“Highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66 — the long concrete path across the country, waving gently up and down the map, from Mississippi to Bakersfield. 66 is the path of people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunders of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert’s slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.”
— John Steinbeck
Red Fork Hippie 