Route 66, New Mexico, 1991 (Photo by Dave Hoekstra)

The gentle tones of the dispatch were from another time, one of car hops and flat tops.

Ilse e-mailed me about a week ago after reading Route 66 stories on my website. On Sunday, Sept. 21 she embarked on an eight day trip down Route 66 from Chicago to the 76th conference of the Photographic Society of America  in Albuquerque, N.M. Ilse is driving her “Isabella,” a camel-colored Hyundai  that she named after the Queen of Spain.  She will listen to classic country music on satellite radio and German folk songs. She likes Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.

Ilse was looking for suggestions on safety and wondered,  “I’ll fulfill one of my bucket-list wishes, but can I stay in the “old” motels?”

Ilse is 86 years old.

I had to find out more.

“What story?,” she replied in one of our back and forth e-mails. “You are some-one-else and sound like a reporter!   I was delivering hot peppers and just got your e-mail.”

Ilse was a pleasant detour from the salty chest-thumping you see on the internet.

She does not want to be in the news and did not want to share her picture. Her family does not want me to use her last name.

I have left out her Midwestern home town in respect of her privacy. Ilse’s humble approach to the great American road trip mirrors the pleasures of driving Route 66. America’s red carpet is measured journey of clarity and dreams, especially when you check your ego to understand your place in the world.

The Route 66 community is a giving society. I know that fellow roadies will reach out for all sorts of great tips for Ilse. For starters, do not miss Atlanta, Illinois!  Safe, old motels? Don’t bypass the Wagon Wheel in Cuba, Mo. I’ll always be in debt to Lou Whitney (Skeletons,Morells) for hooking me up with the Rail Haven in Springfield, Mo.

Oatman, Az., 1991 (Photos by Dave Hoekstra)

Ilse has previously done the Kingman-Oatman, Az. section of Route 66. She wanted to drive the entire stretch to New Mexico because she is a history buff. She moves with a full throttle sense of wonder.

Ilse read a few Route 66 guide books, picked up tips on this website while “listening to others and follow maps and my feelings.” Yes, this gal knows how to travel.

I verified her journey in a phone conversation on the eve of her departure. Ilse told me she has visited 140 countries.

She pasted St. Christopher (the patron saint of travelers) on her dashboard for the Route 66 trip. Ilse, be sure to stop at The Our Lady of the Highways Shrine in downstate Raymond, Ill (near exit 63 on I-55). Late farmer Francis Marten installed the shrine and wooden grotto in 1959 along old Route 66. Marten also installed spotlights that illuminate the sign at night.

Ilse was concerned about her nocturnal safety. She said she stops driving around 4 p.m. and resumes early in the morning. I wondered about road food and told her how Diet Mountain Dew, tortilla chips and truck stop coffee keeps me going. In our Saturday morning phone talk she replied, “I. Do. Not. Eat. In. The. Car. I just drink water. I will have coffee in the morning, yes.”

Ilse was born in the Black Forest of Germany. She came to the United States in 1962. She met her husband in Germany. He later became an orthopedic surgeon in Urbana, Ill. Ilse was jet lagged on her first night in America when they were eating at a diner in Bloomington, not far off of Route 66. “I was proud to see my first cowboy,” Ilse said. “My husband said, ‘No, that is not a cowboy. That was just a tired state trooper’.”

She insisted she is not a professional photographer but she takes pictures as a hobby. “Im using a shoot and point for my Route 66 trip,” she explained. “Before I did slides. (I shot more than 200 Kodak slides of my 1991 Route 66 trip.) But I have nowhere to put them. I live in an apartment and I have about 40 apple boxes of slides. Each box has about 12 (slide) Kodak carousels in them. That’s a lot. I stopped with the slides when digital came. At first I fought it. I tried to transfer them to CDs but I don’t trust the CDs. One scratch and everything is done.”

Pre-social media advertising, 1991, Santa Rosa, N.M.  The Club Cafe closed in 1992.

Ilse told me she was going to throw out most of her slides, which numbers into the thousands.

Here comes the obligatory Vivian Maier alert.

Ilse has two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren but she assumes they won’t be interested in the slides.

“I’ve been to all the continents,” she said. “I went to Chile and Easter Island on a (four-month Aegean cruise) Millennium trip. I’ve been to the Amazon. I went to Cuba with (National Geographic photographer) Bob Krist.  We flew out of Cancun. Africa was my favorite place. I went to Zimbabwe.” She went on her African trip in October, 2001, a month after 9/11 when Americans were warned not to travel.  Her husband died in 1988 after 36 years of marriage. “He left too early,” she said.

I fact checked some numbers with Ilse’s daughter Christine who added that her mother also has attended two National Hobo Conventions in Britt, Ia. The fellow hobos gave her the handle “The Great Northern Gypsy.”

What are her rewards of travel?

“First, I learn something about myself,” she answered during our phone conversation. “How thankful I am that I can travel. Otherwise, I like to see if the things I read are true. This is history for me.”

Selfies and multi-posts a day will not be part of Ilse’s road trip agenda. She does have a traveling e-mail account which is how she will keep in touch with her daughter. I asked her to send us a couple of notes from the road. I hope she does. In one e-mail I asked Ilse what she did for a living. She replied, “I was lucky enough to be a mother and a housewife.”

And now this wonderful mother is on a trip of a lifetime on America’s “Mother Road.”