Wayne County Life

Great Lakes Seaway Trail, NY and PA – Mention Route 66 and for many it brings to mind the Bobby Troup ‘Get Your Kicks on Route 66’ song or the 1960s tv show about two young men traveling the U.S. in a sleek Corvette automobile. In 2013, the Route 66 Traveling Quilts collection of 56 quilts honoring the historic highway that spans eight U.S. states will travel to the Great Lakes Seaway Trail Beauty of the Byways Quilt Show in Sackets Harbor, NY, March 16-17 and March 23-24, 2013.

‘This spectacular collection of quilts includes open road and desert scenes, historic landmarks, road maps, and abstract designs keyed to the Route 66 byway experience in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. We are thrilled to include this special exhibit as part of our 2013 Beauty of the Byways theme showcase of byways all across America and Canada,’ says Great Lakes Seaway Trail Quilt Show Manager Lynette Lundy-Beck.

The Great Lakes Seaway Trail and Route 66 are among 150 federally-designated America’s Byways. The Great Lakes Seaway Trail is the 518-mile byway that parallels the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes freshwater shoreline of New York and Pennsylvania. The route was designated a first-round National Scenic Byway in 1996 and is a National Recreation Trail route for multi-modal travel.

Route 66 began in the 1920s as a two-lane, 2,488-mile route from Chicago to Los Angeles. Initially to be known as Route 60 or 62, Route 66’s formal existence as the way to motor West following a trail blazed through history lasted six decades. The route found new life with National Scenic Byway designation in New Mexico in 2000, in Arizona and Illinois in 2005, and in Oklahoma in 2009.

Patt Blair of Mt. Baldy, CA, and Kelly Gallagher-Abbott of Fort Collins, CO, created the Route 66 Quilt Challenge in 2011. Blair says, “Each participating artist created a personal favorite memory quilt to honor this magnificent highway, its eight states, and the communities through which it traveled.”

The Route 66 quilts will be displayed with quilted entries from across the U.S. and Canada paying tribute to favorite byways, roadside landscapes, natural and scenic resources, and landmark destinations at the Great Lakes Seaway Trail quilting event in March in Sackets Harbor, NY. More information and show entry guidelines for the Beauty of the Byways Quilt Show are online at www.seawaytrail.com/quilting or call 315-646-100 x203. -30-