Eating Dust: Walkers, Runners,
and Others on Foot along Highway 66
BY T. LINDSAY BAKER
PART 2—First appeared in Route 66 New Mexico magazine (Vol. 32, No. 1)
Old Highway 66 experienced a revival starting in the 1990s. Books like Susan Croce Kelly and Quinta Scott’s Route 66: The Highway and Its People in 1990 and Michael Wallis’s Route 66: The Mother Road in 1990 encouraged increasing numbers of people to seek their own Route 66 experiences. From walkers being considered as eccentric exceptions to the rule, it became increasingly common for motorists to observe occasional walkers who intentionally eschewed automobiles for shoe leather. As the general population grew more aware of the Mother Road legacy, those non-conformist walkers started garnering publicity, support, and notoriety that dwarfed any recognition that most of their mid-twentieth-century predecessors had received. One of these latter-day walkers who eventually received nationwide renown was Marjorie Hazel “Margie” McCauley, a spunky grandmother from Landers, California.
The mother of seven had experienced a demanding life since her Oklahoma birth in 1928. Her husband had died from cancer in 1990 and her yoghurt stand business had collapsed. These events left her wondering what she should do with her remaining life. Margie told her children, “You don’t live forever, and when you’re dead, you’re dead a long time. You’ve got to let your heart rule.” Accordingly, she determined to walk across the continent from Landers to visit a sister in New Britain, Connecticut. She improvised a three-wheel garden cart into a pushable improvised baggage cart and then modified it so her apricot-colored Akita/Labrador dog, Lollipop, could help pull some of the time. Then on May 6, 1995, McCauley and her canine companion set out. Once she reached former Highway 66 in Barstow, she planned to follow its historic pavement all the way to Chicago and thence proceed to New England.
For the first thousand miles Margie was almost invisible as she trudged across the deserts and plains in the Southwest. Her pushcart carried a tent, bedding, and water, so most of the time she could sleep at the roadside. Occasional problems arose, like during a 23-mile day between Laguna and Los Lunas, New Mexico, “We were short of water . . . so I kept waving my water bottle at people and a cowboy driving a horse trailer stopped and gave me a gallon.” Along the way Margie raised suspicions from locals. In Texas the police received reports of an old woman pushing a wheelchair along the road, while motorists in Illinois alerted authorities that they had seen a town vagrant wearing a tie-died shirt and accompanied by a muzzled dog. It was only Margie toddling along beside the road.
The tone of the trip changed when 66-year-old McCauley reached Oklahoma, where Route 66 awareness had developed more fully. From this point on, she became the darling of the press and television news reports. Her visit with former high school classmates at their 50th anniversary reunion in Okmulgee,
The mother of seven had experienced a demanding life since her Oklahoma birth in 1928. Her husband had died from cancer in 1990 and her yoghurt stand business had collapsed. These events left her wondering what she should do with her remaining life. Margie told her children, “You don’t live forever, and when you’re dead, you’re dead a long time. You’ve got to let your heart rule.” Accordingly, she determined to walk across the continent from Landers to visit a sister in New Britain, Connecticut. She improvised a three-wheel garden cart into a pushable improvised baggage cart and then modified it so her apricot-colored Akita/Labrador dog, Lollipop, could help pull some of the time. Then on May 6, 1995, McCauley and her canine companion set out. Once she reached former Highway 66 in Barstow, she planned to follow its historic pavement all the way to Chicago and thence proceed to New England.
For the first thousand miles Margie was almost invisible as she trudged across the deserts and plains in the Southwest. Her pushcart carried a tent, bedding, and water, so most of the time she could sleep at the roadside. Occasional problems arose, like during a 23-mile day between Laguna and Los Lunas, New Mexico, “We were short of water . . . so I kept waving my water bottle at people and a cowboy driving a horse trailer stopped and gave me a gallon.” Along the way Margie raised suspicions from locals. In Texas the police received reports of an old woman pushing a wheelchair along the road, while motorists in Illinois alerted authorities that they had seen a town vagrant wearing a tie-died shirt and accompanied by a muzzled dog. It was only Margie toddling along beside the road.
