog all about?

Four Brits - two of them sisters - enjoyed going on holiday together. They all liked Rock 'n' Roll, driving and the USA. So what to do? Route 66, of course!

This blog is going to track the planning and the trip in 2012.