It’s buried in this Carthage (Mo.) Press story about a meeting of city and county officials in Jasper County, Mo., but it’s good news nevertheless:

Honey also reported that Commissioner Darius Adams had secured a Missouri Department of Transportation grant of about $100,000 to create a Route 66 museum in the Courthouse.

The Jasper County Courthouse is an excellent place for a Route 66 museum. The road runs nearby, and it’s hard to miss such a distinctive building.

Foreign trade executives from 16 countries will be guided next week by the Illinois governor’s team to tour several tourist-related attractions, reports the Lincoln Courier.

In Lincoln, they will meet with local business leaders and learn more about regional tourism, including Looking for Lincoln and the Route 66 Scenic Highway.

Because foreigners have generally shown an intense interest in Route 66, I’ll bet those executives will pay attention more closely to the Mother Road attractions than of Abe Lincoln’s.

Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel and prominent Red Dirt artists Cross Canadian Ragweed and Stoney LaRue are booked to play at Clinton Motorsports Park on Friday, June 22, coinciding during the Route 66 Festival in Clinton, Okla.

The festival Web site says that music will start at 5 p.m. Tickets won’t go on sale until next month. It will be on concert listings as the second annual Levelland Jam. Check back with Cross Canadian Ragweed’s site for updates and buying tickets.

Asleep at the Wheel is known as the best flag-bearer of Western swing music in the land. The group just finished as the backing band for the Last of the Breed tour that featured Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Ray Price.

Also, Asleep at the Wheel drummer David Sanger is a Route 66 fan who’s produced two various-artists albums, “Songs of Route 66: All-American Highway” and “More Songs of Route 66: Roadside Attractions,” that pay tribute to the Mother Road.

And Bobby Troup’s “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66″ is a regular part of the band’s set list.

Cross Canadian Ragweed boasts a substantial fan base in Oklahoma and Texas as purveyors of Red Dirt, a hybrid of country, rock and folk music native to the Southwest. All by itself, Cross Canadian Ragweed will draw a sizable crowd. LaRue is another Red Dirt musician who’s attracted quite a following and plays 300 shows a year.

If you plan to attend the festival for several days and haven’t booked motel rooms for the Friday, you’d better do it now. The fans of these artists will take up a bunch of rooms in a hurry.

We knew this was going to happen, but sharp-eyed reader Jennifer pointed out in this comment that a slew of new die-cast toys from last summer’s Disney-Pixar hit, “Cars,” is coming out soon.

RPMdiecast.com is taking pre-orders for these “Cars” characters, a few of which are shipping in June or July; others have no release date listed except for “coming soon 2007″:

• No. 64 race car
• Bob Cutlass (the announcer voiced by Bob Costas)
• Darrell Cartrip (the color announcer voiced by Darrel Waltrip)
• Cruisin’ McQueen (this is the Radiator Springs-repainted Lightning McQueen with whitewall tires)
• Dale Earnhart Jr. car
• Dinoco-colored Chick Hicks
• Dinoco Tex
• The Ferrari F430
• The rusty Fred truck
• Hydraulic Ramone
• Lightning McQueen with tongue sticking out
• Mario Andretti
• Red and white Ramone
• Snot Rod
• Yeti
• Change-up McQueen (give Lightning McQueen your own Radiator Springs makeover)
• Dinoco helicopter
• Pit crew performance playset
• Radiator Springs playmat

No Frank the combine, however.

Rob Ryan of The Times in London attended a sneak preview of a few new rides at Disneyland Paris. If you’re vacationing in France, fans of Route 66 and last summer’s Disney-Cars “Cars” movie have something to look forward to:

Cars: Race Rally is a gentle ride based on the Pixar movie, and will feature two figure-of-eight driving tracks and newly designed vehicles inspired by those in the film. It’s a very junior attraction, hardly likely to raise the pulse of seasoned ride-hounds, but one of its important benefits will be the theming it brings to a previously lacklustre corner. The extensive neon-soaked facades of Radiator Springs (the Route 66 town in the film) will certainly address some of the paucity of eye candy on the lot.

A miniature Radiator Springs drenched in neon? Cool.

If you can’t go to Paris, Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., also has a “Cars” ride. However, based on Ryan’s description, it sounds a tad bizarre:

Like its counterparts in Paris, Disneyland at Anaheim is also capitalising on the Disney-Pixar link. It is debuting a new A Disney imagineer creates Cars: Race Rally submarine ride based on Finding Nemo, with eight submersibles that take guests on a subaquatic coral reef trip.

UPDATE: After a little more surfing, I found the Web site for the Cars: Road Rally attraction at Disneyland Paris.

A new restaurant has opened on the Manchester alignment of Route 66 in St. Louis, called the After Diner.

The Riverfront Times’ restaurant reviewer went there, and gave it a tepid reaction. Some restaurant reviewers are food snobs and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, the complaints are troubling enough that Route 66ers should regard the diner with somewhat lowered expectations.

Route 66 Road Musical has posted an “extended” video of scenes from the Petrified Forest National Park, also known as the Painted Desert, in eastern Arizona.

The music is “The Painted Desert,” by 10,000 Maniacs.

Maggie Downs of the The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., writes about the continuing attempts to revive Roy’s and the lonely Mojave Desert town of Amboy, Calif.

Most of the stuff Downs reports has already been noted here, including that Roy’s soon will be pumping gas again. But it’s a good read.

The article also includes a recipe for Roy’s chili (make sure you have a darned big pot when you make it).

A few days ago, we linked to a story about Detlev Henschel, who is hiking across North America on old wagon trails and other historic roads, including Route 66.

The Mojave Daily News in Bullhead City, Ariz., caught up with Henschel and his wife near Laughlin, Nev. The story contains more background about him, including the fact he quit his job as a CEO several years ago after it was apparent the stress was injuring his health.

Grand Canyon Caverns, a longtime underground attraction on Route 66 west of Seligman, Ariz., will undergo $2 million worth of upgrades, according to the Kingman Daily Miner.

Among the improvements are landscaping, new concrete, a Frisbee golf course, an RV park, Boy Scout tent areas, and an observatory.

Co-owner Kim Kadletz also says he wants to further explore other levels of caverns and open them up to tourism, if possible.