The tone of the trip changed when 66-year-old McCauley reached Oklahoma, where Route 66 awareness had developed more fully. From this point on, she became the darling of the press and television news reports. Her visit with former high school classmates at their 50th anniversary reunion in Okmulgee,
Left: Buddhist monk Sutham Nateetong from Thailand trekking across eastern New Mexico in his 2019 walk for peace. Courtesy of Nick Gerlich.
Right: Sutham Nateetong as he strode eastward on Southwest Sixth Avenue, old Highway 66, through Amarillo, Texas, in 2019. Courtesy of Nick Gerlich.
Right: Sutham Nateetong as he strode eastward on Southwest Sixth Avenue, old Highway 66, through Amarillo, Texas, in 2019. Courtesy of Nick Gerlich.
Oklahoma, enchanted the media. Journalists tracked the granny’s progress; members of state Route 66 associations checked on and aided her along the way; and many individuals appeared from “nowhere” to proffer water and meals.
Margie made it to St. Clair, Missouri, in October 1995, but an unexpected delay came in the form of an accidental fall at the roadside. Her children purchased a plane ticket back to the West Coast, where she spent the winter recuperating. Manager Bob Bruner at the Tri-County Truck Stop in Villa Ridge, Missouri, kept the pushcart in safe storage, and Margie returned to pick it up the next April in 1996 to continue her trek. After she reached Chicago, members of the Illinois Route 66 Association gave her a “lift” out of urban congestion and into quieter Indiana, where she continued tramping eastward. Finally, about 300 miles away from her New Britain destination, another kind person assisted her in purchasing a seventeen-year-old white Ford sedan, in which she and Lollipop completed their journey in September 1996. They eventually drove the same vehicle home to Landers, where Margie in time accumulated a wash tub full of letters and greetings from well-wishers.
In time the old pavement of Highway 66 became a bona fide magnet for long-distance walkers. Many of them chose to negotiate the historic roadway to bring attention to humane or philanthropic concerns. Thai Buddhist monk Sutham Nateetong in 2019 epitomized these unselfish hikers when he took on the length of Highway 66 eastbound and thence to New York as a means of promoting world peace. The holy man explained, “I think now in the world we have many wars, many bombs, many killed,” adding, “If everybody have peace we will have [a] happy world. It take[s] every person to have peace. If I can walk, it is a form of peace.” As he strode along each day, Sutham simultaneously meditated and chanted. Wearing the distinctive orange robes of the Theravada sect of Buddhism, he started out sleeping at the side of the road and in abandoned buildings.
As Nateetong progressed, however, word of his pilgrimage spread and people along the way began offering him overnight stays in their homes or in motels. He also lodged in Buddhist temples in larger cities like Albuquerque, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Chicago. The walker for peace had hoped to arrive in New York City by Independence Day 2019, but he beat even his own goal by reaching his destination on June 30. This journey was not enough for indefatigable Sutham Nateetong; before completing the pilgrimage across America he already had begun planning another trek to start in Thailand and to end 7,450 miles later in Paris, France.
Not everyone who chose to cross America under their own power did so on their own feet. Others sought greater challenges like trying to make the trip on stilts. This was the test for French visitor Manu Caudra in spring 2010. This visitor from abroad made his way as far down old Highway 66 from Chicago as central Illinois, but the author found no reports of his making farther substantial progress toward the Pacific shore.
We don’t know whether Caudra had heard the story of Arizona stilt walker Pete McDonald, but the American in 1957 successfully did high-step all the way from New York City to Chicago and thence to Los Angeles. Businessman Everett Skaggs of Phoenix, Arizona, conceived the idea of McDonald’s cross-country journey as a publicity stunt promoting sales of the adjustable aluminum stilts made by his Skaggs Manufacturing Company. Carpenters, plasterers, and others in construction trades who needed height but not the expense of scaffolding used and continue to use similar lightweight strap-on supports like these. Skaggs found McDonald, a fourteen-year Army veteran infantryman, running a Phoenix oyster bar, but the thirty-seven-year-old food purveyor took his offer of $1,500 plus the opportunity to see the country at no cost. The two men together with Skaggs’s wife and eight-year-old daughter, Carolyn, drove to New York in a new 1957 Chevrolet station wagon, which on the return circuit would double as the “chase car” for the stilt walker. Just before they left on June 28, 1957, the army veteran and Skaggs appeared on Dave Garroway’s Wide Wide World NBC coast-to-coast television program. This was just the type of notoriety that Skaggs was seeking, and he must have been pleased.
