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| Above, a Route 66 sign in Church Rock, New Mexico. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
There are many articles out there about Historic Route 66. Most of them are domestic in origin. But, there's one from New Zealand that is quite interesting.
It is about a stretch of Route 66 in New Mexico that actually plays "America The Beautiful". The article includes a video to prove it.
According to the article in NZ Herald:
Route 66: the American transcontinental highway has inspired countless songs and road trip soundtracks.
"It winds from Chicago to LA, more than 2000 miles all the way," according to the Stones, Chuck Berry and even Nat King Cole who have all sung about getting their "kicks on '66".
But few people know that stretches of the track play music back.
A stretch of road leading out of Tijeras, New Mexico has been cut with rumble strips that play out "America the Beautiful" if drivers observe the 45mph (72 kph) speed limit.
An ingenious way to inspire road-trippers to drive at a sensible speed, the bumps have become something of a tourist attraction.
Let's face it, on this stretch of highway, 400km since Amarillo and the Texan border the landmarks run fairly thin.
Fitting 330 strips across a 20m stretch produces the recognisable note of E from passing cars. As the New Mexican Department of Transportation told the Smithsonian magazine at the time, "anything that vibrates 330 times in one second will produce an E note—a guitar string, a tuning fork or even a tyre."
To read more and to see the video, go here.
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