The Route 66 town of Needles, Calif., wants to revitalize its downtown, and is seeking input from residents on how to do so, according to the Mohave Daily News.

One of the ideas floated sounds intriguing:

A Hot Rocks and Rods on Route 66 event is currently envisioned as an alternative energy fair with music. The NDBA is hoping that service organizations and businesses will be interested in participating in the event, which is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 11.

The group collecting the ideas is the Needles Downtown Business Alliance.

I always thought Needles was an unpolished gem, especially with its closeness to the Colorado River. Yeah, it’s hot much of the year, but so is nearby Kingman, Ariz. That hasn’t stopped Kingman from becoming a fast-growing city. All Needles needs, it seems, is some imaginative leadership.

John Korelc, the founder of what became the Launching Pad Drive-In on Route 66 in Wilmington, Ill., died at age 87 on Friday in nearby Joliet, reports the Joliet Herald-News.

The Launching Pad originally was called the Dari Delite when it opened in 1960. That change the restaurant’s name to its current moniker in 1965.

The restaurant became famous across the country after they found something to make it distinctive. That was a 28-foot tall, 500-pound fiberglass green giant with a space helmet.

“The Launching Pad was his life,” said his daughter, Sharon Gatties. She worked at the restaurant and later she and her husband, Jerry, became the owners, until they sold this spring.

Korelc retired in 1986. But an article five years later said he was still making occasional deliveries for the restaurant and helping in its kitchen.

Morey Szczecin bought the restaurant a few months ago.

The demand was there for years. Finally, on Oct. 23, the critically acclaimed “route 66″ drama that aired from 1960 to 1964 will start to be officially released on DVD.

Unofficial DVDs of “route 66″ have floated around for years, many of them of erratic quality. This upcoming release by Roxbury Entertainment, in association with Infinity Entertainment Group, will be digitally remastered for the highest quality sound and picture possible, according to a news release.

The release also says that Roxbury is producing a new movie called “Route 66,” slated to be out in 2008.

The DVD will contain just the first season, or 15 episodes, of “route 66,” plus unspecified “special features.” It retails for $29.98. You can preorder it from Amazon.com, which lists it for as low as $20.95.

A sublime song by a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Kris Kristofferson:

It looks like he’s strolling through Route 66 country in the Mojave Desert.

If any person should publish a Route 66 book about the Windy City, David G. Clark is one. And that’s what he and Arcadia Publishing have done with “Route 66 in Chicago” ($19.95, 128 pages).

However, I would first recommend his other book about the Mother Road. More on that later.

“”Route 66 in Chicago” is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of vintage and current-day photos and drawings of the city’s historical sites and architecture, with many of the images from Clark’s own collection.

Clark’s love of history is evident and deep. For him, the roots of Route 66 don’t begin when the road was certified in 1926. They go back centuries, when Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette explored the area, and later in the 1800s, when farmers and businessmen had to figure out how to transport their goods to Chicago. At first, it was by rivers, canals and stagecoach trails. Then the railroads came. Then the roads. All of these modes of transportation tended to overlap each other over time and blazed the way for future alignments of Route 66.

Whoever reads “Route 66 in Chicago” probably will learn a few things about the City with Big Shoulders.  For instance, there once was a quagmire called Mud Lake that was part of the Portage Trail between the Chicago and Des Plaines rivers. The lake was navigable by small canoe only 45 days a year; the rest of the time it was mud. (Mud Lake eventually dried up when development altered the water table.)

The “Serving the Traveler” and “Surviving the Interstates” chapters will likely be most useful for Route 66 travelers. They point out historic hotels, restaurants and other landmarks that once existed or still remain on the Mother Road.

“Route 66 in Chicago” proves to be a worthwhile historical undertaking. However, Clark’s earlier book, “Exploring Route 66 in Chicagoland,” is more practical for Mother Road wanderers and comes highly recommended. “Route 66 in Chicago” is more of a companion volume.

Here’s a nice slide show of scenes along Route 66. This YouTube video also is notable for Bruce Springsteen’s live-in-concert version of “My Oklahoma Home,” which is performed with Western swing flavor by The Sessions Band.

The song comes from Springsteen’s new DVD, “Live in Dublin,” which is also available in CD form.

So a bridesmaid again she is.

Rory Schepisi, who finished second in CMT’s “Popularity Contest,” finished runner-up in yet another reality television show, this time “The Next Food Network Star,” on Sunday night.

The loss had to be a bitter pill to swallow. Amy Finley, who ended up as champion, was eliminated earlier but brought back when another semifinalist, Jag, quit after being confronted for fabricating portions of his background.

Given the circumstances, many viewers probably thought Schepisi had the title wrapped up, but online and cell-phone voters apparently decided otherwise (or many potential voters didn’t participate because Schepisi was the obvious favorite).

Schepisi may have lost, but her new restaurant, Boot Hill Saloon & Grill in Vega, Texas, is a big winner, and so is Route 66. As of 10:30 p.m. CST on Sunday night, the Route 66 News post about her opening a restaurant on the Mother Road had gained more than 900 page views since 6 p.m. That’s a heck of a lot of publicity for her, her restaurant and Route 66.

The Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph has filed a story about the Rock ‘N Rods on Route 66 festival in town this weekend.

There’s not much Route 66 content; it’s mostly about vintage cars and how they’re modified.

I also took note that among the musical entertainment are The Blasters and Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, both which play great road music. In fact, the Pantagraph has an interview with Commander Cody himself.

Ron Stahl of the Daily Oklahoman does a near-heroic job tracking down obscure museums in the Sooner State, including a few near Route 66 that escaped my notice or haven’t visited yet.

I have heard about the relatively new Route 66 Vintage Iron Museum in Miami, Okla., but didn’t know about its special collection:

One of the largest collections of Indiana-born actor Steve McQueen’s memorabilia is in Miami, OK, at the Route 66 Vintage Iron Museum. McQueen was a motorcycle racer, and Tony Holden, the museum owner, is a Steve McQueen fan.

The Vintage Iron Museum has more than 25 old bikes, including a 1919 Australian GCS motorcycle that is believed to be the only one left in the world.

Museum manager Chris Martin said the McQueen memorabilia is a big surprise to visitors. “Most people don’t know we have McQueen stuff when they come in. Then they go ‘wow’ and get pretty excited,” he said.

Martin said the McQueen items include two motorcycles, a Husqvarna racing bike and a 1949 Indian Arrow. Fourteen of McQueen’s racing trophies also are on display.

Another one is the Elsing Museum at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. Willard Elsing collected rocks at his shop in Joplin, Mo., on Route 66 for decades and donated his collection to the university in 2001.

Another one is the Ida Dennis Willis Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys in Tulsa. There’s no Route 66 connection that I’m aware of, except the Mother Road goes through town. Still, it sounds like a side trip of interest.

In the past week, someone posted on YouTube the performance by Randy Newman and James Taylor of “Our Town” during the 2007 Academy Awards. The Oscar-nominated song came from the hit animated movie, “Cars.”

You’d better watch this while you can. The Academy had inexplicably banned YouTube from posting performances of songs during the telecast. So if you missed this song, here’s your chance.