From New York, Pete McDonald high-stepped eastward, making between thirty and forty miles a daily. Whenever the party reached a good-sized town, little Carolyn would don her child-sized stilts to accompany Pete. They must have created quite a stir. After reaching Chicago, the group made its way down 66 for more than half of its length. Along the way in August, McDonald paused for a rest stop at Lucille and Carl Hamons’s filling station on the outskirts of Hydro, Oklahoma, and fifty miles later the party stayed overnight at the Western Motel in Elk City. Expenses for the trip must have been greater than Everett Skaggs had predicted; by September he was placing classified advertisements in several newspapers soliciting, “WANTED: Something to advertise the remainder of our coast-to-coast walk on stilts, as our finances are running low.” At a time when mobile telephones were both rare and expensive, the entrepreneur gave his own mobile telephone number for potential advertisers to contact.
The group remained on 66 as far as Albuquerque. There they angled to the southwest to complete the journey to Los Angeles by way of Miami and Yuma, Arizona, arriving by October 30. Far from burned out from his arduous experience, Pete McDonald once back home in Phoenix personally advertised, “Want sponsors for stilts walk around the world. Ready to leave anytime…also would like to hear from anyone interested in making the trip with me.”
Margie made it to St. Clair, Missouri, in October 1995, but an unexpected delay came in the form of an accidental fall at the roadside. Her children purchased a plane ticket back to the West Coast, where she spent the winter recuperating. Manager Bob Bruner at the Tri-County Truck Stop in Villa Ridge, Missouri, kept the pushcart in safe storage, and Margie returned to pick it up the next April in 1996 to continue her trek. After she reached Chicago, members of the Illinois Route 66 Association gave her a “lift” out of urban congestion and into quieter Indiana, where she continued tramping eastward. Finally, about 300 miles away from her New Britain destination, another kind person assisted her in purchasing a seventeen-year-old white Ford sedan, in which she and Lollipop completed their journey in September 1996. They eventually drove the same vehicle home to Landers, where Margie in time accumulated a wash tub full of letters and greetings from well-wishers.
In time the old pavement of Highway 66 became a bona fide magnet for long-distance walkers. Many of them chose to negotiate the historic roadway to bring attention to humane or philanthropic concerns. Thai Buddhist monk Sutham Nateetong in 2019 epitomized these unselfish hikers when he took on the length of Highway 66 eastbound and thence to New York as a means of promoting world peace. The holy man explained, “I think now in the world we have many wars, many bombs, many killed,” adding, “If everybody have peace we will have [a] happy world. It take[s] every person to have peace. If I can walk, it is a form of peace.” As he strode along each day, Sutham simultaneously meditated and chanted. Wearing the distinctive orange robes of the Theravada sect of Buddhism, he started out sleeping at the side of the road and in abandoned buildings.
As Nateetong progressed, however, word of his pilgrimage spread and people along the way began offering him overnight stays in their homes or in motels. He also lodged in Buddhist temples in larger cities like Albuquerque, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Chicago. The walker for peace had hoped to arrive in New York City by Independence Day 2019, but he beat even his own goal by reaching his destination on June 30. This journey was not enough for indefatigable Sutham Nateetong; before completing the pilgrimage across America he already had begun planning another trek to start in Thailand and to end 7,450 miles later in Paris, France.
Not everyone who chose to cross America under their own power did so on their own feet. Others sought greater challenges like trying to make the trip on stilts. This was the test for French visitor Manu Caudra in spring 2010. This visitor from abroad made his way as far down old Highway 66 from Chicago as central Illinois, but the author found no reports of his making farther substantial progress toward the Pacific shore.
