Newlyweds mark personal milestone as Route 66 turns 100

Ed and Jackie Fogle returned to Route 66 at Navy Pier, the symbolic starting point of the Mother Road, with a new milestone to mark alongside the highway’s 100th birthday. The Tulsa couple first drove the route on their honeymoon 25 years ago in a 1959 Cadillac convertible, with the top down for the full trip from Chicago to Santa Monica. Now, as their 25th wedding anniversary approaches in June, they are retracing that memory in a restored 1926 Hupmobile, a car almost as old as Route 66 itself.

The car brought its own drama before the journey could fully begin. Ed Fogle said the Hupmobile’s speedometer, odometer and fuel gauge do not work, and the couple towed it from Tulsa with help from a friend and mechanic, Tom Lord. At Navy Pier, the 100-year-old car stalled and appeared to have a carburetor problem, sending Lord to tinker, consult another mechanic by phone and help get the vehicle moving again. Jackie Fogle took the interruption in stride while the couple waited for the antique car to come back to life.

Their trip lands in the middle of a national centennial that has pushed Route 66 back into the spotlight far beyond Chicago. The official centennial effort says it is using the year to preserve, maintain, restore and return historic properties along the corridor to use, while also supporting events, commemorative stamps and economic development grants. AP’s centennial project describes the highway as a string of restored motor lodges, classic diners and roadside attractions that still draw travelers to the eight states along the route.

That is why the Fogles’ drive resonates well beyond one marriage and one antique car. Their 2001 honeymoon became part of Route 66 lore, and their return drive shows how Americans keep repurposing the Mother Road for new meaning, turning nostalgia into tourism and personal memory into a public celebration. As Route 66 turns 100, the Fogles are making clear that the road’s power now lies as much in the stories people bring to it as in the pavement itself.