We don’t know whether Caudra had heard the story of Arizona stilt walker Pete McDonald, but the American in 1957 successfully did high-step all the way from New York City to Chicago and thence to Los Angeles. Businessman Everett Skaggs of Phoenix, Arizona, conceived the idea of McDonald’s cross-country journey as a publicity stunt promoting sales of the adjustable aluminum stilts made by his Skaggs Manufacturing Company. Carpenters, plasterers, and others in construction trades who needed height but not the expense of scaffolding used and continue to use similar lightweight strap-on supports like these. Skaggs found McDonald, a fourteen-year Army veteran infantryman, running a Phoenix oyster bar, but the thirty-seven-year-old food purveyor took his offer of $1,500 plus the opportunity to see the country at no cost. The two men together with Skaggs’s wife and eight-year-old daughter, Carolyn, drove to New York in a new 1957 Chevrolet station wagon, which on the return circuit would double as the “chase car” for the stilt walker. Just before they left on June 28, 1957, the army veteran and Skaggs appeared on Dave Garroway’s Wide Wide World NBC coast-to-coast television program. This was just the type of notoriety that Skaggs was seeking, and he must have been pleased.
From New York, Pete McDonald high-stepped eastward, making between thirty and forty miles a daily. Whenever the party reached a good-sized town, little Carolyn would don her child-sized stilts to accompany Pete. They must have created quite a stir. After reaching Chicago, the group made its way down 66 for more than half of its length. Along the way in August, McDonald paused for a rest stop at Lucille and Carl Hamons’s filling station on the outskirts of Hydro, Oklahoma, and fifty miles later the party stayed overnight at the Western Motel in Elk City. Expenses for the trip must have been greater than Everett Skaggs had predicted; by September he was placing classified advertisements in several newspapers soliciting, “WANTED: Something to advertise the remainder of our coast-to-coast walk on stilts, as our finances are running low.” At a time when mobile telephones were both rare and expensive, the entrepreneur gave his own mobile telephone number for potential advertisers to contact.
The group remained on 66 as far as Albuquerque. There they angled to the southwest to complete the journey to Los Angeles by way of Miami and Yuma, Arizona, arriving by October 30. Far from burned out from his arduous experience, Pete McDonald once back home in Phoenix personally advertised, “Want sponsors for stilts walk around the world. Ready to leave anytime…also would like to hear from anyone interested in making the trip with me.”
Left: Margie McCauley and Lollipop making their way along old Highway 66 at Tulsa on September 15, 1995. From Tulsa World (Tulsa, Okla.), September 16, 1995, p. 15.
Right: When stilt-walker Pete McDonald strode through Chandler, Oklahoma, in September 1957, he paused in front of the Lincoln County News office with two younger residents of the town. From Shawnee News-Star (Shawnee, Okla.), September 7, 1957, p. 1.
Right: When stilt-walker Pete McDonald strode through Chandler, Oklahoma, in September 1957, he paused in front of the Lincoln County News office with two younger residents of the town. From Shawnee News-Star (Shawnee, Okla.), September 7, 1957, p. 1.
Starting in the 1960s, several competitors sought to best the records for the shortest number of days to run across the United States. It is not possible to enumerate all those who tried to make the mark, but it is worthwhile to survey a few who succeeded. Forty-eight-year-old South African gold miner and competition runner Don Shepherd, for example, departed Los Angeles on May 12, 1964, with his eyes set on a transcontinental running record set by Andy Payne in the 1928 Bunion Derby. Partially along Highway 66, he generally covered between thirty-eight and fifty-six miles a day. Having lost thirty pounds but with “the greatest tan of my life,” the athlete reached New York City on July 24 after 73 days, 8 hours, and 20 minutes.
English amateur runner Bruce Tulloh was the next in 1969 to best Shepherd’s record time in running across North America. The thirty-three-year-old biology teacher, an Olympic track veteran, came with his wife and two children, who followed his progress in an automobile towing a camper trailer. Sponsorship from Schweppes Tonic Water defrayed most of the actual costs. Like Shepherd he departed Los Angeles and ran much of his way along 66. On Monday, May 26, for example, he made his way from Chandler, Oklahoma, to the outskirts of Sapulpa. The Englishman subsequently relished cooler weather in crossing the Ozarks in Missouri, passing through Lebanon on May 31. After Tulloh entered Illinois, he pointed eastward toward New York along U.S. Highway 40, arriving in the Big Apple on June 26, in a record 64 days, 21 hours, and 50 minutes. More long-distance competitors followed, with American Marvin Swiggert setting a record at 63 days in 1971, followed by another Englishman, John Ball, who in 1972 remarkably cut the time to just 54 days.
While some individuals endeavored to cut the cross-country running time to the fewest possible number of days, others sought just to complete the run, not worrying about how much time it took. One of the most original ways that a person jogged the length of Highway 66 came from retired Berkeley, California, radiologist Geores Buttner-Clevenger. When a friend asked the white-bearded Geores how old he was, he innocently replied, “I’m doing Route 66,” meaning he was sixty-six years of age. The question, however, stuck in his mind and prompted Buttner-Clevenger to contemplate, “Why not jog Route 66?” This he decided to do, but the Californian took the 66 theme even farther. He developed a plan that included twice a day running, bicycling, and driving his camper van. On April 6, 2003, the Californian began his sojourn in Chicago. He started each day by stopping at the roadside, locking his bicycle securely, driving six miles ahead, jogging back to the bicycle, and then finally cycling back to his van, all in 66 minutes. He then could take several hours exploring the area he had covered; after lunch he repeated the same sequence of activities to cover another six miles in 66 minutes. His strategy was to make the entire trip to Santa Monica in six months and six days, and he proved it could be done by reaching Los Angeles in October 2003.
One more person who made the full length of Highway 66 running was retired state public servant Emory Duick from Des Plaines, Illinois. A long-time marathon runner, he conceived the idea of jogging the full length of Highway 66 because, in his words, “I wanted to promote health and wellness among seniors.” He felt that his example would encourage others to maintain healthy lifestyles and exercise regularly. He planned a trip with his thirty-three-year-old daughter, Lauren, who took a six-month leave of absence from her job as an occupational therapist. She drove a vehicle pulling a pop-up camper, where they slept most nights, and plotted the course, occasionally catching up with her jogging father just to check on him. Duick left Chicago on June 2, 2009, and the father-and-daughter pair gradually made their way down the historic pavement through St. Louis and across Missouri and beyond. The up-and-down terrain in the Ozarks presented Emory’s first real impediment. “The 287 miles I’m doing in Missouri is worth 700 miles in Illinois,” he quipped. On the pair went, averaging about ten to thirteen miles a day, but maintaining the pace. Winter weather farther west forced them to seek motel accommodations as snow began falling, but they pressed onward, reaching the Santa Monica pier on December 28, 2009.
Even before Route 66 came into existence, people had begun crossing the North American continent along the way that in 1926 became the Mother Road. Promoter C.C. Pyle in 1928 publicized the roadway with his cross-country footrace two years later. Since that time scores of people have made their way under their own motive power along the highway, including those surveyed in this article. Whenever you see any of these pedestrian sojourners, think about giving them a wave and maybe a bottle of cold water. They form part of a long legacy of transcontinental walkers and runners.
English amateur runner Bruce Tulloh was the next in 1969 to best Shepherd’s record time in running across North America. The thirty-three-year-old biology teacher, an Olympic track veteran, came with his wife and two children, who followed his progress in an automobile towing a camper trailer. Sponsorship from Schweppes Tonic Water defrayed most of the actual costs. Like Shepherd he departed Los Angeles and ran much of his way along 66. On Monday, May 26, for example, he made his way from Chandler, Oklahoma, to the outskirts of Sapulpa. The Englishman subsequently relished cooler weather in crossing the Ozarks in Missouri, passing through Lebanon on May 31. After Tulloh entered Illinois, he pointed eastward toward New York along U.S. Highway 40, arriving in the Big Apple on June 26, in a record 64 days, 21 hours, and 50 minutes. More long-distance competitors followed, with American Marvin Swiggert setting a record at 63 days in 1971, followed by another Englishman, John Ball, who in 1972 remarkably cut the time to just 54 days.
While some individuals endeavored to cut the cross-country running time to the fewest possible number of days, others sought just to complete the run, not worrying about how much time it took. One of the most original ways that a person jogged the length of Highway 66 came from retired Berkeley, California, radiologist Geores Buttner-Clevenger. When a friend asked the white-bearded Geores how old he was, he innocently replied, “I’m doing Route 66,” meaning he was sixty-six years of age. The question, however, stuck in his mind and prompted Buttner-Clevenger to contemplate, “Why not jog Route 66?” This he decided to do, but the Californian took the 66 theme even farther. He developed a plan that included twice a day running, bicycling, and driving his camper van. On April 6, 2003, the Californian began his sojourn in Chicago. He started each day by stopping at the roadside, locking his bicycle securely, driving six miles ahead, jogging back to the bicycle, and then finally cycling back to his van, all in 66 minutes. He then could take several hours exploring the area he had covered; after lunch he repeated the same sequence of activities to cover another six miles in 66 minutes. His strategy was to make the entire trip to Santa Monica in six months and six days, and he proved it could be done by reaching Los Angeles in October 2003.
One more person who made the full length of Highway 66 running was retired state public servant Emory Duick from Des Plaines, Illinois. A long-time marathon runner, he conceived the idea of jogging the full length of Highway 66 because, in his words, “I wanted to promote health and wellness among seniors.” He felt that his example would encourage others to maintain healthy lifestyles and exercise regularly. He planned a trip with his thirty-three-year-old daughter, Lauren, who took a six-month leave of absence from her job as an occupational therapist. She drove a vehicle pulling a pop-up camper, where they slept most nights, and plotted the course, occasionally catching up with her jogging father just to check on him. Duick left Chicago on June 2, 2009, and the father-and-daughter pair gradually made their way down the historic pavement through St. Louis and across Missouri and beyond. The up-and-down terrain in the Ozarks presented Emory’s first real impediment. “The 287 miles I’m doing in Missouri is worth 700 miles in Illinois,” he quipped. On the pair went, averaging about ten to thirteen miles a day, but maintaining the pace. Winter weather farther west forced them to seek motel accommodations as snow began falling, but they pressed onward, reaching the Santa Monica pier on December 28, 2009.
Even before Route 66 came into existence, people had begun crossing the North American continent along the way that in 1926 became the Mother Road. Promoter C.C. Pyle in 1928 publicized the roadway with his cross-country footrace two years later. Since that time scores of people have made their way under their own motive power along the highway, including those surveyed in this article. Whenever you see any of these pedestrian sojourners, think about giving them a wave and maybe a bottle of cold water. They form part of a long legacy of transcontinental walkers and runners.
Left: Pete McDonald and diminutive Carolyn Skaggs on stilts in Miami, Arizona, beside the 1957 Chevrolet support vehicle as Pete approached the end of his high-stepping walk across North America. From Arizona Silver Belt (Miami, Ariz.), October 10, 1957, p. 1.
Center: Cross-country runner Bruce Tulloh (center in dark sweater) with three of his friends about the time of his 1969 record-breaking run across America. Courtesy of the author.
Right: On old Highway 66 in Oklahoma, in 2015, the author met Japanese-American missionary Arthur Hollands, trekking eastward from Santa Monica pulling an eighty-pound, human-sized wooden cross, bound from Santa Monica to New York and the Atlantic Ocean as testimony to his Christian faith. Courtesy of the author.
Center: Cross-country runner Bruce Tulloh (center in dark sweater) with three of his friends about the time of his 1969 record-breaking run across America. Courtesy of the author.
Right: On old Highway 66 in Oklahoma, in 2015, the author met Japanese-American missionary Arthur Hollands, trekking eastward from Santa Monica pulling an eighty-pound, human-sized wooden cross, bound from Santa Monica to New York and the Atlantic Ocean as testimony to his Christian faith. Courtesy of the author.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T. Lindsay Baker a member of the New Mexico Route 66 Association, is the author of two dozen books on the history of the American West. He wrote Portrait of Route 66 Images from the Curt Teich Postcard Archives (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016) as well as Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America’s Mother Road (University of Oklahoma Press, 2022). He has driven the length of Route 66 both directions behind the wheel of an unmodified, four-cylinder 1930 Ford. |
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